PlayStation 4 Has Sold Nearly 100 Million Units

Sony revealed this week that it has sold 96.8 million PlayStation 4 consoles and that its successor will not arrive until late 2020 at the earliest.

You may recall that Sony revealed one year ago that PS4 sales had fallen, year-over-year, for the first time. That just happened again, but the shortfall isn’t all that bad: Sony sold 17.8 million PS4s in the fiscal year ending March 31, down from the 19 million it sold the previous fiscal year.

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But with 96.8 million PS4s sold overall, Sony will hit the 100 million unit milestone faster than the Nintendo Wii did—that console sold 101.63 million units overall—and in line with the PS2, which sold 155 million units overall. Sony’s previous console, the PS3, sold just 87.4 million units.

Sony says it expects to sell 16 million PS4s in the current fiscal year and that its successor, the PlayStation 5 will not ship until the next fiscal year, which begins in April 2020. My guess is that it will launch by the holiday 2020 selling season.

Sony also provided some other hard numbers. Its PlayStation Plus service has 36.4 million paying subscribers. The PlayStation Network generated $12.8 billion in revenues during the last fiscal year, a new record. Sony’s gaming division generated $20.9 billion in total revenues in that fiscal year. And PlayStation Now, Sony’s game streaming service, now has over 700,000 subscribers.

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  • Andy Babiec

    28 April, 2019 - 3:18 am

    <p>Paul, how do you square the fact that Sony's PS Plus service has ~36 million paying subscribers when, according to your latest Short Takes (Microsoft Earnings Special Edition), <span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">there are 63 million paying Xbox Live Gold customers?&nbsp;Is it possible the Microsoft 63 million number refers to total Xbox Live members (gold AND free silver)? I can't imagine that Sony with a lead around 3X units in the current generation would have HALF the # of paying members. Even if we factor in users still using 360, I can't imagine it would account for the difference (never mind that PS3 also had PS+.) In addition, nothing in the MS Slides indicates that the xbox live number refers to gold or paying members. </span></p>

  • Tony Barrett

    29 April, 2019 - 2:44 am

    <p>Despite this being a pro MS site that has a lot more Xbox coverage, you have to give Sony some credit here – they've absolutely destroyed the competition this generation – the PS4 could be on for 120m+ units, and MS never had a response that made any difference whatsoever…</p>

    • Slvrgun

      29 April, 2019 - 6:28 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#423917">In reply to ghostrider:</a></em></blockquote><p>They focused on delivering high quality gaming experiences from day one, exclusives are top tier, online community is getting better, they gave us a upgraded Pro console, they advertise the hell outof it, it has product placement in major movies, and it gets exclusive 3rd party content. But all in all, PS4 represents what Sony does best: gaming and media. And on top of that Gamers trust Sony, and are suspicious of Microsoft.</p>

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