Sony announced in the last few hours that it has sold more than 50 million units of the PS5 since it hit the market in November 2020. A figure that is undoubtedly shocking and that promises to continue growing at a great rate.
According to the company, this achievement It took place on December 9 and was boosted by the launch of several important games this year. Specifically, cases of Spider-Man 2, EA Sports FC 24, Alan Wake 2 y Baldur’s Gate 3.
However, what really stands out is the pace at which Sony has managed to sell 50 million PS5s. It has been practically identical to that achieved with the PS4when the availability of the current generation console has been greatly affected during the pandemic due to the very high demand and shortage of semiconductors.
Let’s not forget that the stock problems of the PS5 only began to be resolved between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. Therefore, the fact that the device has reached 50 million units sold in almost the same period of time as its predecessor is formidable .
Let us keep in mind that the first market that received the PlayStation 4 It was North America, where it debuted on November 15, 2013. According to Sony, the console exceeded 50 million units sold globally. December 6, 2016. That is, in a period 159.4 weeks or 1,117 days.
In the case of the PS5, debuted on November 12, 2020 in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea. If we count until December 9 of this year, which is when Sony claims that it surpassed the 50 million sold mark, we are talking about 160.2 weeks or 1,122 days. A brutal performance, especially if we consider that the PlayStation 5 was practically impossible to get throughout 2021 and much of 2022.
The PS5 has already sold more than 50 million units worldwide
To take a deeper look at how impactful the PS5’s business performance has been in 2023, we can take some additional data. In the first days of January, when Jim Ryan announced at CES that it would no longer be torture to obtain the console, he indicated that more than 30 million units globally.
In itself, this was presented as a good sign, considering that in November 2022 global sales were around 25 million PlayStation 5. At the end of April, meanwhile, Sony indicated that they had exceeded sales projections for the last quarter of fiscal year 2022, between January 1 and March 31, 2023. This had allowed them to reach 38.4 million units sold.
At the end of July, meanwhile, it was reported that the PS5 had sold 40 million units worldwide. And with the arrival of 50 million, it is evident that The pace of marketing between August and the beginning of December has accelerated.
Sony seems on track to meet its two major objectives before the end of fiscal year 2023, which ends on March 31, 2024. On the one hand, reaching 63.4 million PS5s sold since its launch. On the other hand, complete the shipment of 25 million units of the console in a period of 12 months. If it achieves the latter, it will break the record set by the original PlayStation in fiscal 1998, with 22.6 million units shipped.
Another curious fact is that sales of the PS5 would be drastically widening the gap with those of the Xbox Series X|S. According to Financial Times, For every three next-generation PlayStations, only one of Microsoft’s consoles would be marketed. In any case, this is unofficial, since Redmond does not provide formal data on the sales of its devices since 2014.
