Sony has announced during its Q3 2016 results that PlayStation 4 has shipped 57.1 million units to retailers globally.
The format holder recorded a large drop in overall profits for the period ended December 31, 2016, which were down from 202.1 billion yen the previous year to 92.4 billion yen. Sony attributed the dip to “impairment charge of goodwill recorded in the Pictures segment.” Despite this, sales and revenue dropped only 7.1 percent year-on-year, largely due to the strong performance of the company’s Game & Network Services division, which houses PlayStation hardware and PlayStation Network.
Specifically, sales in this division were up 5.2 percent year-on-year, boosted by subscriptions to PSN as well as sales of PlayStation VR hardware. Furthermore, the reduction in PS4 manufacturing costs and increased software sales for the console contributed highly to the division’s profits for the quarter, which hit 50 billion yen. Sony shipped 9.7 PS4s during the three-month period, up on last year’s 8.4 million units. As a result, the console maker has not adjusted its forecast of shipping 20 million PS4s by the end of the fiscal year.
If that wasn’t impressive enough, it has been reported that the PS4 is still outpacing the PS2 in terms of uptake during the same point in its lifecycle, and that PSN revenue alone topped all of Nintendo’s revenue during the quarter.
As mentioned, PS4 has now shipped over 57 million units worldwide, with the number including PlayStation 4 Pro hardware. Despite this, Sony is still keeping mum on the number of PSVR units it has shipped/sold worldwide.
PS4 sales continue to rise ahead of the competition
Sony announced earlier this year that it has sold 53.4 million PS4s worldwide since the console’s launch in November 2013. This came on the back of a hugely successful Black Friday shopping period, which gave Sony its biggest hardware sales for the PlayStation brand to date.
Source: VG247