Following on from the announcement that Sony had sold 40 million PlayStation 4 consoles back in May 2016. Sony has this week announced that PlayStation 4 sales have now passed 50 million, hitting the huge milestone 17 months quicker than the previous PlayStation 3 console.
The 50 Million PlayStation 4 sales figure includes PS4, PS4 Pro and the new slim version of the console and is units sold to customers rather than units shipped to retailers and suppliers.
In comparison the Sony PlayStation 3 was on sale for 4.5 years before Sony achieved the same sales figures, which the PlayStation 4 has accomplished in just over three years. Sony has also recently launched its new PlayStation VR headset and new PlayStation 4 Pro console both of which are expected to perform well in the run-up to the holiday season. The Engadget website explains a little more about Sony’s announcement and sales figures
Software sales have also been fairly strong. Sony says that, as of December 4th, it’s sold 369.6 million games across retail and digital downloads. That means that roughly seven games have been purchased for every one console. As Sony’s announcement gives only a grouped figure for console sales, it’s impossible to know exactly how many of the 10 million PS4s sold since May were the “Pro” edition.
Similarly, there have been absolutely no firm figures for PlayStation VR sales. The headset came out back in October, and at the time SCEE president Jim Ryan said launch sales were expected to be “many hundreds of thousands.” Analytics firm SuperData projects that total sales of the headset in 2016 will be less than 750,000.
Microsoft stopped reporting figures some time ago. The launch of the smaller Xbox One S has revitalized sales somewhat, with the Xbox One outselling Sony’s console for several months in a row this year. Third-party estimates suggest that Microsoft has sold between 25-30 million Xbox Ones, giving Sony close to a two-to-one sales lead.
Source: Engadget