PlayStation Network generated over $12.5 billion USD of revenue in 2018, making Sony's network service a bigger earner than Microsoft's entire gaming division and all of Nintendo.

<em>Sony's yearly PSN sales (via Daniel Ahmad)</em>

<em>PlayStation and Nintendo's quarterly network sales (via Daniel Ahmad)</em>

Loading

As highlighted by Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad on Twitter , the figure sets a new high for yearly PSN-related revenue, topping 2017's then-record-setting amount. Included in that total is revenue generated by full game downloads, add ons, and subscriptions.The analyst noted PSN's $12.5 billion is "higher than Nintendo's total revenue for 2018." Sony's network also beat out Microsoft's gaming division last year, which generated $11.5 billion, according to Ahmad As evidenced by the graph below, an even more staggering difference can be seen when strictly comparing Sony and Nintendo's network-related revenue. "Despite the boost last quarter from Switch Online, Nintendo digital revenue is still tiny," wrote Ahmad.As network services continue to generate greater amounts of revenue, Sony appears ready to build upon PSN. As posted by Ahmad , Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said increasing network services is currently the "largest opportunity" for PlayStation. He added PSN sees over 90 million active users each month.On the hardware front, Sony recently revealed it has sold 91.6 million PlayStation 4s globally, as of December 31, 2018.In related news, a new patent filed by Sony has fans hopeful for backward compatibility on the next PlayStation

Jordan is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter @jdsirani