The PS4's first holiday season for example can be the end of 2014 where Sony sold through 4.1 million units to end users between November 23rd 2014 and January 4th 2015. The console had been released in over 123 countries and regions at this time. Including the whole of November, sell through exceeded 1.9 million units during the final two months of the year in North America.
The Sony PlayStation 2 saw its first proper holiday season at the end of 2001, a year after it had been released in North America and Europe. The console sold through more than 5.3 million units worldwide between November 26th 2001 and January 6th 2002. This is compared to 4.1 million PlayStation 4 consoles during the same time period in 2014. Going back to the PS2, Japan saw 1.1 million units sold, North America with approximately 2.5 million and Europe with over 1.7 million. Including the whole month of November, total sales exceeded 6.85 million units to end users in the final two months of the year.
The Sony PlayStation 3 saw its first holiday season at the end of 2007 with 1.2 million units sold through to end users in North America between November 23rd and December 31st. Including the whole month of November, total sell through exceeded 1.4 million in North America. Worldwide sell through figures are not available for the PlayStation 3 during its first holiday season.
The Sony PlayStation 2's second holiday season ran from November 3rd 2002 through to January 5th 2003. During this period Sony sold through more than 8.5 million units to end users breaking all records for console sell through at the time. North America accounted for more than 4 million units, Europe accounted for more than 3.4 million units whilst Japan saw sales of 940,000 for the final two months of the year.
The Sony PlayStation 3's second holiday season ran from November 23rd through to December 29th 2008. Worldwide sell through for the console exceeded 2.2 million units with North America accounting for almost 1 million units alone. Total sell through for the final two months of 2008 exceeded 1.1 million units in North America.
The Sony PlayStation 2's third holiday season ran from November 2nd 2003 through to the 4th of January 2004. Worldwide sell through to end users exceeded 7.83 million during this period with 2.94 million units sold through in North America, 3.56 million in Europe and 1.11 million sold in Japan. To compare, the last two months of 2001 saw 6.85 million units sold through, the last two months of 2002 saw 8.5 million units sold through and the last two months of 2003 saw 7.83 million units sold through.
The Sony PlayStation 3 saw more than 3.8 million units sold through worldwide during its third holiday season which ran from November 23rd 2009 through to December 28th 2009. This huge boost in sales can be attributed to the new slim PS3 which launched at a lower price as well as great software titles such as Uncharted 2 which sold more than 3 million units before the end of the year.
Whilst the PS4 has easily beaten PS3 holiday sales for 2007 and also peak sales for the PS3 in 2009/11 it has failed to match the PS2's first holiday season.