Barone Firenze / Shutterstock.com
Barone Firenze / Shutterstock.com

Sony sold 7.5 million PlayStation consoles worldwide during the peak shopping season, outpacing Microsoft’s Xbox consoles globally for the fourth quarter and the full year — despite a spike in sales for the Xbox One following a $50 price cut.

The PlayStation sales numbers were released today as part of Sony’s quarterly earnings report, completing the picture of console sales for the holidays.

By comparison, Microsoft reported 6.6 million unit sales of the Xbox One and Xbox 360 for the same period. According to Sony’s report, the PlayStation number consists primarily of 6.4 million unit sales of the PlayStation 4, but also includes ongoing sales of the older PlayStation 3.

consoleq414

Adding up the numbers for the full year, Sony reported 18.8 million PlayStation consoles sold for 2014, with Microsoft at 12.1 million Xbox units, and Nintendo trailing the pack, selling 3.9 million units of its Wii and Wii U consoles.

xboxonenokinectMicrosoft had been able to outpace Sony in the U.S., winning the console race at home for both December and November, but that wasn’t enough to lift the Redmond company to an overall victory in the global numbers.

Apart from giving bragging rights to their respective fans, the numbers are important because they represent each company’s efforts to expand its platform in the living room — which Sony and Microsoft are increasingly using to deliver a broad range of entertainment, apps and services, well beyond games.

In that broader entertainment arena, the consoles are facing tougher competition from inexpensive streaming devices such as Google Chromecast, Roku and Amazon’s Fire TV. Notably, both Microsoft and Sony sold fewer consoles than they did in the fourth quarter a year ago, when Microsoft reported 7.4 million Xbox unit sales and Sony reported 7.8 million PlayStation unit sales.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.