Microsoft has stopped manufacturing Xbox One consoles and Sony is no longer reporting PlayStation 4 shipments. The final official total for PS4 is 117.2 million units.
You can still buy new games online and on disc so your PS4 or Xbox One consoles will continue to chug along. However, in terms of hardware sales the eight generation of video game consoles has come to an end, replaced by the ninth generation consoles PS5 and Xbox Series.
The final official total for PS4 shipments is 117.2 million, according to Sony's financial reports as highlighted by Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at Niko Partners. Microsoft stopped reporting Xbox One shipments after it fell behind PS4 but it is estimated to have sold around 50 million.
Source: Niko Partners
155 million PS2 consoles
The only consoles that have sold better than PlayStation 4 are the PlayStation 2 (over 155m), Nintendo DS (154m) and Game Boy / Game Boy Color (118.7m). As for PlayStation 3, "only" 87.4 million units were sold.
The Nintendo Switch is currently at 111 million units and Daniel Ahmad expects it to surpass PS4 sales by the end of the year.
As for ninth generation consoles, Sony has reported 21.7 million PS5 sales. Microsoft is by various sources estimated to have sold 12-16 million Xbox Series X/S consoles.
Subscription gaming
Meanwhile, the market for video games is changing. Google has launched its Stadia game streaming on Smart TVs – no console required – while Microsoft is rolling out an Xbox game streaming app on Smart TVs, starting with Samsung.
Netflix has also started including games in its subscription package (only mobile games for now) while Apple TV 4K offers mobile-based games and a handful of console-quality games through the app store and Apple Arcade.
Sony recently merged PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now into the new PS Plus subscription service that includes a game library if you are willing to pay extra. However, at this time you still need a PlayStation console to play the games or use a PC for game streaming.
- Source: Daniel Ahmad, Sony
