Holiday Season Lifts PS4, Spider-Man to Sales Milestones

The PS4 has been a massive success since it launched in November 2013, but the holiday shopping season boosted the platform to some extremely impressive sales milestones.

According to a press release from Sony, the PS4 has sold over 91.6 million units worldwide as of December 31, 2018. During the holiday season, which the company defines as November 19 – December 31, more than 5.6 million PS4s were sold with more than 50.7 million units of software. 876 million units of software have been sold cumulatively since the console’s launch.

Sony was also quick to point out the sales performance of Marvel’s Spider-Man, which has sold more than 9 million copies since it launched in September of last year. Shortly after the game’s launch, it was announced that Insomniac Games’ take on the web-slinger was the fastest-selling PlayStation exclusive of all time.

PS4

While gamers were particularly smitten with Marvel’s Spider-Man, 2018 was a fantastic year overall for PS4-exclusive titles. A remake of Shadow of the Colossus launched in February and was followed a couple of months later by God of War, which won a good number of Game of the Year awards. Some of our contributors were also very fond of it. Detroit: Become Human, the latest narrative adventure from Paris-based studio Quantic Dream, launched in May and has sold over 2 million copies.

Looking to the future, there are still some big PS4 exclusives that will help the console maintain its sales momentum. Sony Bend’s highly-anticipated zombie title, Days Gone, will launch in April after being delayed to avoid an extremely crowded February release period that currently includes Far Cry: New Dawn, Metro Exodus, and Anthem. Things get a little less clear after that, as Sony’s remaining announced exclusives, including Dreams, The Last of Us Part II, Death Stranding, and Ghost of Tsushima, don’t currently have release dates. It also remains to be seen when we will hear more about those games, as Sony will not be attending E3 this year.

Kyle is a lifelong gamer and writer who studied English at Cal State San Bernardino. He has been a PlayStation fan since the release of Sony's original console and puts most of his game time in on his PS5. He loves Metal Gear Solid, and is currently working on getting platinum trophies for every game in the series.

Kyle Flory

Kyle is a lifelong gamer and writer who studied English at Cal State San Bernardino. He has been a PlayStation fan since the release of Sony's original console and puts most of his game time in on his PS5. He loves Metal Gear Solid, and is currently working on getting platinum trophies for every game in the series.