2019 was a great year for Sony and the PlayStation 4. With big name releases like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and multiple PS4 exclusives, support from fans remains strong after the first month in 2020. Going into February, the PS4 has managed to break another record many years after the console was released.
Since its 2013 launch, the PS4 has consistently performed throughout the years in sales. For its price, players get the performance, quality, and version-exclusive titles that justify picking the PS4 over other competitors. Among other benchmarks, 106 million consoles have been currently sold worldwide. With that in mind, PS4 game sales have finally surpassed 1 billion units as of last week.
Last Friday, Sony announced that the total number of PS4 software titles sold now stands at 1.181 billion after 2019 contributed more than 274 million games sold to the record. Data was taken from Sony research figures in major regions across the world including Japan, North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. All regions' figures ended on December 31st, 2019 but the 2013 start dates were February 22nd, November 15th, November 29th, and December 17th respectively. The statistics considered represent games sold through retail stores as well as online sales on the PlayStation Store. Sony stated, however, that the figures do not include downloadable content or purchasable add-ons to titles. Technically, the record had been broken a few weeks prior, but Sony updated the figures in an effort to maintain accurate numbers.
The reason 2019 managed to contribute over twenty-percent of the PS4's lifetime game sales was due to the consecutive releases of multiple blockbuster titles. In addition to Activision's latest Call of Duty success, other anticipated games such as Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding and Respawn Entertainment's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order greatly exceeded launch sale expectations while providing a positive gaming experience. With word of mouth and news interest going around, the holiday season only further increased 2019 figures around the world.
But the impact of previous years cannot be overlooked despite the PS4's sales performance in 2019. While the PS4 sold 14.6 million units during 2019, 18 million and 23.6 million new consoles were sold in 2018 and 2017 respectively. With PS4s already in those households, it was inevitable that they would continue to buy new titles or releases going into 2020 and beyond. Compared to the PS3 and PS2 records of 999.4 million and 1.53 billion titles respectively, the unannounced PS5 should also manage to hit similar numbers in the future after release.
In the end, PS4 players should be content with the number of titles they can play through, but there may be some waiting for the 2020 release of the PS5. Fear not, because they should receive further announcements from Sony or PS5 leaks in the upcoming months.
Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment