Sony aims to sell five million of its new PlayStation 4 game consoles worldwide in the financial year to March 31st, 2014, Sony's game unit chief, Andrew House, said during a presentation at the Tokyo Game Show today.

Sony will launch the PS4, which is key to its struggle to restore profitability in its hardware operations, on November 15th in the United States, a week later in Europe and February 22nd in Japan.

Sony said it expects its new game console to become profitable in much less time than the four years it took the PS3. Mr House told Reuters in an interview that the price of the PS4 is attractive and that he expects this to drive sales. Sony has positioned its games unit among operations including image sensors and mobile communications that it hopes will return its mainstay electronics hardware operations to profitability. (Reuters)