Sony's home console continues to show a healthy momentum

Oct 31, 2014 10:41 GMT  ·  By

Sony has managed to sell 13.5 million PlayStation 4 consoles so far, according to the company's latest internal data, maintaining its strong momentum.

The information comes from the company's latest financial report, covering Q2 of fiscal year 2014, more precisely, the three-month period that ended on September 30, 2014.

The figures reveal that Sony sold 3.3 million PlayStation 4 units during the three-month interval, bringing the worldwide total to 13.5 million, sold in just nine months since the device's release in November last year, a stellar performance for the Japanese corporation.

Sony's PlayStation 4 is by far the fastest selling of its consoles so far, in no small part due to the appealing lineup of games available on the device, and the announced upcoming exclusives, such as From Software's Bloodborne and Ready at Dawn's The Order: 1886.

Other numbers

The report shows that Sony's other gaming-related hardware is also doing pretty well, but not as well as its latest computer entertainment system does, of course. The figures show that a number of 800k PlayStation 3 home consoles, 700k PlayStation Vita handhelds, PSPs and PlayStation TVs were sold during the same three-month period ending on September 30.

In addition to this, the hardware and software giant notes that is has seen a significant increase in network services revenue that it attributes to the presence of the PS4 on the market, hinting at a surge in PlayStation Plus subscribers and digital content downloads from its webstore.

The company mentioned a few months ago that more than half of all PlayStation 4 buyers also maintained an active PlayStation Plus account, and the latest data suggests that the trend has solidified in the interim.

The competition

For the time being, we are waiting for the latest figures from Microsoft, Sony's main rival in the new-age console war. The company has not updated its sales figures for the Xbox One home entertainment system since April this year, when 5 million units had been shipped all around the world.

In the meantime, the Xbox One has been launched in a number of secondary markets, its firmware updates have continued to deliver new features every month, and the console's list of exclusives has been expanded with more appealing titles.

Starting this generation's race on the back foot, Microsoft is most likely trying to make an impact this holiday season, attempting to catch up to Sony's head start. The latest in the strategies employed by the corporation is a significant discount in the console's price, bringing it at a lower price point than the PlayStation 4 for the first time since the two devices were released.