30 million sales of its game

Sony's PlayStation 4, 30 million sales of its game consoles

TOKYO — The Sony Corp. said Wednesday that it has sold more than 30.2 million PlayStation 4 video game consoles, two years after the launch of a system that the company claims has sold faster than any of its predecessors.

The latest total, as of Nov. 22, is up from more than 20 million in March, when Sony provided its most recent update on PlayStation 4 sales. Sony has said it aims to ship more than 17.5 million units during the current fiscal year, which ends in March.

PlayStation's direct competitors are Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox One and Nintendo Co.'s Wii U.

Microsoft hasn't recently up- dated its consoles' sales figures, but analysts say PlayStation 4 is running far ahead of Xbox One. Nintendo said more than 10.7 million units of Wii U were sold as of September this year, since the product launch in November 2012.

Sony made the PlayStation business a new pillar of the group, and the arm is expanding its services beyond the traditional game business where users would buy a single game title at a retail store or via network download.

While it is getting ready to release a virtual-reality headset dubbed PlayStation VR next year, it now offers a streaming-based video game subscription service as well as a cloud-based live and on-demand TV service.