PS5 Push Square

Sony has shared in its first fiscal year 2024 financials report that 2.4 million PS5 consoles were sold during Q1, meaning the current-gen system has now sold 61.7 million units overall. This is a decrease of 900,000 purchases when stacked against the same period last year, though Sony did make gains in other sectors like an increase in operating income and improved game software and network services sales.

The millions of yen Sony has generated is at its highest in an entire year across network services, which it states is due to PS Plus. Sales of PS5, PS4 titles dropped by almost two million compared to Q1 in fiscal year 2023, down to 53.6 million. Of those, six million purchases were for a first-party game published by Sony. While some comparisons are down, the ratio of physical to digital purchases on PlayStation is at its highest for a year. 80 per cent of all games sold across PS5, PS4 were for a digital copy, sourced from the PS Store.

Following its Q1 figures report, the company has revised its gaming division's forecasts slightly, increasing its sales and operating income by three per cent.

Whether these results are seen as good for Sony and PlayStation or not depends on who you talk to. Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki thinks it's a concern that the pace of PS5 hardware sales has declined faster than what the market expected. Meanwhile, Christopher Dring of GamesIndustry.biz thinks sales of third-party games could drive PS5 console purchases as it makes up for the comparatively weaker first-party lineup for 2024.

Speaking to VGC, industry analyst Dr Serkan Toto said the numbers are actually "quite solid" for what has been a quiet period for PlayStation Studios output. "The big weak spot, however, is hardware sales. The year on year drop is not surprising but quite significant. Sony can only hope that Astro Bot or the one or other new games coming this year will make people go out and buy PS5s again."

[source sony.com, via videogameschronicle.com]