Sony has passed another sales milestone, today announcing 30 million PlayStation 4 sales worldwide since launch. That brings sales this year up to 9.5 million, meaning Sony will most likely surpass its 12-month sales average by the end of the year.
The PS4 has been the leader in the console war since the start, and has double the amount of sales compared to Microsoft’s Xbox One. The software giant confirmed it would stop revealing sales numbers for the Xbox One earlier this year, but according to VGChartz, Microsoft has sold 15.6 million units since launch.
Total sales this year are less than half of Sony’s 9.5 million for Microsoft, currently at 4.6 million. Both are doing better than Nintendo’s Wii U, which has sold 10.6 million since launch and a dismal 1.9 million units this year. Globally, Sony is seeing much more success in Japan and Europe than Microsoft. Even in North America, Sony surpasses Microsoft in console sales, leading to a resounding lead of 2:1 sales.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is the hot new game for console, and VGChartz claims over 3.7 million PS4 copies have been sold on the opening week, compared to 2.2 million on Xbox One. Need for Speed (2015) is another better seller on the PS4, with 470,000 copies sold compared to 135,000 on Xbox One.
Sony still has an issue launching interesting exclusives, with no exclusive games reaching the top 10 in November. Microsoft on the other hand sold 1.7 million copies of Halo 5: Guardians in two weeks — reaching sixth in the charts on the second week. That is at least some comfort for Microsoft.
The next month and a half should be huge for Sony and Microsoft, as the holiday season starts to kick into gear. The two console manufacturers are launching Black Friday deals for video games, and we expect both will offer cheap bundles that include the console to beef sales figures before the end of year.
