Sony Sold Its Most PS4 Consoles Ever Last Quarter
By Boston Blake 02 February 2017
Sony reveals sales of more PlayStation 4 consoles last quarter than any quarter in history, with each holiday quarter seeing an increase in shipments the last few years.
When Microsoft beat out Sony in console sales for four months in a row last year, many in the industry saw it as a shift in the console war. After dominating for three years, it seemed PlayStation 4 was faltering, just in time for Xbox to rise up and bridge the wide gap in sales between the two console families.
However, PS4 came back in a big way, outselling Xbox One during the busy holiday season of November and December. Now it’s been revealed that not only did Sony’s console sell well during the end of 2016, it had the best fiscal quarter in PlayStation history, selling more consoles during the three-month span than any other time ever. Additionally, PS4 sales during the holiday quarter have improved steadily over the last four years.
During the third fiscal quarter of 2016, which ran from October to December, Sony shipped a whopping 9.7 million PS4 consoles globally. That’s 15.5 percent better than Sony did during the same quarter the year before. In fact, it’s the best console-selling quarter Sony has experienced since it launched the original PlayStation way back in 1994.
Here is a look at PlayStation 4 unit sell in by quarter.
Each holiday quarter (Q3) has seen an increase in shipments. pic.twitter.com/5Ao13yUiXl
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) February 2, 2017
With that level of success, it will be difficult for Xbox One to recapture its dominance, though Project Scorpio may still give Microsoft an opportunity to challenge Sony for the top spot next holiday season. That said, it’s nearly impossible now for Microsoft to completely close the gab between Xbox One and PlayStation 4 sales. It was recently revealed that PlayStation 4 is on the cusp of 60 million units sold worldwide, while Xbox One has reportedly moved only 26 million consoles.
This is interesting, for considering almost a year ago, analysts predicted PlayStation 4 would sell double the units of Xbox One by 2019. If the current sales numbers are to be believed, it seems Sony beat that prediction by two years.
Many gamers and analysts were worried about how well the PlayStation 4 would do considering the lukewarm reception for the PS4 Pro. The new flagship Sony console brought significant hardware upgrades to the PlayStation 4 family, but failed to offer a 4K Blu-Ray player to the disappointment of many. Additionally, Project Scorpio is said to have significantly more power than PS4 Pro, which could give Xbox an edge come the end of 2017.
That said, PlayStation 4 is obviously doing well and Sony may not need to worry too much about the future of the console. Demand is still high for PlayStation 4, Sony has a solid lineup of exclusives set for 2017, and PSVR continues to perform well.
It will be interesting to see how the console war shapes up in 2017, especially with Nintendo introducing the Nintendo Switch, and Microsoft finally launching Project Scorpio. Will PlayStation 4 be able to maintain its position? Time will tell.
What do you think about PS4’s success during the last quarter of 2016?
