Although the PlayStation 5 was released in November 2020, it took over two years to make up for a minor shortcoming…

Between 2020 and the end of 2022, we often heard from Sony and Microsoft that the pandemic had caused gaps in the supply chain, so the availability of their new-generation consoles had been hit hard, meaning there were not as many of them in stores as gamers wanted. The Nintendo Switch chuckled at it. During the epidemic, it went on such a rampage that despite its shorter lifespan, it overtook the PlayStation 4’s lifetime sales (Sony has long since stopped disclosing updates for it so that quarterly sales total less than 100K units worldwide).

Japan’s Famitsu reported that compared to February 2022 sales, Sony’s console showed a 457% increase in the second month of this year, so PlayStation 5 has not only significantly strengthened its sales in Europe and the US, but also in Sony’s domestic arena. (Although the PlayStation brand may be considered Americanized, the parent company is still Japanese!) In numbers, 65,772 PlayStation 5 units were sold in the Asian island nation during February 2022, compared to 366,982 this year. That’s more sold in February this year than in the first four months of the console’s launch combined!

It means that the PlayStation 5 has also taken the lead in Japan, which is unprecedented. Consequently, the Nintendo Switch’s performance has weakened by 41% compared to last February. Since February 2018, the Switch has been the best-selling console in Japan for five years. Given that the Switch has also been on the market for six years, it’s no wonder that the big N is already focusing on its successor (and rumors are there will be problems with backward compatibility…).

So the PlayStation 5 may indeed be over the shortage period. Now is the time to focus on perhaps cutting its price.

Source: PSL