Sony’s next-generation hardware: PlayStation 5 put 3.3 million units on the market in the last quarter.

PlayStation 5 continues to sell at a good pace despite all the restocking problems in the shops, at least enough to follow a path not too different from the one achieved by PS4 in the market in its first year. As Sony announced during its latest fiscal results, 13.4 million consoles have already been shipped as of 30 September. This is a great success.

This means that, in the last quarter, the Japanese firm has managed to sell 3.3 million PlayStation 5s, matching the figures for PS4 in its first summer in shops. For reference, PlayStation 4 had sold 13.8 million consoles by this time. It is unclear whether PlayStation 5 will have the momentum for the Christmas campaign to close the gap and beat its predecessor’s sales record.

The manufacturer’s financial report also gives good figures for PlayStation 4. 200,000 devices were sold during the summer, bringing the total sales of the eighth-generation system to 116 million units.

76.4 million games sold

Moving away from PlayStation 5 console sales and into software territory, 76.4 million PS5 and PS4 games were purchased between July and September, down from 81.8 million games in the same period in 2020. This decline is mainly due to the performance of exclusive developments, with sales of 7.6 million PlayStation Studios games sold, compared to 12.8 million the previous summer – coinciding with the release of Ghost of Tsushima. Finally, digital games accounted for 62% of total video game sales on the platform.

The number of PlayStation Plus subscribers continues to rise in the summer months. The Japanese multinational puts the total number of active users on PlayStation Network at 104 million in the services territory, with 47.2 million PS Plus subscribers. This figure is a significant improvement on the last known figure, in August, of 46.3 million users, and the figure achieved a year ago 45.9 million.

Best summer ever in revenue

All the figures across hardware, software, services and peripherals allow PlayStation to achieve its best summer ever in terms of revenue. The division generated ¥645.5 billion – €4,892 million at current exchange rates – registering a year-on-year growth of 27%. Operating revenues fell by 22% to 82.7 billion yen (630 million euros).

To further improve these figures, the stock problems for the consoles must come to an end, something that AMD believes will not happen in the short term. However, it also remains to be seen the impact on the company’s accounts of the new policy of opening the division to launch its exclusives on PC, which a few days ago confirmed the release of God of War on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.

Source: Sony