More various nicely formatted data points
Hardware US LTD's as of July 5, 2014
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PS4 ~ 3573k
XB1 ~ 2916k
WIU ~ 2548k
Vita ~ 1840k
Didn't realize Xbox One had nicely passed Wii U
Wii LTD: 41.8m
360 LTD: 41.5m
Looks like at current rates (only gained ~40k) this month) will still take a while for 360 to crawl past Wii. Definitely will happen no later than the holidays though once sales numbers go up as Wii is no longer even being manufactored.
2014 Jan-Jun only:
PS4: 1.58m
XBO: 1.10m
Difference = ~480k
Interestingly, I was dawdling with the numbers ratios of USA sales to life to date shipments (which is kind of like worldwide sales, maybe a bit inflated). I'm still finding that weird effect where PS4 is becoming more US dependent. Here's what I mean, with rough figures. PS3=~84m shipped, ~26m NPD LTD, ratio=3.23. 3.23 X 3.573m PS4 = 11.5m PS4 expected to be shipped. So in essence PS4 should be at 11.5 million shipped, if the ratios of USA sold vs shipped matched PS3 last gen. But, the numbers dont bear that out it's probably a significant amount lower (by my estimates PS4 is probably at 8.5-9m sold, which equates to maybe 10m shipped). For Xbox One though, the ratios still work absolutely perfectly. 360=~84m shipped, 41.5 NPD LTD, ratio=2.02, 2.02 X 2.916m =5.89m. It works almost perfectly, recall X1 was at 5.1m shipped through March. The estimate through June should be almost exactly 5.9 (we will get that number next week on the 22nd with MS results).
My first instinct was to check if declining Japan Playstation sales are responsible. The answer is yes, at least to some extent. Basically PS4 had sold 635k in Japan vs 3573k in USA, a ~.178 ratio. Last gen PS3 sold 26m USA vs 10m Japan, a ~.385 ratio. Apply last gen's ratio to PS4, it would have sold 1.376 million in Japan now, vs the reality of 635k. So, they are "missing" about 740,000 PS4 sales in Japan versus last gen. That's not the whole discrepancy, but it is a significant chunk, perhaps half if we assume they are currently at 10 million shipped and thus are 1.5 million "short".
I dont know, maybe if there is any other reason for the other missing PS4's, perhaps Europe's economy is still in worse shape coming out of recession than USA? That'd just be my initial possible guess. Whatever the reason, so far it seems PS4 is significantly more USA sales oriented than PS3 was. The ratio has changed so far from about 3.2:1 World:USA last gen to something like 2.8:1 so far this gen. Xbox's ratio has held perfectly at 2:1.
I had previously estimated Xbox needs to outsell PS by 1.6:1 in USA to reach parity worldwide. But that was based on PS3 ratios. If the new PS4 ratios hold up long term, it lowers that bar to 1.4:1. Putting it to real numbers, Xbox One would have needed to have sold 5.7 million so far in the USA (vs the 2.9m of reality) to tie PS4 WW under the 1.6 ratio. The new 1.4 ratio lowers that bar to only 5.0m. Of course Xbox still is not anything close. For June, Xbox would have needed to sell 1.4 X 269k=377k. And the ratio needs to be cumulative, so they have to make up all those 2.1 million consoles they are currently behind where they need to be (2.9 vs 5.0), on top of an ongoing 1.4:1 ratio. Just to give some idea. Looks like they need to close to double current USA sales! And a little more to eventually make up the deficit from the past. I am not sure even a $299 price point could accomplish that.
Another separate thing is we can estimate USA shipments April-June for Xbox One. They should be right at ~800k as applying the simple 2:1 ratio to about 400k USA sales now with June in gets you. (and this gets you to exactly 5.9 as expected by previous math)
If anything the real number may be a little lower due to the "channel drawdown" comment from MS last time implying the channel was a bit heavy. Maybe you might expect 400k-700k. It's expected that the ratio can vary in any given quarter due to various fluctuations. You expect it to hold only for the long term.