PlayStation 4 worldwide sales reach 18.5 million

The PlayStation 4 has sold over 18 million units worldwide, according to a press release by Sony.  Year long sales bolstered by a strong holiday season, Sony Computer Entertainment has revealed that the company sold over 4 million PS4s during the holiday shopping season, which is a window of peak consumer activity between November 23rd and January 4th.

Back in October, Sony revealed it had sold more than 13.5 million PS4 consoles, which they disclosed in their financial reports.  Despite stiff competition from Microsoft and Nintendo in 2014, it appears that the PlayStation 4 is still in extremely high demand.

The press release also reveals a staggering number of software sales since the launch of the new system (81.8 million games), as well as a subscriber base for the PlayStation Plus service, which is nearing 11 million users.

While these worldwide figures are certainly impressive, November was a good month for their closest competitor, the Xbox One.  Microsoft’s console pushed ahead of the PS4 in North America for the month of November.  Price cuts and bundling incentives seemed to push consumers to the console during the month.  NPD data for December has not been released yet, so we’ll have to wait and see if Microsoft bested Sony in North America, or not.

Either way, Sony’s PlayStation brand appears to be firing on all cylinders.  Moreover, the company recently announced a monthly subscription option for their PlayStation Now streaming service, which allows PlayStation 4 owners to stream a back-catalog of PlayStation 3 games to their consoles.