PS5 Sells 3.71M, PS5 and XS Sales Climb YoY - Worldwide Hardware Estimates for December 2023 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 February 2024 / 12,215 Views
The PlayStation 5 was the best-selling console worldwide with 3,714,932 units sold for December 2023, according to VGChartz estimates. The PlayStation 5 has now sold an estimated 52.65 million units lifetime worldwide.
The Nintendo Switch sold an estimated 3,181,704 units to bring its lifetime sales to 136.26 million units. The Xbox Series X|S sold 1,854,862 units to bring their lifetime sales to 27.23 million units. The PlayStation 4 sold an estimated 28,240 units to bring its lifetime sales to 117.15 million units.
PS5 sales compared to the same month for the PS4 in 2016 are down by over 889,000 units, while the Xbox Series X|S compared to the same month for the Xbox One are down by nearly 899,000 units. PS4 sold 4,604,141 units for the month of December 2016 and Xbox One sales were at 2,753,607 units.
PlayStation 5 sales compared to the same month a year ago are up by 641,024 (20.9%). Xbox Series X|S sales are up by 267,826 units (16.9%) and Nintendo Switch sales are down by 913,986 units (-22.3%). The PlayStation 4 is down by 28,801 units (-50.5%) year-over-year.
Looking at sales month-on-month, PlayStation 5 sales are up by over 169,000 units, Xbox Series X|S sales are up by nearly 824,000 units, and Nintendo Switch sales are up by over 1,501,000 units.
2023 year-to-date, the PlayStation 5 has sold an estimated 21.64 million units, the Nintendo Switch has sold 15.90 million units, and the Xbox Series X|S has sold 7.50 million units.
Check out the breakdown of the Americas sales here, the Europe sales here, and the Japan sales here.
Monthly Sales:
Global hardware estimates for December 2023 (Followed by lifetime sales):
- PlayStation 5 - 3,714,932 (52,647,376)
- Switch - 3,181,704 (136,258,010)
- Xbox Series X|S - 1,854,862 (27,228,480)
- PlayStation 4 - 28,240 (117,149,072)
- PlayStation 5 - 1,816,666
- Switch - 1,466,692
- Xbox Series X|S - 1,346,557
- PlayStation 4 - 8,807
- PlayStation 5 - 1,181,934
- Switch - 968,760
- Xbox Series X|S - 354,953
- PlayStation 4 - 10,573
- Switch - 623,864
- PlayStation 5 - 553,811
- Xbox Series X|S - 40,970
- PlayStation 4 - 8,202
- PlayStation 5 - 162,521
- Switch - 122,388
- Xbox Series X|S - 112,382
- PlayStation 4 - 658
Weekly Sales:
Global December 2, 2023 hardware estimates:
- PlayStation 5 - 790,061
- Switch - 687,855
- Xbox Series X|S - 434,339
- PlayStation 4 - 5,385
Global December 9, 2023 hardware estimates:
- PlayStation 5 - 728,314
- Switch - 626,579
- Xbox Series X|S - 359,239
- PlayStation 4 - 6,599
Global December 16, 2023 hardware estimates:
- PlayStation 5 - 826,036
- Switch - 670,660
- Xbox Series X|S - 389,822
- PlayStation 4 - 7,245
Global December 23, 2023 hardware estimates:
- PlayStation 5 - 894,005
- Switch - 783,143
- Xbox Series X|S - 456,716
- PlayStation 4 - 5,703
Global December 30, 2023 hardware estimates:
- PlayStation 5 - 476,516
- Switch - 413,467
- Xbox Series X|S - 214,746
- PlayStation 4 - 3,308
VGChartz Methodology: Hardware estimates are based on retail sampling and trends in individual countries, which are then extrapolated to represent the wider region. This typically allows us to produce figures that end up being within 10% of the actual totals.
This data is regularly compared against official shipment figures released by the console manufacturers and figures estimated by regional trackers with greater market coverage than ourselves. We then update our own estimates to bring them into line with those figures. This can result in frequent changes often within a short space of time, but we feel it's important to prioritise accuracy over consistency.
Note that our estimates are based on sell-through data (units sold to consumers). In almost all cases the figures released by console manufacturers are based on shipment data (sell-in), where as soon as a device has left the factory and entered the supply chain for delivery it is considered a sale. This is why there is always a difference between the companies’ figures (sell-in) and VGChartz estimates (sell-through), even after we’ve made adjustments. The one exception to that is when a console has been discontinued and the remaining stock has finally sold out – at that point the figures will match.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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i think Microsft did pretty well at the 2 to 1 sales numbers
Does anyone know why the ps5 fell so much compared to the ps4 in the same period? I would also like to know if the ps5 has already equaled or surpassed the ps4
Well it’s a 3 year old console that had zero promotions and an RRP higher than when it released in basically every territory.
Too true.
