PS4 has now outsold Wii and the original PlayStation
System reportedly the second best-selling console of all time with 102.8 million sales
PlayStation 4 lifetime shipments have now surpassed those of the Wii and the original PlayStation, making it the second best-selling console of all time.
PS4 hardware shipments (consoles sold to retailers) totalled 2.8 million during Sony’s second fiscal quarter ended September 30, taking its lifetime total to 102.8 million.
That’s more than Wii’s lifetime total of 101.63 million units and the original PlayStation’s lifetime total of 102.49 million, according to Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at Niko Partners.
As previously reported, PS4 shipped 100 million units faster than any previous home console. It now trails only PS2, which sold over 155 million units.
Sony said on Wednesday it has downwardly revised its annual PS4 hardware shipment forecast. It now expects to ship 13.5 million PS4 units in the current fiscal year ending March 2020, down from 15 million forecast in July and 16 million forecast in April.
Second quarter PS4 software shipments were 61.3 million units, down from 75.1 million a year earlier. Digital game sales accounted for 37% of the quarterly total, up from 28% a year earlier but down from 53% in the first quarter.
PlayStation Plus subscribers stood at 36.9 million as of September 30, up from 34.3 million a year earlier, and up from 36.2 million at the end of Sony’s first quarter.
Second quarter sales for Sony’s Game and Network Services segment, which house the PlayStation division, declined 17% year-over-year to ¥454.4 billion ($4.18 billion), while operating income fell 28% to ¥65 billion ($597 million).
For the current fiscal year, Sony downwardly revised its PlayStation division sales forecast by 9% to ¥2 trillion ($18.38 billion), due to lower than expected PS4 hardware and software sales. It also lowered its full-year operating income outlook by 14% to ¥240 billion ($2.2 billion)
While PlayStation 5 will launch in 2020, Sony expects the PS4 to play a critical role in the years to come.
It said in May that PS4 will continue to be PlayStation’s “engine of engagement and profitability for the next three years” and “provide the fertile early adopter gamer base critical for next gen success”.
Major upcoming PS4 games include Death Stranding, The Last of Us Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima.
