PS5 Sales Hit 17.3 Million, Now Selling Slower Than PS4

I must say that pandemic a supply constraints literally helped Microsoft.

They had literally no 1st party game for 6 months after Series X/S launched but they still sold out their systems. Meanwhile Sony was firing on all cylinders but it would not make a bump into console sales because there is no additional consoles to be sold.

And by the time this shortages will be over, Microsoft would have Starfield out and 2023 is looking insane in terms of their first-party output.

It's like this pandemic tried to hurt PlayStation.

So that’s 18M now and about what I thought.
Let’s be honest if they could produce 25M they would have sold all of them too.
I was under the impression there was good feeling from AMD about better availability in second half of this year. Maybe not 🤷🏼‍♂️

@lolwhatno Of course I'm not being serious.
But it really gave Microsoft waiting time to get their first-party ***** together without providing Sony with so much market share advantage that they had during PS4 era.

No wonder they want to release 10 Live Service Games until 2026 with PS5 selling behind PS4. They wanna make more money of Games that sell less. The new SIE Leadership really will hurt PS in the end

@lolwhatno the chip shortage has some responsibility for Sony's inability to meet demand, which is what they blame for the rate of sales slowing to the point that it's behind where the PS4 was at this point in its life.

I'm inclined to agree

The fact its done as well as it has already is truly impressive in these circumstances.

Switch sold 13.1 in its 1st year and is considered huge success. Ps5 sold 17.3 in its 1st year it is far from failure this is the beginning and also in the middle of a pandemic.

@Pandam please add something to indicate this is a joke, otherwise you're going to get moderated for inappropriate comments (spreading conspiracy theories)

62% digital during a Christmas Quarter is kinda crazy, that’s the strongest quarter for physical games. The year before is was only 53% digital during the same quarter.

Maybe this will be highly speculative from me - but if the first impression people have about PS5 for almost 1.5 year is that it is something premium and very hard to get - this consumer view could carry on through the whole generation, causing really high sales once those issues with production are reduced...

I'm still waiting to hear from Sony on the direct sales. They confirmed I'm on the list. I'm not going to buy any games until I have a PS%. I just can't stand the loading screens on PS4 anymore so I will save all of the games released in the last couple of years to play on PS5. It's ridiculous that a really engaged gamer like me has not been able to get the console for over a year.

@Pandam you forgot to add /s

@Apfelschteiner ive only ever seen 1 in the wild. Ironically it was the week after i buckled and paid slightly over the odds for one. My mates been looking everywhere for one and hes only managed to find a few on Facebook. The lowest that hes seen them for, new, that dont look like scams are about £500.

@Majk_SVK it definitely worked for Wii... until it didn't. It had really strong sales for the first few years and then they fell of a cliff.

@Apfelschteiner indeed. I know plenty of people who got one, just cuz they wanted one, but have bought one or two games for it or no games at all yet. Loyal customers should have come first.

@jrt87 it will until 2023 at least. The global supply chain for semiconductors is fragile, with only a handful of places able to manufacture the cutting edge chips. And it takes years to build new plants, so they've not got a good way to deal with a backlog.

Sony made a wrong call to abandon ps4 early.The lack of any sony product in shelves is the worst thing a company could do especially during christmas.They lost a big chunk of new customers and software sales and don't forget that a happy customer will stick to a company for new products (ps5, psvr2).

@lolwhatno Point is the shortage is the only reason why it's not outselling the PS4.
I was able to get a PS4 off a shelf in a store of my choice in spring of 2014 (~5 months after launch, I wasn't looking for one before that).
Meanwhile, we're almost a year beyond that point with the PS5 and it's still not easy to get one (or even very hard in some markets). If it wasn't for the chip shortage and the demand could be met by supply, it would sell faster than the PS4.

I think the lack of PS5s could hurt Sony in the long run because people who are waiting to buy one are seeing the news about Microsoft acquiring huge publishers like ZeniMax and Activision Blizzard and they might change their minds and buy an Xbox instead. It's one thing if people have already bought a PS5, but there are still so many who wants to buy one and Microsoft has the opportunity to convince them now to purchase an Xbox instead, especially since the Series S is available everywhere.

So yeah, the shortage of PS5s could definitely hurt them in the long run because it's not certain that there will be as many potential buyers throughout the coming years as there are now. Not to mention that Microsoft is most likely going to buy another huge publisher in the foreseeable future and that will give people more incentive to buy an Xbox.

All the more frustrating for people that genuinely want one - there are currently 8 boxed ps5's for sale at Cex within a 10 mile radius of my house. They must be sitting on so much stock and at £650 will continue to do so.

Honestly with Horizon On the eh horizon, I’ve been getting tempted by scalp units.
Saw a PS5 for £600 in CEX the other day & that is pretty close to f*** this territory.

@MatthewJP My local CEX we’re selling them for £650 as well but they do sell out. It dropped to £620 a few weeks ago & now there’s just a single unit for £600.

