Selling six million units during the first quarter of a calendar year is a feat within the reach of few. Let’s put the number in context. During this period, the best record for PlayStation 4 is the 3.1 million it managed to place between January and March 2014, while the best first quarter for Nintendo Switch was 2021 with 4.73 million units shipped. Both PS4 and Switch are two of the best-selling consoles in history with 117 and 122.55 million units, respectively. We’ll see how far PS5 goes.
If PS5 has managed to sell 6.3 million units during the first quarter of 2023, it is because it can now be easily found in stores. Since the console’s launch in November 2020 there have been serious supply issues and it wasn’t until earlier this year that Sony promised wider distribution. And the party doesn’t end here. The Japanese company plans to close the current fiscal year that will end on March 31, 2024 by selling 25 million PS5s, which would represent a record for PlayStation history. If this happens, a total of 63.4 million PS5s will have been transferred.
There are two reasons why Sony is optimistic: the data it has on the rate of PS4 users making the jump to PS5 and the number of new customers.
Regarding online services, PlayStation Plus has 47.4 million subscribers, the same as a year ago, while PlayStation Network registered 108 million active users per month, two million more than a year ago. And finally, the economic figures. The Game & Network Services division, that is, PlayStation, registered revenue of 1,073,198 million yen (7,200 million euros) during the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, a year-on-year increase of 61%, while total revenue for the fiscal year they were 3,644,598 million yen (24,439 million euros), 30% more than the previous year.
