PS4 sales reign supreme as PlayStation VR notches its own VR victory

You probably already knew the PS4 was popular even if you're not all that big on gaming, but even so, it's hard not to be impressed by the sales figures Sony just released.

According to Sony's own estimates, it's sold around 70.7 million PS4 units worldwide. That's a huge number no matter how you cut it, but it's especially remarkable in that the number counts units that were actually sold rather than merely shipped. In addition, Sony announced customers have bought more than 2 million PlayStation VR units.

If the so-called "console wars" mean anything to you, the report means that the PlayStation 4 has handily beaten rival Xbox One by numbers alone. Microsoft doesn't even release sales numbers for its device, but the best estimates in August put the figure at somewhere around 30 million units.

The PS4 still has a long way to go before it reaches the 155 million sales that made the PlayStation 2 the most popular console of all time, but it looks on track to easily surpass the PlayStation 3, which sold only 80 million units over its entire lifespan. By way of contrast, the PS4 reached its 70 million milestone within only four years.

Emerging reality

The 2 million units for the PlayStation VR may not sound that impressive by comparison, but that's a huge number, considering how much virtual reality developers have struggled to garner the kind of interest early visionaries foresaw.

It helps that the PSVR has a number of advantages over the competing Oculus Rift and HTC Vive in that it's relatively inexpensive, it works with an already popular gaming system and it's easy to hook up.

Game sales were impressive as well. Sony reported that 617 million PS4 games have been bought so far, and that 12 million games have been bought specifically for the PSVR.

Sony unfortunately didn't give any specific figures on how well the relatively new PS4 Pro has been selling, but as The Verge reports, back in June it claimed that one in every five PS4 units sold was a PS4 Pro.