Highlights
- PS5 sales dipped 27% from April to June 2024, with just 2.4 million units sold as the console enters the latter half of its lifecycle.
- Despite this dip, the console has sold an impressive 61.7 million units during its lifetime.
- The current-gen console's rate of adoption is still slower compared to the PS4 over the same period of time.
Sony's latest quarterly fiscal report reveals that PlayStation 5 sales numbers have declined year-over-year. Although the PS5 has ranked high on global sales charts since its launch in late 2020, it seems the sales pace for the current-generation system has started to slow down.
During its February 2024 earnings call, Sony predicted the commercial drop-off and attributed it to the PS5 entering the latter stage of its lifecycle. This even led to the gaming giant scaling back its FY2025 (April 2024 to April 2025) sales forecast for the PS5 to 18 million units. For perspective, the PS5's initial FY2024 (April 2023 to April 2024) sales projection was a lofty 25 million units, which was later slashed to 21 million units. Interestingly, PS5 shipments for FY2024 still fell short of the reduced forecast by roughly 200,000 units, which likely encouraged Sony to set a more reasonable target for the current financial year.
Sony's Q1 FY2025 financial report has now been released, and it shows that the company sold 2.4 million PS5 units from April to June 2024. This translates to a 27% dip compared to the 3.3 million units the console sold in the first quarter of FY2024. However, it's worth mentioning that 2023 is considered a peak sales year for the PS5 due to supply chain pipelines finally clearing up after two years and allowing for widespread availability of the current-gen machine. Therefore, a year-over-year sales decline was likely aligned with Sony's expectations and doesn't allude to a sharp drop in demand for the PS5.
Updated PS5 Lifetime Sales
- 61.7 million units and counting
By contrast, Microsoft recently announced that Xbox Series X/S sales were down 42% in the same timeframe, despite already being 31% down in the preceding quarter. Aside from quarterly sales figures, Sony's Q1 FY2025 fiscal report revealed that the PS5 has exceeded 60 million lifetime sales, currently sitting at just over 61.7 million units. Moreover, Sony also recorded a monthly active user count of 116 million during this quarter, which is 7.5% higher than the 108 million users recorded last year. However, subtracting the PS5's current sales numbers reveals that over 54 million PlayStation users are still on the PS4.
While the numbers are slowly skewing in favor of the PS5, the current-gen console's rate of adoption is still slower compared to the PS4 on a time-aligned basis. Many players blame cross-generation games and the lack of blockbuster first-party exclusives for the PS5's stunted adoption. However, with the highly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 confirmed for a fall 2025 release, as well as Sony's own pipeline of unannounced first-party titles, the company might just see an inverse bell curve for PS5 demand in the coming years.
Brand Sony Storage 825 GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD Resolution Max 8K (4k at 120 Hz playable) Ports 2x USB-C, 2x USB 3.1, and 1x Ethernet Original Release Date November 12, 2020 Hardware Versions PS5 Original MSRP (USD) Disc Edition: $499.99; Digital Edition: $399.99 Weight Disc Edition: 9.9 LBS; Digital Edition: 8.6 LBS Dimensions 15.4 in × 10.2 in × 4.1 in Processor AMD Zen 2, 8-core / 16 threads, 3.5GHz Expand $450 at Official SiteSee at Walmart$450 at Best Buy$425 at Amazon