PS4 had the Slim out on 15 September 2016. It was $299.99 in the US, a big discount from the standard $399.99. Not to mention there was the option of a PS4 Pro in November (which we don't have a specific breakdown) that was $399.99 but a step up in specs.
PS5 is the same price for a standard slimmer model, and the digital-only had a price increase with the slimmer model.
Thank you! :)
Comparing these circumstances, to me it then looks like the PS5 has had a very powerful December '23.
Without being discounted at all, in fact mostly still selling at release price tags or even higher, 3.7m globally is a quite impressive figure then.
Ofc, Sony know what they are doing. It seems like it just wasn't the right time for them to announce a price reduction.
Should Sony plan to announce a price reduction in 2024, maybe down to 449/349 or even 399/299, then I guess we will probably see record October - December sales for the brand.
Curious to see the eventual shipment reports by Sony and Nintendo and whether Sony adjusts their forecast
I would be surprised if Sony don't adjust down to around 22-23m. Could still be their highest shipments ever but I don't see them hitting 25m now.
Agreed, and hopefully that teaches them a lesson that you really shouldn't be raising prices on a 3 year old console. How easy would it have been for them to hit that 25 million target if, instead of raising the price of the digital edition by $50, they had dropped the price of both by $50 ($349 and $449)?
Won't teach them anything because it's not just about hitting their targets. it is also about selling better relative to your competition and in that regard they still dominated.
The thing to note is that the PS5 is selling well with a good sales v production ratio making a price cut superfluous.
(and profits. Don’t forget Sony had been selling (not sure if they still are) hardware at a loss.)
A week after Sony announced 10 million PS5's sold, Sony's CFO Hiroki Totoki issued a statement that they were no long selling the PS5 at a loss and we have had a number of model revisions since then so most likely have been making making a profit off the hardware for a fair while.
PS5 at 450/500 is definitely ok for profits. Xbox series at 350 (like we saw in December) on the other hand,..definitely not.
As of 2023,
Switch lead over PS5- 83.6 Million
PS5 lead over series- 25.42 Million
As of 2023,
DS lead over Switch- 17.76M (becoming #2)
PSP lead over PS5- 29.87M (becoming #10)
I can see both easily happen within the next year and a half.
What a powerful holiday season for the Switch! Never fails to impress me: Sold only ~600k short of third-year PS5 (for December). Granted, Switch will have only sold 5mil this quarter -- a rather steep drop from the ~8mil from last year (if I'm remembering correctly) -- and these figures were admittedly very much "as expected", though this shouldn't take from the fact that now the Switch will have crushed through 13mil in its final full-year: This is almost more than the entire lifecycle of the predecessor Wii U.
Switch
2022 Q3: 8.22M
2023 Q3: 5.72M
-30.41% drop
2022 19.01M
2023 15.63M
-17.78% drop
Very solid work for 7th year
WiiU total 13.56
2.07M less than 2023 Switch
By fiscal year, I mean April 1st, 2023 through March 31, 2024 (which technically the Switch will be finishing its eighth…though I consider F’16 to be the “zeroth” year). Those annual figure you just gave though are still madly impressive nonetheless.
That makes sense.
Switch
FY'23: 17.97M
FY'24: 12.56M (Still have all of January , February and March to go through)
-30.11% drop
Switch needs to sell 1.00M more in FY'24 to surpass WiiU total sales.
The Switch is in a much healthier half way space. It had no problems with PS3 games even if PS4 was beyond reach, and in the same way the Switch 2 will have no problems with PS4 games. That way there will be MANY ports which is important to the portable business model. The Wii U couldn't even get enhanced ports of PS3 games which made it First party only, and early reviews of it struggling to play Xbox 360 games left very bad impressions.
Wii U had great games, but the only great thing about the hardware was the 25x more memory than the Wii (Wii U's ram upgrade was one of the largest between generations ever). Ask anyone that made games, the Wii had a pitiful about of ram which was rough.
I hope Nintendo gives us 12GB of ram, or even 16GB. Essential imo and portability doesn't cause an issue there.
Microsoft's strategy of reducing the price during December worked, we will see if this year they can manage to recover in sales with so many games that they will have
The problem is, most will likely play on Game Pass.
So PS5 wasn't able to outsell PS4 in December launch aligned. Still a bit early, but it could be that PS4 Pro had a bigger impact than PS5 Slim will have.
Or ps5 had massive shortages
..
I think the lack of exclusive game releases and not having a price cut affected the sells potential vs the PS4 more than the launch of the PS4 Pro.
Seems people forgot ps5 had massive shortages for most of its life ( last year it was finally fixed)
A solid portion (don’t know the exact amount) of those shortage-era sold PS5’s were bought buy scalpers. So having shortages in the beginning of its life has helped it sell “more” in the long run. Every unit counts.
Noo..not really
If sony could have made more ps5s then the sales would be a bit higher.
Doesn’t that logic apply to every console?
Lack of inventory and early on scalpers have helped drive PS5 sales due to FOMO.
PS% PS$ PSR
