The latest Sony financial report reveals that the PS5 has sold 4.5 million copies in the period from its launch on November 12 to December 31. As a direct comparison we have the PS4 that in the same period in 2013 sold 4.2 million copies. So, as Sony itself says, the demand for PS5 is unprecedented.
The Japanese company communicated to investors through a report that some losses are due to its “competitive pricing strategy” (page 9) that were advertised below manufacturing cost. It was not clarified how much the difference is, but according to several analysts, the price is 450 dollars, so Sony would lose money especially with the digital edition that only costs 400 dollars.
Profit in spite of everything
On the other hand, the news is not even half as negative as one can imagine, Sony reports 3.5 billion dollars in net profit in 2020. And this without counting the money for DLCs and digital games in seasonal offers like Black Friday or Christmas , in addition to other departments such as animation and mobile games in Japan.
So the losses of PS5 have been highly compensated by digital services that only know how to keep growing. PlayStation Plus already has nearly 48 million subscribers, 10 million more than last year. For its part, the PlayStation 4 sold 6.2 million copies throughout the year, while last year it sold 14, so this hardware begins to say goodbye.
Lastly, the price of the PS5 is expected to continue to decline, but also the manufacturing price and its components. This normally happens one year after launch, although the exceptional situation with the pandemic may change these plans due to the low availability of many chips. In fact, Lisa Su, CEO of AMD has already clarified that the shortage will continue at least until summer.
You can see the full financial report here.
