Sony ranks highest in worldwide sales of video game consoles for the first time in the last eight years, outperforming Nintendo with a 2 million-plus margin.

Sony, the renowned electronics giant, has reported the highest worldwide sales of video game consoles across the industry during the fiscal year ending March 2014. The sales of the PS4 and other game systems helped the Japanese manufacturer outperform Nintendo for the first time in eight years. Sony sold a total of 18.7 million PS4 and other gaming consoles compared to Nintendo's 16.31 million sold units, according to the Nikkei business daily news report.

According to Asia Nikkei, Sony's overall unit sales declined 20 percent from last year. But the PlayStation 4 launch helped the company vastly with impressive sales in the United States and other countries since last November. In April, the PlayStation manufacturer said it had sold 7 million units of PS4 around the world, which was higher than Microsoft's Xbox One. The massive overall decline in console sales was reported across industry.

Despite Nintendo's 16.31 million units sold throughout the fiscal year ending March, the company witnessed a 31 percent drop in unit sales compared to last year. The sluggish sales of Nintendo 3DS and the new Wii U played a major role in the decline. Nikkei's original report claims the widespread use of smartphones in part drew the consumers away from the gaming consoles.

Sony did not have a favorable history before the launch of PlayStation 4. Until 2006, the company dominated the console game market with maximum sales, but the plummeting PlayStation 3 sales and stiff competition from Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS kept the Japanese multinational company from climbing to the top again.

Nikkei projects Sony to continue its dominance in the current fiscal year ending March 2014.

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