PS5 Still Trails the PS4 After 65 Months

VGChartz estimates put PlayStation 5 sales at 91.52 million units through March 2026, 56.94 million ahead of Xbox Series. That is the 65th month both boxes have been on sale, and PlayStation holds 72.6 percent of their combined total.

The same file shows a less comfortable fact. The PS5 is still 3.37 million units behind the PlayStation 4 at this age, and Xbox Series is 13.97 million behind Xbox One.

PlayStation Still Dominates a Smaller Hardware Race

William D’Angelo, the VGChartz analyst who compiles the monthly hardware estimates, measures the two November 2020 consoles on an aligned clock. Xbox Series X|S launched worldwide on November 10. The PS5 launched two days later in its first wave of countries, then on November 19 everywhere else.

Through March, the gap widened by 0.72 million units in PlayStation’s favor. Over the 12 months through March, the PS5 outsold Xbox Series by 14.35 million units. Share moved 2.8 points toward PlayStation over that year, to 72.6 percent against 27.4 percent.

THE TWO-HORSE FILE THROUGH MARCH

• PS5 total: 91.52 million units in 65 months, 72.6 percent of the pair.
• Xbox Series total: 34.57 million units, 27.4 percent of the pair.
• Lead: 56.94 million units for PlayStation, up 0.72 million in March.
• Year’s gap: 14.35 million extra PS5 units across the 12 months through March.

Those percentages describe only PS5 plus Xbox Series. They do not describe the whole living-room market, which in March belonged to a third box. A hardware lead this large is sticky, which is why the 72.6 percent split keeps getting used as a verdict on Sony’s year. The March file is a last-gen comparison, and on that clock Sony is not ahead of itself.

A 17 Million Unit Hole Versus Last Gen

Align the same 65 months to March 2019 and the previous Sony-Microsoft pair is still larger. Combined PS5 and Xbox Series sales are 126.09 million. Combined PS4 and Xbox One sales at the same mark were 143.44 million. Last generation leads by 17.35 million units.

That hole grew in March by 0.55 million units. It grew by 7.14 million over the 12 months through March. The PS4 and Xbox One went on to 175.16 million lifetime combined, which leaves the current pair 49.07 million short of that finished total with the next boxes already in view.

MONTH 65, THIS GENERATION AGAINST THE LAST

The PS4 later reached 117.20 million lifetime, so the PS5 is 25.68 million behind that finished run. D’Angelo’s PS5-versus-PS4 note says the older box crossed 95 million in month 66, 100 million in month 72, and 105 million in month 74. Sony is still in range of those marks if holiday software hits. Microsoft is not in range of Xbox One.

Switch 2 Outsold PlayStation and Xbox Combined

The last-gen hole has a current-month cause. In March 2026 the Nintendo Switch 2 was the best-selling console in the VGChartz worldwide ranking, at 1,765,356 units, for a lifetime total of 18.93 million. The PS5 was second, at 858,014. The original Switch was third, at 217,621. Xbox Series was fourth, at 140,798.

MARCH 2026 WORLDWIDE UNIT RANKING

Add the two 2020 boxes and March still comes to 998,812 units. The Switch 2 beat that pair by 766,544. Year to date through March, Switch 2 had 3.34 million, the PS5 2.08 million, the original Switch 0.59 million, and Xbox Series 0.39 million.

March 2019, the aligned month for last gen, looked different. The PS4 sold 1,120,732 units that month and Xbox One sold 428,062. The PS5 was 262,718 behind that PS4 March. Xbox Series was 287,264 behind that Xbox One March, and down 152,169 units, or 51.9 percent, from March 2025.

How Far Xbox Series Trails Xbox One

The Xbox gap is the structural one. At 65 months Xbox One had 48.55 million units. Xbox Series has 34.57 million. The 13.97 million miss is not a late-cycle fade after a close race. D’Angelo’s own 33-month hardware estimates already had the PS5 at 40.83 million and Xbox Series at 22.82 million, an 18.01 million lead. His 40-month worldwide sales comparison had 55.47 million against 28.04 million. The lead was 27.43 million then and 56.94 million at month 65.

Microsoft stopped publishing Xbox hardware unit totals years ago, so every Series figure in this file is an estimate. The company’s own money lines match the direction. Xbox hardware revenue fell 33 percent year over year in Microsoft’s January-March quarter, after several prior quarters of hardware decline.

Phil Spencer, then head of Xbox, said in February 2025 that he had stopped trying to move PlayStation and PC players onto Xbox hardware. Players were already invested where their games lived, he said, and the cut Microsoft takes on other platforms helped fund the catalog.