17.3 million eh? Stack them up in your shed and you must have a very big one. Disperse around the world, however and they are scant indeed…

Shortage of PS5s plus very public Microsoft's acquisitions plus the readily available Series S and this could get to be a painful period for Sony.

Curiously, the PS4s seem to have been in short supply, only available in bursts, but obviously not as insane as the PS5.

Well, Jim Ryan’s plans for the brand are sure as hell putting a damper on my plans to ever own a PS5 myself, so…

@lolwhatno When there's lower supply than demand we always call it a shortage, regardless of the reasons behind the mismatch. That's just how English works. If we think the demand is unsustainable, we also call it a bubble (with the expectation that said bubble will, at some point, pop, leaving suppliers with excess stock). It doesn't currently look like a bubble though.

@lolwhatno Both are reasons why the console is hard to get. Only one of them is to blame for it selling slower than PS4. You can't say "high demand for the PS5 is why it's selling slower than PS4" - that doesn't make any sense
That's the point

Just imagine if it was available for anyone. It would have record sales numbers after its first year

At least it outsold the Wii U. Which isn't really saying much.

Still sells out mins within their being availability and given there is backwards compatibility, easily a stronger software line up than same time in ps4 life cycle.

To me, it's always a folly of thought to say 'if it weren't for supply issues, PS5s would be selling THIS much.' There's just too many variables to confidently say that. It would certainly be selling better, but there's no real way to quantity it. In fact, regardless of supply — whether it's been getting worse or not — a slow in sales is probably a continuing trend for PlayStation unless Sony can pull off some amazing revitalization.

I find it hard to believe there's even some astronomical demand not being met. Demand certainly is outpacing supply, but I've yet to anecdotally see evidence that the PS5 is that desirable of a buy. My more casual bro gamer coworkers aren't dying to get one. Some would've bought one at launch due to its hoopla, had it been easier to secure. But they've since calmed their consumerism, and see nary a reason to get a PS5 after a full year of game releases. And now the Acti-Blizz deal has them completely reconsidering alliances.

Sony certainly missed capturing some of the market while the iron was hot. But even then, I've yet to see demand in other parts of my personal life. My brother, a hardcore gamer through and through, has really just gone PC this generation. I could see him still buying a console if he saw some games. But nothing on PS5 has yet to catch his eye. My hard(ish)core gamer friends aren't losing any sleep over getting a PS5. Even me, the one person I know with a PS5 (albeit, one that's being fixed right now — dunno why people don't talk more about the console crashing when resting) only got one to access my digital PS4 collection, which has been inaccessible for years after I gave away my old PS4. The PS5 didn't have, and continues to lack, a system seller. And with HFW and GoWR being cross-generation, I don't see that changing until 2023.

I'm just not seeing fervent demand anywhere aside from PlayStation faithful. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, I'm just not convinced. Sure, it 'was' selling at a faster rate than previous top-selling consoles. But that happens every generation, because the gaming consumer base is constantly growing. The Series X|S is the fastest selling Xbox and I'm pretty sure the Switch has an alike record. But unless Sony and Microsoft (most of this applies to Microsoft's box as well) start getting something moving, I see their sales slowing down significantly regardless of supply. In general, this is the most tepid, uninspiring generational leap I've seen in my entire gaming career. And only so much of it can be blamed on the pandemic.

@RoomWithaMoose apart from all this, I also believe the race between Sony and MS to get a new generation going, happened too fast. Even this web site startet writing about the new gen months and months before we even knew if it was really going to happen. It's become a standard for a gen to last 6 or 7 years. I wonder when the hype for PS6 i going to start? The PS4 could easily have been the current gen during 2020 to 2022, and maybe the new consoles could've even been pushed to release late 2022 or early 2023.

@Majk_SVK

That’s kind of how the PS2 was. It was really hard to get to for the first year and a half. Once production caught up with demand the sales skyrocketed.

@RoomWithaMoose I'd guess that pretty much everyone who has a PS4 will have started out wanting a PS5 at some point, but a lot of them aren't bothered enough to buy at full price, especially while it's a lot of effort.

I can't see Sony lowering the price until demand at this price point is below what they're able to supply, but also I can see some portion of that people with a PS4 saying "f**kit, I'll get an Xbox for the multiplatform stuff", and then not being bothered remote to buy a second console this generation.

I'll still bet that nobody who keeps their PC up to date is choosing not to buy a PlayStation purely based on price, before anyone suggests that PC is the competition. People on PC either prefer to play there, aren't buying anything because this is their company laptop which they use for indie stuff and retrogaming, or have all the platforms that offer games they want to play, because money's not a big deal.

@gamer_since_83

Nah, we needed new consoles. The Jaguar CPU architecture is at its breaking point and the slow I/O and storage speeds of the previous consoles was really starting to get in the way of game experiences.

I wanted a fundamental rethink of I/O and storage back in 2019 after I played Red Dead Redemption. That’s game’s awful loading times broke me.

