As part of Sony's earnings announcement this week, the company revealed that the PlayStation 5 has surpassed 17 million units shipped since launch in November 2020. That's a very big number, but how does it compare to its rival, Xbox, its predecessor, and other platforms across the industry? Let's have a look.

　　

Slower Than PS4

The PlayStation 5's 17.3 million units shipped since launch is no doubt a big number and an impressive result, but sales are actually slower than that of the PlayStation 4 during its equivalent launch period. Over a similar period of time, the PS4 was able to sell 20.2 million units, so the PS5 is actually just under 3 million short of matching that pace. There is a good reason for this, of course, as the ongoing global pandemic has disrupted supply chains around the world.

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　　Sony management has said it is selling every PS5 it can make (and anyone who had tried to buy one knows this, of course), so demand is outstripping supply. For what it's worth, these same issues are affecting Xbox and Nintendo (along with others inside the technology space and out). The supply issues are so severe that Sony actually announced a downward revision for its PS5 sales target for the current quarter. Sony previously believed the PS5 would reach 22.6 million units by March 2022, but that number has been downgraded to 19.3 million.

　　

Comparing To Xbox

Microsoft no longer releases official sales numbers, but an estimate from Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad puts Xbox Series X|S sales at around 12 million. As such, the PS5 is pacing well ahead of that, but again, this is not a perfect, complete, or even necessarily fair comparison given Sony and Microsoft have somewhat divergent strategies in their businesses. Microsoft releases its games day one on PC in addition to Xbox, and you no longer even need a PC or console to play Xbox games thanks to cloud streaming.

　　

Comparing To Nintendo

The Nintendo Switch, which has been on the market since 2017, is far and away the most successful of the new consoles. It sold about 17.8 million units after its first year, putting it just ahead of the PS5's first-year sales of 17.3 million. As of September 30, Nintendo had sold close to 93 million Switch units globally, a figure that will be updated again this week when Nintendo announces its next earnings. The Switch was a hot item during Black Friday and the holidays, so it wouldn't be surprising to see it reach 100 million or get close to it when the earnings results are announced on Thursday.

　　The PS5 hasn't matched the Switch, but it has surpassed the lifetime sales mark of the Wii U (13.56 million). The follow-up to the Wii was the least successful Nintendo platform in history based on unit sales.

　　To wrap up, the PS5 is the clear leader in terms of head-to-head against the Xbox Series X|S--and some analysts believe it will outsell the Xbox 2:1 in 2022--but both companies are doing big business.

　　Xbox just had its biggest year of all time, while PlayStation's Game & Network Services division generated $24.87 billion in revenue, up 8.9% year-over-year. Nintendo will announce earnings results this week, and we'll report back with the key details about the health of the Mario company's business.