Sony announced today that it has sold more than 40 million PS5 consoles in less than three years since it launched.

Sony's best-selling console remains the PS2, which achieved 51.2 million sales in its first three years. The PS5 has no chance of repeating that by its third birthday in November, but 40 million console sales is impressive when you consider the COVID-19 pandemic happened just a few months after launch. What followed was a global shortage of semiconductors combined with high levels of scalping that made buying a PS5 both difficult and very expensive.

(Credit: Sony)

In contrast, Microsoft had only managed to sell around 21 million Xbox Series X and Series S consoles by the end of June. Microsoft's most recent earnings report for Q4 2023 also reveals that "Xbox hardware revenue decreased 13% driven by lower volume of consoles sold." However, Microsoft will want to focus on Xbox content and service revenue increasing by 5%, which means Game Pass is doing well.

With Sony clearly in the lead in terms of current gen console sales, the focus will now turn to how to maintain and extend that dominance. In the short term, there's the limited edition Spider-Man 2 console and Project Q handheld device to push. Game sales are also key, as is a continued push for PlayStation VR2.

Longer term, there's rumors of a PS5 Slim console hitting the market potentially before the end of the year. Sony will also be keeping an eye on Nintendo because a successor to the Switch is expected to appear early next year, and then there's the potential impact of Microsoft concluding its Activision Blizzard acquisition.

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