So it looks like things have gotten worse, rather than better. Year one they managed to produce 17.5 million console's, but year 2 they are going only making 11.5 million.

I work in an environment that relies heavily on electrical components and we’re not forecasting supply chain relief until 2023. All the major manufacturing was outsourced to China, and China’s COVID restrictions and power supply issues have constricted the supply flow.

I'm thinking I'm just gonna wait for a mid gen iteration. It will take that long for FF16 and VR2 to arrive anyway.

@Pandam 🤣🤣🤣 thank you ! I came here for a laugh

@Medic_Alert
Thing is we are talking shipped numbers but PS5 is almost as talking sold through numbers.
I just check on Amazon and the SS is available to deliver tomorrow 🤷🏼‍♂️

Of course if Sony had produced more units it would have sold more…

… however! I do think the supply constraints have actually given the console even more publicity and maybe even increased demand past what it would have been. People read that it’s the “must have” item and it’s rare to find etc. That sort of thing gets people going!

@Godot25 what? starfield is built on their trash creation engine so already its gonna be a buggy turd! Sony are still dominating with the shortage which says it all. Sony has wayyyyy bigger and better games coming out than anything failfesda or abusivision will ever release! Sony wins again!

@CrushALL ...did you think of those alt. developer names yourself ?

To be 3 million behind where PS4 was in a time when you can't make as many machines as you want because of shortages to components the sales so far are pretty impressive.

Yeah because most of us can't get one. I'm still trying to get them when they're back in stock and avoid scalpers. I've had the money sat in my account for months (protip, if you're in the UK and you've worked from home the last couple of years you can claim up to 312 quid a year back. Don't do it through a dodgy company, contact HMRC direct and they'll sort it) and I still can't find any online. I'm not even angry, I just want to play demons souls!!!!

@CrushALL Ehh, you sure bro? I'm not gonna pretend that I know how Starfield will end up, but I can't remember last time when BGS made bad and not popular singleplayer game.

And to say Sony is dominating, when they outsold Xbox One 2,3:1 and now it is more like 1,4:1 is just funny.

And those developer names just shows that either you are infantile or pretty stupid. So theres that

@RoomWithaMoose
"To me, it's always a folly of thought to say 'if it weren't for supply issues, PS5s would be selling THIS much.' There's just too many variables to confidently say that. It would certainly be selling better, but there's no real way to quantity it. In fact, regardless of supply — whether it's been getting worse or not — a slow in sales is probably a continuing trend for PlayStation unless Sony can pull off some amazing revitalization."

You may wanna re-read what you typed.

@Godot25 I've thought the same thing. Microsoft needs time to get their GP factory warmed up, and the pandemic has helped keep Sony from pulling away early in terms of sales momentum.

I know Starfield is Nov. (assuming it doesn't get delayed, which I'm actually expecting it will) and whatever that STALKER 2 game is was delayed to December, but I've not been able to find any confirmed 2023 releases on the system, so I'm curious about this "insane" output you're referencing for next year?

@Ralizah Well. For 2022 they should have Redfall, Starfield and Forza Motorsport reboot.

And for 2023 there is no confirmed date, but from reliable people (Grubb etc.) we pretty much know that Microsoft targets Avowed, Contraband, Hellblade 2, perfect Dark and few others for 2023. And if you want to count Blizzard too then you have also Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1404143222264193025

@Godot25 Def. won't be seeing Everwild next year, considering it's being rebooted under new leadership.

It'll be interesting to see which of those actually materialize next year, and what state they're in when they do.

Thanks for the link.

@Ralizah Yeah, I should have added, that Everwild is off the table (currently rumored for 2024 at best) and I also don't think that Fable would be out in 2023

This is very surprising

@naruball Urm... Nah. I stand by everything stated. Your comment is like an "AHA! Caught you!" that really doesn't catch anything.

I could've been less contradictory with my diction, as I do indeed say it's foolish to disregard supply and predict demand and yet go on to do just that. I should've said, "this much MORE" for clarifications sake. But the point was really that it's impossible to anticipate how much demand currently out weights supply. And that, disregarding supply altogether, it's hard to see demand doing anything but dwindle if things continue the way they are. Two points that are not contradictory per se; I felt that was instinctually clear given it's impossible to observe definite demand without equatable sales, but demand can always change. Still uncertain word choice on my end — I will still give you that.

A much stronger argument is debating the strength of my anecdotal evidence. Which is very easy to do. But the Internet likes to think catching ANY single contradiction in a point suddenly invalidates everything said.

@RoomWithaMoose ah, yes... Classic. "I will never admit I made a mistake; instead, let me explain what's wrong with you or your argument".

@naruball I did admit I made a mistake. But went on to explain why that mistake shouldn't obscure my point.

Seems like you have nothing much of substance to argue. Instead, you just dismiss my arguments for little reason.

PS5..the scalpers console. Garbage.