PlayStation 4 has sold 50 million units worldwide

PlayStation 4 has now sold more than 50 million units worldwide since it launched in November 2013, according to a Sony announcement. The latest milestone has been reached following this year's Black Friday sales and the release of the PS4 Slim and more powerful PS4 Pro.

"We're truly delighted that the PS4 community continues to flourish since launch three years ago," Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Andrew House said in a statement.

"With tremendous support from our fans and partners across the globe, this year we were able to deliver an unprecedented lineup of hardware such as the new slimmer PS4, PS4 Pro and PlayStation VR."

The PS4 passed 40 million sales back in May.

"We will continue to provide the best gaming experiences available through our ground-breaking software lineup and network services, as we focus on accelerating our business and expanding the PS4 ecosystem," House concluded.

Sony also revealed that software sales reached 369.6 million as of 4 December. The hardware sales figure represents the total sold as of 6 December.

The figure has been driven by a period of hardware launches rather than major exclusive software launches. No Man's Sky is the only major PS4 exclusive realistically capable of pushing hardware sales which launched in the past six months. The only other game, The Last Guardian, launches this week.

Microsoft hasn't disclosed the sales data for the Xbox One since it became apparent that PS4 was proving more popular at retail. In April however, it was reported that Microsoft's console had sold 18 million units, roughly a month before Sony announced PS4 had sold 40 million.

Xbox One has been enjoying great sales since the launch of the Xbox One S however. The console outsold Sony's for three months straight between July and September.

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