Sony released its financial results for the first quarter of 2018, revealing that lifetime sales for the PlayStation 4 are now at 82.2 million.
The PlayStation 4 launched in 2013. The console is on its way to becoming one of the best-selling systems ever. It will soon pass its predecessor, the PlayStation 3, which had lifetime sales of about 84 million. The original PlayStation sold 102.5 million. The PlayStation 2, the best-selling console ever, sits at over 155 million.
Microsoft has stopped releasing sales figures for the Xbox One, so we do not know how it is comparing. Nintendo’s Switch, which released in March 2017, has sold about 20 million consoles. Market researcher Newzoo expects the global games market to be worth $137.9 billion in 2018. Consoles make up 25 percent of the market, and many big-budget games go for $60 a pop here, and increasing have microtransactions, season passes for additional content, and other post-sale monetization options.
Sony has sold 3.2 million PlayStation 4 consoles so far this financial year. By the end of it, the company expects to sell a total of 17 million systems (including that 3.2 million from this first quarter).
During the same quarter last year, Sony sold 3.3 million PlayStation 4 consoles. While 3.2 million is a drop, it’s a minuscule one for a machine that is about to be 5 years old.
This year, PlayStation 4 got help from a major first-party release, God of War. The action game sold over 3 million copies in its first three days. Another major exclusive, Spider-Man, comes out for the PlayStation 4 on September 7.
