The PlayStation 4 just keeps on trucking along, passing a major new milestone with 70.6 million consoles sold as of 3rd December. The Black Friday sales at the end of November will surely have helped to push the console over the line, but that’s hugely impressive, doing in four years what the PlayStation 3 to six years to manage. Not only that, but it was back in June that Sony announced the console had passed 60 million consoles, meaning they’ve shifted a staggering 10 million in less than half a year!
There’s also some vaguely good news for PlayStation VR, with Sony finally able to announce a new milestone for the burgeoning virtual reality headset. Having stalled in the no man’s land of 1 million units sold, Black Friday’s price slashing bonanza means there have now been 2 million headset sales, which is great news for the platform to finally be able to show some tangible forward momentum.
Outgoing Chairman of SIE, Andrew House said, “We are delighted that so many people are enjoying the unique entertainment proposition of PlayStation 4 and that an emerging technology like PlayStation VR continues to gain traction. I cannot thank our fans and partners enough. Their support, since the launch of very first PlayStation in 1994, has helped to make PlayStation one of the biggest console gaming networks in the world. We will continue to work closely with partners to maintain this momentum and remain steadfast in making PS4 the best place to play.”
Well, Sony will, but after already stepping down as President and taking on the mantle of Chairman to smooth the transition, Mr House will be enjoying some well earned time off at the end of the year.
Source: press release
camdaz
It will be a very merry Christmas at Sony Towers.
Is there any indication of the number of PS4 Pro’s sold?
Tuffcub
1 in 4 apparently.
camdaz
That’s not bad.
Crazy_Del
Ohhh very nice! Black Friday helped with all consoles and now we wait for something like January Sales!
MrYd
Still not buying this attempt at making the PSVR out to be a failure. 900k in the first 3 months, another 1.1m+ in the next 10 months, including summer.
Looks like it’s doing rather well, really. And with a price drop in the US for a couple of weeks, plus more christmas sales, and some big games just released or releasing soon, it might just keep on doing well.
bunimomike
You’re looking at under 3% of the PlayStation sales (70.6 million). Although, to address your mention of it being a failure, I’m not sure who’s saying that. However, it may well be in the future but not because of Sony. It’ll be because of VR itself.
Sony is making (what appears to be) a damned good go of it. Doesn’t stop it showing how it’s a tricky one to develop for when looking at the money you might make back on it as a developer when you look at the install-base.
Stefan L
After the first three months sales slackened to the point that they couldn’t announce any forward progress for 9 months. You can see that in how they preemptively announced 915,000 sales in February, saying they were ahead of their target of selling 1 million by April.
Additionally, where every other stat Sony release has been to one decimal place, such as 12.2 million PSVR games sold or 70.6 PS4s sold, PSVR is only reported to an integer. If it was at 1.5 million in October, that would have shown the needle moving, but they waited instead for the almost certain shot in the arm that Black Friday and huge price cuts would achieve.
They are at least showing committed development for the platform and a new milestone is good, but it’s not out of the woods yet.
bunimomike
Couldn’t agree more, Tef. It’s slow going but things are still happening. Good for them.
JR.
PSVR has done much better than I ever thought it would. 2 Million sales for what I still consider to be an extremely niche market, is way beyond any expectations I had prior to release. I still don’t think it will ever go mainstream but props to Sony for having a decent crack at it.
ron_mcphatty
Amazing! After 4 years the PS4 ihas a chance of beating the PS2 record then, that sold 150 million over 11 years. Speaking of PS2’s, I might get mine down from the loft for a play.
JR.
Incredible numbers.
I don’t think they get nearly enough credit. Things were pretty dire for them a few years ago but they managed to do a complete turn around.
The PS Plus line-up might be a bit crap these days but if it wasn’t for Sony and their investment in first party games, I wouldn’t give a damn about gaming.
I think Nintendo make a decent contribution too (although not for my taste) but I’m not sure loosing Microsoft/Xbox would leave quite the same hole in the gaming world as loosing Sony or Nintendo would.
TSBonyman
Encouraging for PSVR, hopefully the Rift and Vive got a boost from their respective price drops too.