Playstation 4 is now 2nd best selling console of all time, next to PS2

Sony has detailed its financial results for Q2 2019, which is the three months ended September 30 and revealed the PlayStation 4 shipped 2.8 million units worldwide in this timeframe. This figure is slightly down from Q1 2019, when the console shipped 3.2 million units. However, the figure is enough to make the PS4 the second best-selling console of all time.

As confirmed in July 2019, the PS4 reached the 100 million units shipped milestone and, combined with the numbers from Q2 of 2019, that brings it the total up to 102.8 million units, edging the PS4 past the performance of the original PlayStation. However, the PlayStation 2 remains the best-selling console of all time at over 150 million units.

Overall, it's been a strong lifecycle for the PS4, which is now in its seventh year on the market. Sony has begun detailing its successor, the PS5, so the clock is ticking for the PS4. Despite this, there are some big games on the way, including Naughty Dog's The Last of Us 2.

The Last of Us 2 was recently delayed into Spring 2020, with director Neil Druckmann stating the extra time would allow the developer to polish the game. "It was during the last few weeks, as we were closing out sections of the game, that we realized we simply didn’t have enough time to bring the entire game up to a level of polish we would call Naughty Dog quality," he explained. "At this point we were faced with two options: compromise parts of the game or get more time. We went with the latter, and this new release date allows us to finish everything to our level of satisfaction while also reducing stress on the team.

"While we’re relieved that we won’t have to compromise our vision, we’re disappointed that we weren’t able to avoid this exact situation. We wish we could’ve foreseen the amount of polish we needed, but the size and scope of this game got the better of us. We hate disappointing our fans and for that we’re sorry."

PS4 worldwide shipments top 102.8 million, becomes second best-selling home game console of all time

Worldwide total shipments for PlayStation 4 have reached 102.8 million, Sony announced in its financial results for the three months ended September 30, 2019.

PlayStation 4 is now the second highest-selling home game console of all time, topped only by PlayStation 2 at 155 million units, and followed by the original PlayStation at 102.49 million units and Wii at 101.63 million units. (This does not include handheld consoles.)

A total of 2.8 million PlayStation 4s were shipped during the second quarter of fiscal year 2019, which is down 1.1 million from the 3.9 million shipped during the same period the previous fiscal year.

Sony also altered its previous forecast that it will sell 15 million PlayStation 4s in fiscal year 2019, which runs from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020, to 13.5 million PlayStation 4s.

Here are a couple of additional statistics:

• There are 36.9 million PlayStation Plus subscribers as of September 30, 2019, which is up 2.6 million from the 34.3 million subscribers during the same period the previous fiscal year.
• PlayStation 4 software sold 61.3 million units in the second quarter of fiscal year 2019, which is down 13.8 million from the 75.1 million software sold during the same period the previous fiscal year. 37 percent of those sales were full game software digital downloads, compared to 28 percent the previous year.

Source: Gematsu