Console manufacturers Sony and Nintendo have both released sales reports, with both the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch within touching distance of their immediate predecessors. 82.2 million PlayStation 4 consoles have been sold between a November 2013 launch and a July 2018 financial report detailing shipments up to June 30.
Sales had been lagging 2.9 million units behind retail shipments in June and December 2017, meaning that at an estimated 79.1 million total sales, the five-year-old PlayStation 4 has just a little way to go to surpass the 80-million seven-year lifetime total of its predecessor.
Sony stopped reporting PlayStation 3 sales in 2013. It has forecast a total of 17 million PlayStation 4 sales for the fiscal year ending March 2019. As for Nintendo, Sony's fellow Japanese console company reported 19.67 million sales of its hybrid home and portable console, the Switch, between its launch in March 2017 and the end of its most recent financial period on June 30, 2018.
The Switch had outsold its immediate predecessor, the Wii U, by the end of 2017 after nine months of availability, and is now on the verge of overtaking the 21.7 million sales of the more popular 2001 GameCube.
Next up in the Nintendo family would be the 1990 SNES (49 million) 1983 NES (62 million), and the portable 2011 3DS (72 million), which is still on sale as a lower-priced alternative to the Switch.
Both consoles are some way off from the title of their manufacturers' crowning achievements. For Sony, that would be the 1994 PlayStation (102 million) and year 2000 PlayStation 2 (over 155 million), and for Nintendo, that's the 2004 Nintendo DS (154 million), the 1989 Game Boy and its 1998 successor, the Game Boy Color, which achieved a combined total of 118 million sales, and the 2006 Wii on a tally of 101 million.
The good news for Sony and Nintendo is that both the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch appear to be in good health. PlayStation 4 owners can look forward to creative sandbox "Dreams" and a Marvel "Spider-Man" tie-in as upcoming 2018 exclusives, while Nintendo has announced a self-assembly Nintendo Labo pack for September with "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" and two "Pokémon: Let's Go" games towards the end of the year.
