Sony have been having an incredible run for the last couple years in the videogame industry and this year was no different. From multiplier first party exclusive titles, to continued improvements to the PlayStation there seems to be no end to Sony’s dominance in the market today. The PlayStation 5 since release has been one of the most successful consoles in the market, with the console being near impossible to get in the first couple of months and its first year of release. It led to people even waiting in multiple PlayStation Directs queues per week in order to get their hands on the coveted console, only to be met consistently with the message that they were sold out. Heading into holiday 2023, the PlayStation 5 has officially passed over 50 million units sold as of December 9th. This is only behind the PS4’s record of reaching that number by December 6th, although the Ps4 Slim and Pro had already been released by then. November was also noted to be one of the best months for the Ps5 lifecycle so far.
In comparison to the other two main consoles on the market the Nintendo Switch, the most accessible of the three consoles, had 16.4 million units sold in 2023. Meanwhile Microsoft’s Xbox despite their massive acquisition of Bethesda were only able to sell 7.6 million units of the Xbox series X and S. The Ps5 in comparison sold over 22.5 million units this year alone. The console wars are this pseudo war that many people with nothing better to do have conjured up in their minds, but this does beg the question if Microsoft will ever become number one let alone number two in the market ever again.
This big boom for PlayStation sales can probably be attributed to much anticipated titles this year such as Final Fantasy 16 and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 being console exclusives, and seeing as these titles are single-player only it’s even more impressive. Sony has recently begun backtracking on their plans to move forward with live service-only titles seeing how they garner much criticism from the get-go. It’s probably best for Sony to stick to what they do best, which is creating grand single-player spectacles.