Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive
"Grand Theft Auto 5."
- Sony's PlayStation 4 is one of the most popular video game consoles ever made.
- The console has now sold over 100 million units, and it reached that number faster than wildly popular consoles like Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation 2.
- With a PlayStation 5 on the horizon in 2020, it's especially impressive that PlayStation 4 consoles are still selling as well as they are.
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Sony's PlayStation 4 continues to dominate as the most popular game console in the world, topping both Microsoft's Xbox One and Nintendo's Switch.
As of June 30, the PlayStation 4 surpassed 100 million consoles sold. Perhaps more impressive: The PlayStation 4 reached that lofty sales number faster than other red-hot game consoles of the past, like the Nintendo Wii and Sony's own PlayStation 2.
100 million PlayStation 4 consoles sold puts Sony in the console sales lead by a mile.
More specifically, Sony's PlayStation 4 sales are more than double that of the closest competition - Microsoft's Xbox One. Though Microsoft no longer reports sales numbers for its Xbox One console, estimates put the Xbox One somewhere in the realm of 30 - 70 million units sold.
Nintendo's Switch has experienced incredible success since it arrived in March 2017, but it trails behind Sony's PlayStation 4 by a mile - Nintendo says about 36 million Switch consoles have been sold since launch.
Nintendo
Nintendo Switch consoles have sold remarkably well since launch, but it's unlikely the Switch will catch up with Sony's four year lead.
The continued success of the PlayStation 4 is due to several different factors:
- The PlayStation 4 was the less expensive console when it launched in 2013, coming in at $100 less than Microsoft's Xbox One.
- A lineup of killer blockbuster games, from "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" to "Horizon Zero Dawn" to "Bloodborne," made the PlayStation 4 a must-have console. All three of those games are only playable on PS4.
- The exclusives have gotten even better over time: Both "Spider-Man" and "God of War" arrived in 2018, and they were both excellent.
- Success begets success - the PlayStation 4 has overtaken the zeitgeist as "the" game console to own if you're going to buy a game console.
- There were incredible sales on the PlayStation 4 during the last few holiday seasons, with some retailers offering the console and a game for as low as $200 in holiday 2018.
Though Sony's exclusive game lineup is drying up as the PlayStation 4 transitions into the PlayStation 5 - Sony's next-gen console is expected to arrive in 2020 - an impressive array of major exclusives are currently in the works: "Ghost of Tsushima," "Death Stranding," and "The Last of Us: Part II" are all standouts coming exclusively to the PlayStation 4.
The first of those three, "Death Stranding," is scheduled to arrive on November 8.
This makes PlayStation 4 the fastest home console to reach 100 million unit sell in.
Faster than both the PS2 and Wii which were just behind.
It took PS2 a total of five years and 9 months. PS4 was just 5 years and 7 months. pic.twitter.com/g4Bk8sckYf
- Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) July 30, 2019