Will Sony shift 16 million PS4 consoles this year?

We may not know what it looks like or the exact PS4 release date yet but some supply chain bods say that Sony is looking to shift 16 million of the things this year.

Now, we'll preface this by saying that the news comes from Digitimes, a traditionally more miss than hit source of supply chain chatter.

The latest from round the component suppliers' water-cooler though is that Sony aims to start shipping the console to retailers in August so it will hit stores by the projected release date of the end of the year.

The goal, apparently, is to shift an annual shipment of 16 million consoles by the end of 2013. 16 million PS4s. We know people have been waiting a long time for this but… 16 million?

Stat attack

That's the entire population of Khazakhstan. That's more people than live in New Zealand. That's… well, it's a lot of consoles to sell during the holiday season that Sony says the console will launch into, especially when it doesn't even seem to know exactly what countries will get it yet.

Kotaku raises the point that Digitimes' sources could mean the end of the financial year - that falls in spring - but even so, it seems like a tall order to us, particularly with analysts predicting tough times for the console and stiff competition from the soon-to-be-revealed Xbox 720.

That said, if talk of Sony's PS4 pricing strategy being 'aggressive' are true, it could grab a headstart.

Sony's not commenting on the stats and Digitimes still remains a generally questionable source of tech news - so we'd be liberal with the sodium chloride on this for now.

But if it is an accurate representation of Sony's plans, it may mean that we'll see a good few countries getting their mitts on the PS4 before the year is out - and that's only a good thing, in our eyes.