Sony CEO Kaz Hirai speaks at his company's CES press conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
Sony CEO Kaz Hirai speaks at his company’s CES press conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

LAS VEGAS — Worldwide sales of Sony’s Playstation 4 have reached nearly 36 million.

ps4Sony CEO Kaz Hirai announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show that his company has sold more than 35.9 million PS4 consoles to consumers around the globe, including 5.7 million this past holiday season.

Sony has outpaced Microsoft for current generation worldwide console sales since the PS4 and Xbox One debuted in November 2013. The company reached 18.5 million PS4 consoles sold one year ago, meaning it sold another 17.4 million devices in the past year.

Both Microsoft and Sony offered a handful of console bundle deals during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in November, going as low as $299 for not only the console but also a bundled game. Both currently retail for $349.

Hirai told the crowd at Sony’s press conference today that the PS4 “sets the benchmark for our organization in terms of collaboration, engineering, creativity, artistry, and experiential design.”

Kaz Hirai - Sony

As of this fiscal year, Microsoft is no longer disclosing Xbox unit sales as part of its quarterly earnings reports. Microsoft is no longer breaking out Xbox unit sales on a quarterly basis. However, the company said Xbox Live active users grew 28 percent to 39 million in the September quarter.

As far as the console competition with Sony, Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, sat down for a fireside chat at the GeekWire Summit this past September and offered some insight into Microsoft’s early missteps with the Xbox One launch and the ongoing battle with Sony. Spencer said he doesn’t pay as much attention to the sales race with Sony and other competitors now, which is a key mindset shift from when Microsoft launched the Xbox One.

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