Sony set a new record for the gaming industry with revenue achieved during the 2020 fiscal year. Amongst the many records—both personal and industry-wide—that were broken during the period is the number of games sold on a single console in video game history. There have now been 1.577 billion PS4 games sold over its lifetime, beating the previous record set by the PlayStation 2.
Throughout the 2020 fiscal year, nearly 339 million games were sold between the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, an increase of 22% from the year prior that smashed Sony’s previous record set during fiscal year 2018. That figure included 58.4 million games published by Sony themselves, including The Last of Us Part II, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Demon’s Souls.
Digital gaming continues to make up a huge percentage of those sales, most likely due to lockdown measures through the pandemic that have created an overall surge in the gaming space. Q4 2020 sales were 79% digital, while the overall year averaged 65% digital. This is an increase of 12% from the previous year and the second year in a row that digital sales outweighed physical sales. The PlayStation Store made more than $13.71 billion throughout FY2020, its biggest year ever.
ResetEra member ArmGunar made the figures look even more impressive when he worked out the daily sales figures. On average, over 600,000 games were sold through the PlayStation Store every day throughout the year—that’s just under seven games per second. Including retail figures and other digital sellers, that figure increases to 933,000 games sold every day, or 10.75 games per second.
Sony will be hoping these figures don’t slow down anytime soon either and they’re taking steps to prevent it happening. Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki promised to “continue investing in partnering with external studios, in addition to aggressively investing in our in-house studios.” Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has also stated the PlayStation 5 will have more exclusive games than any generation before it. With Returnal, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart all set to release within the coming months, the 2021 fiscal year will be off to a great start.
