PS4 Vs Xbox One Sales: 9.7 Million Sony Units Sold In Q3 2016 While Microsoft Declined

Sony Corporation (SNE) announced its financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2016. According to its financial report, the company sold 9.7 million PlayStation 4 (PS4) consoles from Oct. 1—Dec. 31. The company sold 8.4 million PS4 units over the same period in 2015.

PlayStation seems to be the only bright spot in an otherwise gloomy earnings report. The company announced on Dec. 6 that it had sold more than 50 million PS4 units including the original PS4, PS4 Slim and 4K-capable PS4 Pro till that date.

In January, the company announced it sold 6.2 million PS4 units during the holiday season, giving credit to Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. In addition to the PS4 gaming consoles, the company also sells PS4 games.

The company seems to be on track to reach its goal of selling 60 million PS4 gaming consoles by March 2017.

The PS4 is currently in the fourth year of its lifetime and is expected to beat the sales of its predecessor, the PS3, which sold around 80 million units in its lifetime of seven years. Sony’s Game and Network Services division, which also includes the PlayStation brand, recorded a 5.2 percent increase in sales to $5.325 billion in Q3 2016.

The company attributes the increase to high sales of PS4 games and the company’s new VR headset — the PSVR. In addition to this, the Game and Network Services division profits were up 24.5 percent, according to the earnings report. While Sony attributes the PSVR to its recent console sales success, the company has not revealed how many PSVR units it has sold since the virtual reality headset went on sale last year.

Despite such performance by its gaming division, the Sony Corporation as a whole recorded an operating income of $796 million in Q3 2016, down from $1.80 billion for the same quarter in 2015.

In comparison to Sony's PlayStation devices, rival Microsoft's Xbox console did not do as well. During the same period, the company's gaming revenue decreased 3 percent with lower revenues from Xbox console sales although the Xbox software and services revenue showed growth, according to Microsoft's financial year 2017 earnings release for the second quarter.

The difference in console sales shows the difference in the approaches of both companies towards gaming consoles — While Sony has widened its portfolio by offering a wide range of hardware including the PSVR and PS4 Pro, Microsoft is working on software offerings such as the Windows 10 Creators Update Game Mode.