The PS5 continues to do well despite supply constraints
Apr 28, 2021
10:57 AM EDT
Sony has sold 7.8 million PlayStation 5 units since the console launched in November, the company revealed in its Q4 2020 earnings report.
The tech giant previously reported that 4.5 million consoles had been shifted in 2020, meaning that Sony moved an additional 3.3 million units between January 1st and March 31st when its fiscal year ended.
For context, the PS4 released in November 2013 and had hit 7.6 million units shipped as of March 31st, 2014. Therefore, the PS5 is already outpacing the PS4, even with the global semiconductor shortage that has been greatly limiting supply. These chips are used in a variety of industries, including the automotive business, which means that Sony — as well as Microsoft for its rival consoles, the Xbox Series X/S — must compete with many other companies.
On the flip side, Sony had predicted that it would hit 7.6 million PS5s sold by March 31st, so it’s still slightly ahead despite these constraints.
Sony also revealed that it has reached 47.6 million PlayStation subscribers and sold 338 million PS4 and PS5 games in the past year. These figures helped the company reach $24.4 billion USD (about $30.1 billion CAD) in gaming revenue in 2020.
Finally, Sony also shipped an additional million PS4 consoles in the last quarter, bringing the last-gen console’s life-to-date sales number to 115.9 million. The company has pledged to continue supporting the eight-year-old console, given its massive installed base. Many games are also getting released on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 for this reason, including Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Sackboy: A Big Adventure and the upcoming Horizon Forbidden West.
Source: Sony