Featured Image Credit: Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images
Topics: PlayStation 5, Xbox, Sony
There's something about the idea of console wars that really rubs me up the wrong way. Not only was it not particularly helpful for the consumer to have half the good games locked away unless you had the money for both consoles, it also created an environment that wasn't particularly nice to be a part of for a while back then.
Fortunately, it seems that the rivalry is softening somewhat, as former console exclusives make their way across to the competitor and cross play functionality becomes much more commonplace in multiplayer titles.
That leaves us able to talk about the state of the console market a little more freely in 2025, and Sony has continued to smash it out of the park, with the PlayStation 5 passing a major sales milestone in the last few months.
As first reported by IGN, the PlayStation 5 has now passed the Xbox 360 in terms of lifetime sales, with 84.2 million copies sold after an additional 3.9 million units were shipped during the three-month period ending September 30.
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That marks a very marginal increase on the 3.8 million sold in the preceding three months, and an impressive improvement considering the console has actually become more expensive thanks to unfavourable marketing conditions.
The very minor caveat to that is the last time Xbox officially reported sales figures for the 360, which was 84 million all the way back in June 2014.
They continued to produce and sell the console for almost two years after that, until April 2016, so in actuality the PS5 probably hasn't quite overtaken it just yet.
That said, there are plenty more sales to come for the PS5 and it will overtake it very shortly, even if it technically hasn't yet.
Indeed, that is only made more true by the fact that the PS5 might be Sony's primary console for longer than anyone originally thought, with plans to keep it in place until 2029.
In terms of its own targets, the PS5 actually sits ever so slightly behind the very popular PS4, which managed to sell 86.1 million units after a full five years on sale. Despite that, this current generation has comfortably proved to be the most profitable for Sony, who achieved huge turnovers since the console launched in 2020.
With plenty of time to go, the hardware giant will be delighted with how things are going, and presumably looking for ways to carry that momentum forward.