During the announcement of their first quarterly results for the financial year 2019/20, Sony revealed that PS4 global sales have now topped 100 million units shipped worldwide. Thanks to sales in the three months ending on June 30 2019, the PlayStation 4 is now the fastest console to reach the 100 million units shipped milestone.
As of April 2019, 96.8 million PS4 units had been shipped worldwide. Between then and June 30 2019 Sony has revealed that a further 3.2 million units have been shipped, bringing the total to 100 million. This is the exact same number of units shipped for the same quarter last year, but it’s up compared to Q4 2018/19 which saw 2.6 million units shipped. The PlayStation 4 has hit 100 million units shipped worldwide in five years and seven months, making it the fastest console to reach the milestone. The previous fastest was the PlayStation 2, which took five years and nine months to reach the same point.
Despite hitting a huge milestone, Sony has adjusted their expectations for the total number of PlayStation 4 consoles they expect to sell for the current fiscal year. They’ve brought their initial estimation of 16 million units shipped down to 15 million due to a combination of poor non-first-party software sales, and lower than expected hardware sales. It’s also suspected that the upcoming launch of the PlayStation 5 in Christmas 2020 has some consumers holding off from investing in the console, eagerly awaiting the next console generation.
In addition to hardware sales, Sony also discussed PlayStation 4 software sales. 42.9 million software units were sold for the quarter, which is up from 40.6 million units for the same time last year. However, compared to the previous quarter, which saw 54.7 million software units shipped, the numbers were down. The ratio of digital sales compared to physical sales of these software units was slightly weighted towards digital. Sony reported that 53 percent of software sales for the quarter were for digital copies, showing preference for digital purchases among consumers.
Sony added that PlayStation Plus subscribers were down for the quarter at 36.2 million compared to 36.4 million for the previous quarter. Overall however, subscriber numbers are up compared to the same period last year, when total PlayStation Plus subscribers was at 33.9 million.
Source: Resetera