High Expectations for PS5
Sony has confidently declared that their latest console, the PS5 will hit record-breaking targets which they predicted for this year.
At the start of the current financial year, Sony sold 3.3 million PS5s in just three months (April to June). This number is much higher than the 2.4 million sold at the same time last year, but it’s not as much as they hoped for.
Their target is to sell 25 million units of PS5 in this financial year. If they manage to pull this off, it will set a new record for a PlayStation console. It has sold over 40 million units ever since its release in November 2020. To our surprise, the figure is slightly behind its predecessor, the PS4.
Sony’s president Hiroki Totoki said, “We believe that there is ample possibility for us to catch up,”. And Reuters reported that the company is planning to increase sales momentum through various promotions.
For now, the PlayStation business keeps showing impressive financial results. Sales for the three-month period rose by 28%, reaching 771.9 billion yen ($5.3 billion). This increase was driven by higher sales of third-party games, add-on content, more hardware sales, and the influence of exchange rates. However, operating income decreased by 7% to 49.2 billion yen ($343 million). This was primarily due to higher expenses linked to Sony’s acquisition of Bungie, the developer behind Destiny, for $3.6 billion.
For this current financial year, Sony revised the sales to go up by 7% to 4.1 trillion yen ($29.1 billion). However, the predicted operating income remains unchanged due to “deterioration in the profitability” of the PS5 hardware, “mainly due to changes in promotions by geographic region and the sales channel mix”.
Sony might be referring to different temporary price cuts for the console. This includes the recent discount this month where it was available for at least $449.99 in the U.S., £399.99 in the UK, and €459.99 in Germany.
Sony also talks about the “impact of changes in the launch dates of a portion of first-party titles”. Again, they might be referring to the delay of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer project. PlayStation is set to receive a mega boost when Spiderman-2 comes out on 20 October. All we can do is wait and see what the future holds.