Greatness did await PS4, with second-highest sales for any home game console

By Gabe Gurwin October 30, 2019

Best PS4 Games — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The PlayStation 4 has been a wildly popular game console this generation, not only being home to great first-party Sony games but also a ton of titles from third-party publishers. We knew no other console stood a chance of catching up to the PS4, but Sony’s most recent financial report shows that it is now the second-best-selling home game console of all time.

During the previous quarter, Sony managed to sell approximately 2.8 million PS4 systems, after passing the 100 million mark in the three months before that. This places it just a hair above the lifetime sales for Sony’s original PlayStation, as well as the Nintendo Wii. The numbers are still dwarfed by the PlayStation 2, released in 2000, which has sold more than 155 million units to date. However, the PS4 managed to do it when free-to-play phone games were at the height of their popularity.

Sony also shared information on sales data for some of the PS4’s most popular first-party games. Marvel’s Spider-Man had sold more than 13 million copies by July, and with Insomniac Games now a Sony subsidiary, we’re sure to be seeing a sequel on PS5.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Though the PS4 is the second-best-selling home console of all time, it is not the second-best-selling game system of all time. The Nintendo DS and Game Boy Color still have the edge, but it’s very unlikely that another dedicated handheld will ever put up such impressive numbers again. Despite the 3DS being a success for Nintendo, it has only sold about half what the Nintendo DS did.

Sony will aim for a strong start to the next console generation when the PlayStation 5 releases in holiday 2020. The console will be capable of 8K resolution with ray tracing support and a controller equipped with haptic feedback, but it will be facing stiff competition. Not only will Sony have to compete with Microsoft’s Project Scorpio and the Nintendo Switch, but also game-streaming services like Google Stadia and Project xCloud. It remains to be seen if video game fans will still support a traditional game console to the same extent it did the PS4, but Sony is certainly packing in enough power to make it enticing.

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Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

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