PlayStation shipments hit new record last quarter, hitting 9.7 million units shipped, and smashing the previously held record of 8.8 million PS2 units shipped in Q3 2003. This brings total shipments of the PS4 to 57.1 million units worldwide as of December 31, 2016 (we already know that total sales for the console stand at 53.4 million units, meaning that some 3 million PS4s are in the channel).
It was just good three months for PlayStation all around– sales increased to $5.3 billion (an increase of 5.2% year on year), while operating income increased to $431 million. A lot of this success and these high shipments are being attributed to the launch of the PlayStation VR and the PlayStation 4 Pro, as well as to higher than ever digital game sales. On the other hand, price cuts and bundles are both factors that tempered the final results somewhat.
In spite of the general decline of the larger console market, it is now clear that the PS4 seems to be unaffected by it- in fact, the system is pulling in the kinds of numbers that Sony has not seen since the PS2 era, which was arguably the peak of the console gaming market. Sony has earned all the success it is getting- and as it enters the strongest year for PlayStation yet this year, it will be fascinating to see just what kinds of numbers PS4 manages to pull in.