The latest PlayStation 4 sales figures show us the position of video game console at the beginning of 2019.

Kenichiro Yoshida, the CEO and president of Sony, speaking at the CES 2019
Kenichiro Yoshida, the CEO, and president of Sony, speaking at the CES 2019

Announcing 5.6M PS4 units sold in the festive period of 2018, Sony has it PS4 total sales surpass 91.6M units worldwide. So, what do these numbers say?

Giving Sony's victory milestone more context, let's spare some minutes to look over the positions of each console supplier in the early of 2019 However, it's clear that: The more you show, the more confidence you get. Therefore, there are lots of reasons for Sony to affirm its position in this video game consoles generation.

SONY HAS OVERTAKEN MICROSOFT IN CURRENT GENERATION

In fact, no other gaming console can come close to Sony in terms of sale in this current generation. Since 2015, Microsoft has stopped publicizing sales information of solid hardware for its Xbox One. Instead, according to a Microsoft executive, this company will now concentrate on talking about engagement rather than sales figures.

“During Microsoft’s FY18 Q3 earnings, we announced that gaming revenue grew 18 percent year-over-year, driven by Xbox software and services revenue growth of 24 percent, and Xbox Live monthly active users grew 1 percent year-over-year to 59 million. We continue to see strong growth with time spent on Xbox Live, and look forward to bringing more unprecedented experiences on Xbox One, Windows 10 PC and mobile.” said a Microsoft representative.

Microsoft appears to concentrate on services instead of hardware opening a new generation
Microsoft appears to concentrate on services instead of hardware opening a new generation

With those numbers, we have no clue about the business size of Xbox One. Also, the vague data has indicated that the size of this business is still very much in the air.

It's been more than 3 years since we last saw specific figures about the sales of Xbox One. In a financial call of 2016, it was revealed that Microsoft had sold somewhere around 19.1M Xbox One units to date. In contrast with Microsoft representative, Sony was above board to show the business size of its PS4.

“We are also happy to announce that the monthly active users of PlayStation Network continues to show strong growth, and has surpassed 90 million as of the end of November 2018,” said Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and president John Kodera.

"This year, we will bring more enhanced experiences to our fans along with a highly anticipated lineup of games that are only possible on PS4. As we look toward the next PS4 milestone, SIE will continue to evolve, and we will further expand the platform to deliver the best interactive entertainment experiences to the world."

It seems that the tech giant Microsoft will unlikely to catch up with Sony in this generation's hardware sales. Instead of pointing out its competitor, Sony just announced its incredibly high number as a way of clarifying the differences.

NINTENDO’S CURRENT SITUATION

In its latest report for the six months ended September 30, Nintendo announced that Switch has hit 22.86M worldwide sales. This figure, moreover, has beaten the lifetime sales of the GameCube. However, before Switch starts to pass over the lifetime sales of PS4, Sony might have been working on its PS5 or something similar.

The number 91.6M does mean a lot to Sony. It shows a strong possibility that the PS4 could surpass that number of Wii. Although PS4 and Switch aren't in the same competition, Sony might soon reveal a number that surpasses, or at least equal to that number of Nintendo's best record.

There's hardly a point-by-point comparison in sales of video games hardware, especially when talking about Nintendo and others. Still, due to its impressive performance, Sony's PS4 has been included in the best console rankings in video game consoles history.

A LOOK TO THE FUTURE

Launching simple and relatively affordable hardware which plays a wide range of great exclusives, Sony is holding sway over this generation. Since launch, the PS4 had been more powerful and more affordable than Xbox One. The story didn't end there, when it came to another faceoff between the PS4 and Xbox One X, it soon became a more affordable but impressive enough choice.

Microsoft, unlike Nintendo and PlayStation, has strong ties to PC game sales and a long history of trying to both support that and capture it in its own walled-garden store built into Windows 10. While Nintendo is so successful with its new system which is a hybrid portable and console, Microsoft is getting a lot of attention with its subscription and streaming services. It can be seen that both sides have their own advantages. Nintendo had to launch something more outstanding since the considerable drop in Wii U sales. Microsoft needed to find out how to beat Sony in this market.

Otherwise, Sony tends to concentrate on its advantage that is having the PS software and the interface largely focus toward gaming. Since this company is top of the rating, it might be a safe choice for Sony to work on its current path.

Looking at the given numbers, it's clear that Sony is dominating this generation.