Sony reaches 500M PlayStations sold milestone

MANILA, Philippines – Sony announced on Thursday, August 9, that it has sold over 525 million Playstation consoles since the brand’s introduction in 1994. To commemorate this milestone, the company unveiled a limited edition PS4 Pro with a dark translucent design which is releasing on August 24.

“I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the continued support from our fans and business partners, who have all contributed to PlayStation’s rich history. Without our passionate community, we would not have been able to surpass this remarkable milestone of 500 million units.” said John Kodera, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO.

The half-a-billion units sold includes every PlayStation-branded device ever to hit stores namely the original PlayStation, PSOne, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable (PSP), PSP GO, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Vita TV, PlayStation 4, and the PlayStation 4 Pro.

Sony did not provide a breakdown on how many units each system sold.

VGChartz, a third-party research firm, however, has a rough estimate of the sales. According to them, the PlayStation 2 remains as the company and history’s most successful console having sold 157 million units in its 13-year run.

The original PlayStation comes in second in Sony’s family of systems having sold over 104 million units while the PlayStation 3 is in third with nearly 87 million.

Meanwhile, the PlayStation 4 is still performing well having recently surpassed 81.2 million units sold as of July 22, 2018, inching closer to topping its predecessor in the charts.

In comparison, Microsoft’s current generation console, the Xbox One has only sold 38.15 million units so far. Adding the original Xbox and the Xbox 360 in the mix, Microsoft’s total reaches around 148.6 million units sold.

Nintendo, on the other hand, has dominated the handheld market with the DS and Gameboy selling 154.9 million and 118.69 million units respectively. Factoring in all the company’s releases over the years such as the NES, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Gameboy Advance, Wii, 3DS, and the Switch, Nintendo handily beats out Sony’s overall game system sales at around 700 million sold.

Part of the reason Nintendo is ahead is that it started more than a decade earlier than Sony in the videogame business. Nintendo released its first home console, the Family Computer, in 1983 while the first PlayStation was released in 1994. Nintendo dominates the handheld market but Sony is ahead in the home console department. – Rappler.com