Sony has announced today that after a strong holiday season the PS4 has now sold 35.9 million units as the install base for the powerful current generation console continues to grow at an impressive rate.
Playstation Plus subscriptions have also increased by 60% compared to last year which means that the PS4 online ecosystem is more popular than ever, when it’s up and running of course (Sony has offered extended subscriptions to compensate for yesterday’s outage). The games themselves are similarly performing well, with 35 million copies moving through stores and the Playstation Store through the holiday season which is even more impressive considering the year was rather mediocre for volume of releases. Bigger names likeFallout 4,The Witcher 3andBloodbornealong with Battlefront undoubtedly helped to contribute to the sales.
Looking ahead to 2016, Sony was quick to point out the slew of exclusive and first party content on deck for the 36 million PS4 owners in the following video:
Here’s a breakdown of the games featured:
This is not including cross platform mega releases likeDark Souls 3,The Divisionand Mass Effect: Andromeda among others.
The PS4’s predecessor, the PS2 has sold over 150 million worldwide units to date so the PS4 still has a long way to go to overtake what was the most successful console in gaming history. It took the PS2 just short of 6 years to reach 100 million units, so at the PS4’s current rate it’s only slightly off the pace. If it maintains momentum and longevity it’s within the realm of possibility. A lot will obviously depend on the games that release as well as the time commitment Sony gives before moving on to another gen. The PS2 was singularly unique in its long-term viability (it still continues to occupy a space in many gaming rigs) and the PS3 did stumble out of the gate. With Xbox also reporting a good holiday season as well as PC platforms like Steam reporting record users online, it continues to be a golden age for gaming. We’ll continue to be there to report on all the golden goodness as it happens!
