In its full-year financial results for 2017, Sony revealed that it had sold 76.1 million PlayStation 4 consoles since its launch in 2013. 19 million of these came in the last fiscal year, but sales are beginning to slow.
In the 2016 fiscal year, Sony sold 20 million PS4s. After selling 19 million in 2017, the company expects to shift another 16 million during the current financial year, which ends in March 2019---all of which indicates that sales have peaked and are now declining. What that also means, however, is that the console looks set to overtake the PlayStation 3's lifetime sales of just over 80 million units sometime this year.
Sony is unlikely to be too concerned by this, as the company's PlayStation business continues to grow. Its Game & Network Services segment brought in 17.8 percent more revenue compared to the previous year, reaching sales of $17.7 billion, while operating income also increased, up 30.8 percent to $1.6 billion. Sony forecasts a decrease in revenue this year due to falling hardware sales but predicts a 7 percent increase in profit thanks to more people buying games and taking out PlayStation Plus subscriptions.
Even with fewer people buying PlayStation 4s, selling 16 million units this year would still put it above the Nintendo Switch, which saw 15.05 million units sold in 2017.
With the PlayStation 4's sales on a downward trajectory, the big question now is when we'll see the PlayStation 5. Dev kits are reportedly already in the hands of developers, and rumored specs have leaked online, but it will likely be a couple more years before the next-gen console arrives.