PS4 sales surpass 35.9M units worldwide

Sony sold more than 5.7 million units of the PlayStation 4 during the 2015 holiday season, bringing lifetime sales of the console to 35.9 million, the company announced today.

The 2015 holiday sales figure of 5.7 million units is up more than 39 percent year over year — in January 2015, Sony reported sales of 4.1 million units during the 2014 holiday season. Sony defines the most recent holiday period as running from Nov. 22, 2015, through Jan. 2, 2016, in North America, Europe and Latin America, and from Nov. 23, 2015, through Jan. 3, 2016, in Japan and Asia. The most recent report before today came in late November, when Sony announced lifetime PS4 sales of more than 30.2 million.

At this time last year, Sony's holiday sales from 2014 had brought the console's worldwide sales total above 18.5 million units. That means that Sony sold approximately 17.4 million PS4s in 2015, nearly doubling the system's lifetime sales over the past year. Sales of Sony's newest console continue to outpace those of the PlayStation 3: By this point in the PS3's life, Sony had sold approximately 20 million units worldwide.

"We are absolutely delighted that so many customers have selected PS4 as the best place to play throughout this holiday season and that the PS4 community is growing more than ever," said Andrew House, president and global CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, in a press release today.

Sony also said today that the number of users who subscribed to PlayStation Plus in the last month of the year increased by 60 percent from 2014 to 2015. The company counted subscriptions in a 29-day period before Christmas, from Nov. 24 through Dec. 22.

Last fall, Microsoft began to prioritize reporting Xbox Live engagement over continuing to announce Xbox One sales numbers. The company did note yesterday that Xbox One sales are still outpacing Xbox 360 sales at the same point in the console generation.