At 70M sold, the PlayStation 3 is neck-and-neck with the Xbox 360

When the dust settles at the end of this current console generation, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 might end up neck-and-neck in total worldwide sales.

Sony said on Friday that as of November 4, 70 million PS3s have been sold worldwide since its launch in 2006. To put that into perspective, Microsoft claimed that same number for its Xbox 360 when it filed its financial reports for the quarter ending September 30, just over a month prior.

The news might come as a surprise for those following the U.S. market closely, where the Xbox 360 had a year's head start and has been outpacing the PS3 fairly consistently (and has, in fact, been the top-selling home console for 22 months running).

The situation's a bit different in the rest of the world, however. Europe has always shown a slight preference for the PS3, and in Japan, the Xbox 360 is almost a non-factor: the 1.6 million that tracking firm Media Create estimates it's sold as of last week is well behind the 8.6 million PlayStation 3s it has tracked.

Microsoft does however command the lead for motion-sensing peripherals. Sony says that its Wii-like Move controller has sold 15 million units to date as of November 11. By comparison, Microsoft revealed in an interview earlier that month that it had sold 20 million Kinects.