5.9 million PS4 consoles sold during 2017 Christmas period
Down over last year, but software sales up sharply
Sony sold 5.9 million PS4 consoles over Thanksgiving and Christmas, the company has announced.
It pushes the console's total install base to 73.6 million - 13 million short of what the PS3 achieved.
It means that Sony sold over 20 million PS4s in total during 2017, making it comfortably the best-selling games console last year. Nintendo Switch sales are estimated at between 12 and 13 million for the year.
The number of PS4s sold over the festive period was a slight 5% drop on the 6.2 million sold during the same period a year before.
However, software sales are up from 50.4 million to 55.9 million. In total, 645 million PS4 games have been sold so far.
This was driven, in part, by a rise in PSN downloading. Sony boasts that it has 31.5 million PSN subscribers.
"Thanks to the continued support from our fans across the globe, we are honored to announce remarkable sales during the holiday season," said PlayStation president and CEO John Kodera.
"PlayStation Network continues to demonstrate spectacular growth, with the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers surpassing 31.5 million, and PS Store recording its largest-ever monthly sales of content in December 2017. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to our community and our partners for helping us achieve such phenomenal milestones. We promise our unwavering commitment to bring more amazing experiences to our fans, including exclusive games and innovative network services, as PS4 continues to flourish as the best place to play."