PlayStation enters Guinness Record for console sales

The long-running Sony PlayStation brand on Tuesday entered the Guinness World Records for having the highest number of consoles sold in history with over 450 million units sold.

Sony announced the feat with a tweet showing the Guinness World Record certificate.

The PlayStation brand was born in 1994 with the original console, which was considered revolutionary for its time as it featured a CD drive despite being a 5th generation console, a technical revolution matched only by the failed Sega Saturn, while Nintendo was still using cartridges. The console sold over 102 million units.

It was succeeded by the PlayStation 2, which released in 2000 and was considered another revolution in the console industry as it featured DVD playback support and backward compatibility with PlayStation games. The console sold over 155 million units, a number that is still untouched by any other gaming console.

The PlayStation 3, released in 2006, was a step back for the brand. It featured a highly complex processor called 'Cell', which was criticised for being difficult to program for years even after its initial release. It was also very expensive, coming in at over $400 to $600 on release. It sold 87 million units, just a little more than the sales of Xbox 360, which sold 84 million units.

PlayStation returned in a big form in PlayStation 4, however, it used a simpler PC-like x86 architecture powered by AMD. It was released in 2013 and has had two revisions since - a slim model with the same performance as the launch unit, and a more powerful Pro model supporting 4K resolution and HDR gaming. The console has sold over 100 million units.

Sony has announced the PlayStation 5 for a Holiday 2020 release. While the exact design and specifications are still unknown, the company has announced that it will continue to use the x86 architecture, powered by AMD's newest Zen 2 CPU core and the Navi GPU. It is set to feature hardware-accelerated ray-tracing. It will also have a high-performance 'custom' SSD.