A Lot of PS4 Owners Have Yet to Upgrade to PS5 1
Image: Push Square

There’s a lot of talk on social media this week about the number of gamers still using their PS4 consoles. Sony announced during its latest earnings call that it had shipped 59.3 million PS5 consoles. However, the PSN as a whole has around 118 million monthly active users, meaning at least half are still playing on PS4. (Although a very small proportion of the numbers will be occupied by PS3 and PS Vita as well.)

This has, as is so often the case on social media, led to an outpouring of overwhelming negativity. Many feel gamers aren’t transitioning to PS5 because of its lack of exclusive games, with a large proportion of major titles like EA Sports FC, Fortnite, and Call of Duty Warzone still perfectly playable on the last-gen console. We’re sure it’s a factor.

However, it’s always been the case that there’s a steady transition from one system to the next. For example, PS2 sold a ton of units after the release of PS3, and was still supported long into its successor’s life cycle. It’s true that the PS3 died a relatively quick death in comparison, but this was more down to Sony’s desire to move on from a device which had proved challenging to develop for (and a very long generation).

The platform holder has repeatedly reiterated that it’s working to transition players from PS4 to PS5, but it won’t necessarily be concerned with these numbers. The most important thing is that it’s keeping gamers in its ecosystem, and until it can bring the price of PS5’s hardware down – it’s still very expensive compared to the PS4 at the same point in its lifecycle – then we’re likely to see a lot of players continuing to play on last-gen hardware.

[source twitter.com]