Only 3% of PlayStation 4 Owners Have An Expensive Paperweight
PlayStation 4 is this decade's most-successful home gaming console and the numbers make for impressive reading. | Source: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
- Sony unveils fresh PlayStation 4 stats during CES 2020 press conference.
- 103 million monthly active units compared to 106 million PS4 systems sold.
- PS Plus subscriber base continues to expand.
During Sony’s press conference at CES 2020, Jim Ryan’s reveal of the very much on brand PlayStation 5 logo was undoubtedly the main take-away. Yet, amid the five-minute build up to said reveal, Sony let loose some fascinating facts about the PlayStation 4 eco-system that prove just how dominant the console has been this current generation.
We already knew that the PlayStation 4 had secured the spot as the best selling console of all time, trailing only the PlayStation 2, thanks to Sony’s October financial earnings report. In the intervening months, the console has sold an additional 3.2 million, bringing the total sales to 106 million, Sony announced.
103 Million Monthly Active PlayStation 4 Users
More interestingly, Sony reports a staggering 103 million monthly active users.
In other words, over 97% of PlayStation 4 owners use the console at least once a month. Factoring natural wear and tear rendering a console inoperable, accidental damage, and the traditional end of generation decline in interest, the odd three million owners that don’t use the console is remarkably low, insignificant even.
Put differently, the overwhelming majority of PlayStation 4 owners actively use the console even this late into the generation.
In comparison, Microsoft has sold an estimated 46.9 million Xbox One units as of Q2 2019 , nearly half the amount of PlayStation 4 consoles. As for monthly active Xbox One players, numbers are even harder to come by. Microsoft no longer discloses sales figures, so its hard to get a firm number, but the PlayStation 4’s popularity is clear to see even from estimates.
PS Plus Subscriber Count Swells By 5%
Sony also revealed that players had purchased 1.15 billion PlayStation 4 games since the console launched in 2013. It has also sold 5 million PlayStation VR units to date, which illustrates the wavering fortunes of Sony’s push into the VR space. As for its PlayStation Plus subscription service, Sony records a 5% increase since Q2 2019 to 38.8 million monthly subscribers.
The figures attest to Sony’s domination of this generation, which may explain why the new logo appears a little conservative and sticks to the safety of branding that has served the company incredibly well this last decade.
