Just ahead of next week’s Japanese launch, Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) announced on Tuesday that the company had sold 5.3 million of its PlayStation 4 game consoles as of February 8. The company had forecast sales of 5 million by the end of its fiscal year in March.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) said late last month that it had sold more than 3 million of its new Xbox One consoles by the end of December. According to data compiled by VGChartz.com, the Xbox One had sold 3.44 million units through February 1, compared with sales of 5.06 million for the PS4.

Of the so-called eighth generation of gaming consoles, PS4’s market share is 52.3%, Xbox One gets 29.6% and Nintendo’s Wii U gets 18%. Until the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were released in November, Wii U had 100% share, but total sales of the Wii U since its introduction in 2012 are only 5.68 million. Sony is on track to surpass that total before summer.

The success of the PS4 against the Xbox One is primarily down to price. The Xbox One costs $100 more than the PS4, but it includes Microsoft’s Kinect feature. The hotly anticipated introduction of Titanfall, a new game from Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) exclusively for the Xbox 360, Xbox One and the PC, is expected to give Xbox One sales a push.

For Sony, sales of its PS4 are just about the only good news to come out of the company in at least a year. The company plans to sell its PC business and cut 5,000 jobs. The company needed some good news.

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