PS4 sales continue to rapidly outpace the opposition

Sony has revealed that it sold 4m PS4 consoles in the quarter ending September.

The number – which of course came before the machine’s recent price cuts in key territories such as the UK, US, Japan and China – compares incredibly favourably with its rivals. Microsoft sold around 2m Xbox Ones and Xbox 360s in the same period (it didn’t confirm the actual number) while Nintendo managed around 720k Wii U sales in the quarter.

That brings lifetime PS4 sales to 29.3m units since it went on sale in November 2013. Eurogamer reports that after the same length of time PS2 had sold 24.99m units, the PS3 16.6m, the Xbox 360 13.4m and Wii 34.55m.

We still don’t know how many Xbox Ones have been sold, although estimates stand at around 15m, which if true means the PS4 has outsold its rival by two-to-one.

The PS4 numbers come as Sony reported a 16.5 per cent increase in sales at its Game and Network Services division, hitting 360.7bn. Operating income climbed 45 per cent to 23.9bn thanks to a big jump in PS4 software sales. PSN and SEN sales climbed 56.8 per cent.

As a result Sony has upped its PS4 sales estimates by 1m to 17.5m units in the current financial year. It managed 14.8m unit sales in the previous year.

Overall Sony sales fell slightly to 1,892.7bn although it managed an operating income of 88bn – up from the previous 85.6bn loss.