PS4 Lifetime Sales Are About to Pass PS3

Sony has released its financial results for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017, which ended on March 31st.

According to the earnings call, the PS4 sold another 2.5 million units during the quarter, which brings lifetime sales of the console to approximately 79 million units. This means the eighth-generational console is about to top the lifetime sales of PS3, which was at 80 million as of 2013.

Year-on-year, the console's sales declined by one million units, which is very slight fall when you consider its age at this point and the number of units already in the wild.

Meanwhile, Sony's Game and Network Services division saw a healthy increase year-on-year of 18 percent. Sony attributed this growth predominately as a result in an increase in PS4 software sales, which rose from 50.6 million units to 52 million units. Within this surge was an increase in digital sales, which rose 6 percent. As of the previous quarter, digital sales accounted for 43 percent of all sales, while during the same period last year they only accounted for 35 percent. As for the the full fiscal year, they accounted for 32 percent of game sales. As you can see, the digital marketplace is rapidly growing.

The other figure Sony touted was its increase of PlayStation Plus subscribers, which rose from 26.4 million to 34.2 million in a year. Presumably this means that roughly half of PS4 owners are also PlayStation Plus subscribers.

For the full fiscal year, Sony saw sales and operation revenue increase by 12 percent, while Game and Network Services increased from 1,649.8 billion yen to 1,943.8 billion yen.

Looking ahead, for fiscal year 2018 (which runs until the end of March 31, 2019), Sony expects to ship another 16 million units, which is a decline of three million units compared to their estimates this time last year. If the forecast is correct, the PS4 will have sold 95 million units by March 2019, an impressive number well pass the PS3, but well off the PS2's 158 million lifetime sales.

"Sales are expected to be essentially flat year-on-year mainly due to an expected decrease in PS4 hardware sales and the impact of foreign exchange rates, substantially offset by an expected increase in PS4 software sales, including sales through the network," said Sony. "Operating income is expected to increase primarily due to the impact of the above-mentioned increase in PS4 software sales, partially offset by the impact of the above-mentioned decrease in PS4 hardware sales."