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Finding one of Sony's wildly popular PlayStation 4 in stock at stores, both online and offline, will be difficult until at least April, PlayStation UK's managing director has warned.

With the PS4 recently having a successful launch in Japan, where its launch resulted in four time as many consoles being sold compared to the PS3's launch, worldwide stocks of the PS4 is set to remain limited until Sony can ramp up production.

The unexpected huge demand has surprised Sony. PlayStation UK managing director Fergal Gara explaining that the company could not believe the pre-order numbers at first.

"PS4 pre-orders ... were so big that we were pinching ourselves and wondering if people were pre-ordering in more than one place, and if some of these pre-orders were real.

"We were getting numbers we never imagined, let alone seen before. But it proved to be real. How do I reconcile that? I think the world has changed since we launched PS3," Gara told MCV. 

"We should be back to free supply by about April," answered Gara, when asked when the PS4 will be more widely available.

While Sony celebrates the success of the PS4, Microsoft may be ruing their decision to release their flagship console, the Xbox One, at $100 more. Sony recently revealed that the PS4 was outselling the Xbox One in the UK by a ratio of more than 1.5-to-1.

To reduce this sales gap, Microsoft has decided to officially discount the Xbox One by £30, from £429.99 ($USD 716)to £399.99 ($USD 665), in the UK. The cheaper price also comes with the eagerly anticipated Xbox One exclusive Titanfall. But even with the price cut, the Xbox One is still £50 more expensive than the PS4.

While Microsoft has not officially announced a price cut for other markets, the Titanfall bundle will be available in the U.S., albeit at the regular price of $599.