I’m not trying to move them all over to Xbox anymore. We’re all so invested in where our games are, let’s just allow more people to play.

Phil Spencer, then Xbox lead, February 2025

Asha Sharma, who succeeded him as Microsoft Gaming CEO, put a price on the old model in a 2026 memo. Excluding Activision Blizzard King, she wrote, Xbox had spent over $20 billion in five years on content, platform, and hardware subsidy while annual revenue declined by nearly half a billion. She said the division could not keep making as many consoles as players wanted to buy and needed a new hardware business model as it stays committed to Helix, the next Xbox.

The remaining Xbox consumer offer is software access, not a 48 million-unit box. That is the logic behind the Game Pass tier reset, which moved what you pay without retiring the paywall. It is also the backdrop for Xbox division job cuts that landed after the hardware line had already shrunk.

Sony Shipped 16 Million PS5 Consoles Last Fiscal Year

Sony’s books are sell-in to retailers, including returned and refurbished units, so they sit above VGChartz’s sell-through estimates. Sony Interactive Entertainment’s hardware table shows 16.0 million PS5 units in fiscal 2025, which ended March 31, 2026, and 1.5 million in that fiscal fourth quarter.

SONY PS5 SELL-IN, RECENT FISCAL YEARS

• Fiscal 2023: 20.8 million units, the peak year on Sony’s table.
• Fiscal 2024: 18.5 million units.
• Fiscal 2025: 16.0 million units, with 1.5 million in January-March.
• Fiscal 2026, first quarter: 1.6 million units, April-June.

By June 30, 2026, Sony listed more than 95 million PS5 units shipped, and PlayStation monthly active users at 125 million. The official tally confirms the VGChartz order of magnitude without erasing the PS4 miss on the aligned clock. Fiscal 2025 hardware was already down from 18.5 million to 16.0 million as Sony raised prices and started spending on the next platform.

US tracker Circana later recorded the price hangover. Senior director Mat Piscatella said May 2026 PlayStation hardware unit sales in the United States were the lowest for any May since 2000, down 58 percent year over year, with spending down 43 percent. Xbox units fell 12 percent, the lowest May on Circana’s record, though spending rose 7 percent on higher average prices. The average price paid for new hardware hit $502. That May file is a different country and a later month than D’Angelo’s worldwide March estimates, and it points the same way.

The Installed Base Publishers Will Chase

On the VGChartz last-gen comparison page, D’Angelo answered a reader who said the industry was cooked. He agreed the current hardware race was effectively over unless Helix and PlayStation 6 slip to 2029 or 2030, and he still expected Xbox Series to finish about 20 million units behind Xbox One.

I agree this is pretty much over barring Project Helix and PS6 not coming out until 2029 or 2030. Even so the Xbox Series will finish ~20 million behind Xbox One.

William D’Angelo, VGChartz lead analyst, May 10, 2026

Third parties do not need that forecast to set a queue. A 91.52 million PS5 base against 34.57 million Xbox Series boxes is already a 2.6-to-1 install gap at month 65. The GTA 6 console-first window will land on that split, not on a 2019 Xbox One footprint. Patch, staff, and marketing time follow the larger stack of machines.

The March 2026 comparison does not crown a historic PlayStation generation. It shows Sony running a little behind its own last box while Microsoft runs far behind Xbox One, with Switch 2 taking the monthly sales that used to pad both. D’Angelo’s working assumption is that Xbox Series still ends about 20 million units short of Xbox One even if the next hardware slips to 2029 or 2030.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Did the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S Launch?

Xbox Series X|S launched worldwide on November 10, 2020. The PlayStation 5 launched on November 12, 2020 in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, then on November 19, 2020 in the rest of the world, which is why VGChartz treats March 2026 as month 65 for both.

What Is the Difference Between Sony Sell-In and VGChartz Sell-Through?

Sony’s hardware table counts units shipped to retailers and distributors and includes returned and refurbished consoles, which is why its cumulative PS5 figure was already above 95 million by June 30, 2026, while VGChartz estimated 91.52 million sold through to customers by the end of March.

How Fast Did the PlayStation 4 Hit 100 Million Units?

On D’Angelo’s aligned clock the PS4 crossed 95 million in month 66, 100 million in month 72, and 105 million in month 74, and it finished at 117.20 million lifetime, a pace the PS5 had not matched at month 65.

Why Are Xbox Series Sales Estimated Instead of Official?

Microsoft stopped publishing Xbox hardware unit totals during the Xbox One generation and has not resumed a running Series X|S figure, so worldwide unit counts for this generation come from estimators such as VGChartz and from deductions in publisher install-base comments rather than from a Microsoft unit table.