Sony reported its financial earnings for its fiscal third quarter today, and the company sold a whole bunch of gaming consoles.
The company said that it sold 6.4 million PlayStation 4s during the three-month period from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, according to its Q3 report. That is up from 4.5 million PS4s sold during the same period in the previous year. In total, Sony sold 7.5 million PlayStation consoles (that’s PS4s and PS3s) during the quarter. The console gaming market is worth around $50 billion, and Sony has established a significant lead over its competition from Microsoft and Nintendo to capture the biggest piece of that.
This leaves Sony still in the lead for console sales. In January, Sony revealed that it has sold 18.5 million PlayStation 4s since its November 2013 launch. That makes it the fastest-selling PlayStation ever. And even with the Xbox One outselling Sony’s box during the holiday gift-giving months, Microsoft’s system has only sold an estimated 10 million units.
Sony’s gaming division generated $4.3 billion (531.5 billion yen) during the quarter. That represents a 16.8 percent year over year increase. Operating income grew to $228 million (27.6 billion yen) from $129 million (15.2 billion yen) during the previous Q3.
Sony gave credit to the PlayStation 4 for leading this growth. The company also saw “a significant increase in network services revenue.”
While Sony has plenty of positives to point to for Q3, it notes that the PS3 actually dragged down its gaming division. Both hardware and software sales decreased enough to hurt the bottom line.
Sony’s lead in the console race saw quite a challenge during the holidays. Microsoft lowered the price of its Xbox One to $350, which helped it outsell the PS4 in the U.S. in November and December. Microsoft revealed that it shipped 6.6 million Xbox Ones to retailers during the holiday quarter, but this doesn’t indicate how many it sold to consumers. Sony’s 6.4 million number, meanwhile, it what it sold to consumers around the world.
With the PS4 doing so well, Sony’s increasing its focus on the console. That includes dropping other parts of its gaming business. Earlier this week, the company sold Sony Online Entertainment, which published massively multiplayer online games like the role-playing title EverQuest and zombie shooter H1Z1. That studio, now known as Daybreak Game Company, will operate completely separately from Sony, and it will even go on to release its games for Xbox One.