The company has been able to stay ahead of rivals such as Microsoft's Xbox One and Nintendo's Wii U partly through exclusive content partnerships with leading games makers. These have included a deal with Activision Blizzard, the world's largest games publisher, for last month's launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. Such deals have added to the PS4's popularity with hardcore gamers.

Although the portable PlayStation Vita has not fared so well, Sony's home console performed better than many analysts anticipated, given the huge growth in mobile gaming.

"Rumours of the demise of the console have been greatly exaggerated," Mr House said. His comments suggested a more aggressive target than some analysts had forecast for a business that is becoming ever more central to Sony's wider turnround.

Three years after its March 2000 launch, the PS2 had sold 51 million units, and by the end of 2005 more than 100 million had been sold.

IHS, the market researcher, predicted last month that the PS4 customer base would not exceed 100 million until 2020. But if the PS4 follows the PS2's trajectory over its first five years, that milestone could be reached by the end of 2018.

Mr House was "hesitant to predict" that the PS4 would top the PS2's lifetime sales of 155 million, given "the cadence at which people expect innovation" was speeding up.

He was speaking at the PlayStation Experience event in San Francisco, where Sony showed off its latest releases to 15,000 customers. Many attendees were most keen to try out the PlayStation virtual reality headset, slated for release in the first half of next year.

Mr House said he "started out as somewhat sceptical" of VR but was won over by The London Heist, a gangster game developed by one of Sony's studios. "I had that amazing moment where I tried to put the controller on the table," he said, only to realise the table existed in the virtual world of his headset.


Other early titles for PlayStation VR include: Ubisoft's Eagle Flight, where the player soars above cities and between trees; Modern Zombie Taxi Co, a zany driving game; and 100ft Robot Golf, a ­science fiction sports simulator.

However, some leading publishers such as Electronic Arts and Activision are yet to announce significant commitments to VR gaming.

IHS has predicted just 2.5m VR headsets will be sold next year, with PlayStation leading rivals such as Oculus and HTC's Vive.

"I don't think those kinds of volumes would be either unrealistic or a disappointment," Mr House said.

Financial Times