Sony announced the company’s financial results for the period ending December 31st 2017 today showing that the PS4 has reached 76.5 million worldwide units shipped. This is getting very close to the PS3’s lifetime total of just under 84 million units. Considering that the PS3’s generation lasted 7 years and the current generation has only lasted 4 so far these sales numbers are incredibly impressive. The PS4 continues to grow stronger year on year, seeing a 15% increase in consoles sold in 2017 compared to 2016. 2017 saw an incredible 20.2 million units sold.
Despite this year on year sales for the period in question are actually down. 9 million units were sold in this period, 9.7 million units were sold in the same period last year. This could be due to the introduction of new hardware over the Christmas period, the Xbox One X and the Nintendo Switch were not available in the previous year. Currently its inevitable that the console will break the 100 million console barrier, which would make it the 6th best selling console of all time and very close to the Wii’s 101 million lifetime. For trivia’s sake, the best selling console of all time is Sony’s Playstation 2 with over 155 million units sold. The PS4 will likely never reach these lofty heights, but huge tentpole releases like Spiderman, God of War and the recently dated Red Dead Redemption 2 will likely have huge marketing campaigns and will give the PS4 excellent momentum throughout 2018 and beyond as it seeks the triple figures milestone.
