PlayStation 4 Has Sold 96.8 Million Units Worldwide
Will Sony hit 100m sales before the end of Q1?
By Matt Purslow
Posted: Apr 26, 2019 4:50 pm
Sony has announced that 96.8 million PlayStation 4 consoles have been sold worldwide.
The figure comes part of a lengthy end of financial year report that offers a variety of insights into the company's successes over the past 12 months.
In the 2018 financial year, Sony sold 17.8 million PS4 consoles, with 2.6 million of those sales occurring in the fourth quarter of the year, between January and March 2019. Overall, this figure is down 1.2 million on the previous year, but comes in .03 million higher than Sony's original projections.
Sony expects that this decline will continue into the new financial year, with a forecast of 16 million expected sales, although the company expects that there will be an increase in game sales.
There is also an expectation that the operating income of Sony's games division will see a decrease this year, as development expenses for the next-generation console will increase. There's also a note that Sony are expecting a decrease in contributions from "highly-profitable first-party software titles", suggesting that 2019/20 won't be big on PS4 exclusives.
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In terms of games, software sales pulled in $20.7 billion, which is an increase of 19% on the previous year. 45% of 2018's final quarter full game sales were digital, up from the prior year's 43%.
The PlayStation Plus subscription service also saw a notable increase, with an extra 2.2 million subscribers added. This brings the total subscriber count for PS Plus up to 36.4 million.
Overall, it looks like a strong year for Sony's gaming division, but it does appear that we should expect a quieter 12 months ahead as the company puts its next-generation PS5 plans into motion.
Matt Purslow is IGN UK's News and Entertainment Writer, and has never sold 96.8 million of anything. You can follow him on Twitter.