PlayStation 4 holiday sales dip slightly

Sony today announced that it sold 5.9 million PlayStation 4 units around the world during the holiday season. This figure is down slightly from the company’s 2016 performance, when it sold 6.2 million units, according to a press release dated Jan. 4, 2017.

PS4 has now cumulatively sold through more than 73.6 million units, as of Dec. 31, 2017. Back in early December, Sony announced that PS4 sales had passed the 70 million mark. These figures include the company’s higher end model PlayStation 4 Pro.

According to Sony, PS4 game sales were up year-on-year with 55.9 million games sold during the 2017 holiday season, bringing total PS4 sales up to 645 million copies. During the same period in 2016, the company sold 50 million games.

The numbers are estimates provided by Sony, and refer to sales made to consumers. Stats were collected from mid-November through to the end of the year.

Sony also announced that PlayStation Network’s subscriber numbers are now above 31.5 million and that its digital PlayStation Store recorded its best sales month in December, though no numbers were provided.

Sony will not be unhappy with the slight dip in sales. This season, it was dealing with the Nintendo Switch’s first holiday season. Switch was launched in March and had sold 10 million units around the world as of mid-December. It was the hot Christmas gift of 2017, with widespread shortages reported, selling 4.8 million units in the United States, according to a recent Nintendo announcement.

Microsoft has not announced sales figures for Xbox One in 2017. The company has generally been reticent about releasing stats, since PlayStation 4 established a worldwide sales lead over its rival.