Consoles Are Alive and Well As PS5 Hits Over 75 Million Units Shipped Worldwide

@get2sammyb I think that most of those who „can’t currently afford it“ could, but don’t want to, because CoD, FC, GTA5 and F2Ps still run well enough on their PS4s. GTA6 will change this.

Crazy that it feels like this generation will really start with GTA6 (at least in my perception).

With GTA6 they will surpass PS4 sales that's a fact.

Again IGNs recent narrative of "plummeting" console sales seemed to happily choose to ignore that Playstation and Nintendo are doing really good business. Only one manufacturer of Hardware is down.

I really do think one of the few time Sacred Symbols are excellent is they actually understand the business side. The current games media generally doesn't outside of Mat, Dring and GI Biz.

I seen some weirdo at Gematsu who said most of those 75 million units bought by scalpers lmao.

But good news for Sony, which i hope they keeps the games coming 🍻

I guess you don’t really need exclusive to sell consoles

Impressive. I think that, if it weren’t for the pandemic induced shortages early on, it may well be ahead. And, of course, if there wasn’t rampant inflation and a cost of living crises.

Interested to know the overall picture though - in terms of individual people playing on any console. Have the Xbox player loses migrated to Sony or Nintendo, or have they moved to PC or even (puke) mobile?

They'd have probably sold even more if they stopped releasing cross gen games alot sooner

There will be plenty of people who think to themselves "why bother buying a PS5 when I can still play most of the games I want to on my PS4"

@get2sammyb I get with the price and agree it would be great if they could get the sticker price down some.

But I think they are waiting to see what the switch 2 releases at. Because I think the s2 is going to be relatively high compared to the first one.

@PuppetMaster Gematsu's comment section is basically trolls at this point. The site itself is amazing in how quick they upload news even for smaller stuff but horrible community.

@Olliemar28 I find the Hookshot sites to generally be decent at covering the business side too. It is just very frustrating when a lot of the biggest sites don't have dedicated people who look into the numbers of the business.

@get2sammyb Totally Agree. The Pro should have been $550-$600 with the slim taking a little price drop.

Also over 80% of the consoles sold have been the disc version. The death of physical media is overblown. People wouldn't be paying more for a disc drive if they didn't want it.

@get2sammyb Imagine a price drop in time for GTA though 😬.

@Jireland92 I just bought my PS5 last month. Most games like RE4 I was just playing on my PS4. Astro Bot is what finally sold me on upgrading. So I think exclusives have definitely helped ship units the last year or so.

And certain people say consoles are dying 🤣

@Ultimapunch Exactly, the digital vs physical data is skewed anyway as it includes sales of older games and games that don't have a physical version to begin with, and there's always a sale on the store every week. It also doesn't include the massive second hand market, Physical games are still in high demand but publishers (including Sony) don't want you to think that as they would rather sell digital copies and maximise their profits.

@Ultimapunch it’s not really the exclusives people are buying the PS5 for at this point. If you look at the games that are actually selling on the system it’s mostly multi platform titles and more specifically sports titles like FIFA. Tbh the people buying consoles are casual gamers who go to PS5 because they had a PS4 last generation and it’s an eco system they’re familiar with. Many of the hardcore crowd are switching to PC.

Shipped isn't the same as sold

@breakneck Yeah trolls who mostly are nintendo fanboys. I hope this site community doesn't turn like Gematsu because i've seen recent comments that gave me Gematsu toxic smell.

@get2sammyb
This is probably an unpopular take, but I actually think that Sony is finding big problems getting the price down.

I think its a little high, so that this gen they can keep doing their regular 50 £/€/$ off sales, but the launch price of the Pro and lack of permanent price drops in the base console, show that this tech just isnt getting much cheaper over time like we were used to seeing in previous generations.

What this means for PS6 I dont know, but I do know I would prefer them to launch Base and Pro next gen, both on day 1 (rather than upgrade half way through).

@Randinator123 this is brand new information!

@Member_the_game Literally true for me until Astro Bot.

@Rich33 I don't know why that would be an unpopular take. It's objectively true. You had covid which destroyed supply chains. That was followed up by global inflation during the economic recovery from covid. And now when things were just starting to get a bit settled you have the World's two largest economies throwing pot shot tariffs at each other. It's going to be difficult for a price drop to occur under these circumstances. There's just been way too much uncertainty over the last five years.

This is basically confirmation that Xbox has sold less than 30 million lol.

@Member_the_game

They'd have probably sold even more if they stopped releasing cross gen games alot sooner
There will be plenty of people who think to themselves "why bother buying a PS5 when I can still play most of the games I want to on my PS4"

There’s a fundamental flaw in this analysis. It’s that Sony doesn’t actually care about people not upgrading to PS5 if they’re still buying the PS4 games. Hardware is sold at a loss or break-even in order to capture people into their ecosystem, PS4 users are already in their ecosystem. PS4 softwares sales are already the high margin items that they want their users to be purchasing.

Sony also released a slide during this presentation that showed 42% of the PS5 registered during the Holiday Quarter were new users(defined as creating a new PSN account when they set-up their PS5). That’s a massive deal.

@Ultimapunch
I was meaning unpopular, as in the 'popular' opinion is to bash Sony for selling its consoles at too high a price - the trouble being, its not just Sony (though as I said, I do think they are compensating slightly so they can do their regular sales).

Also, just as an interesting aside, I do wonder what % of the price of a PS5 and Pro are made up of the cooling system - something which was very basic (and cheap) before this generation.
From teardowns and just feeling the surface temp / air flow temp after extended play, this seems to have had a very big upgrade from launch PS5 to Pro, so is clearly a major piece of work at Sony.
I just dont think people consider this sort of thing.

Just taking 1 of your points, the post covid inflation - we still haven't seen this added to game prices either yet, and it is not a small % - probably the main reason for a lot of the 'underperforming' games out there.

@get2sammyb gaming is a vanity hobby so there isn’t really a price that they have to get it down to. There is more going on behind the scenes. As everyone is aware the Covid demand for electronics surged. And almost all semiconductors are made in either China or Taiwan. Nintendo, Sony, and MS have to compete for line time with all other industries. It’s not that the PS5 and series consoles are complicated and expensive as there are nearly 6 plus year old designs. With that said each company will likely keep prices the same as they need R/D money too for next generation and need production lines still. The cost for everything is going up. And I don’t want a weak sauce PS or Xbox at launch. I want a beast of a SOC at launch with plenty of head room.

Very impressive to me considering the Sony lineup has been weak sauce this generation and a PS4 is still solid. Not enough titles outside of a handful in which I could convince someone to upgrade to a PS5 and be honest. This is what previous prestige and brand reputation does. As MS despite their mismanagement of the Xbox brand has put out more new stuff this generation. Whereas Sony is content with remasters and the prestige of the PS4. As many people when they think of console gaming will say PlayStation. My young nephews and their friends all want a PlayStation. Even if just to play a free to play game mostly. And MS is still struggling due to the Xbox one launch and an inconsistent strategy. I say this as someone whom owns a PS5 and XSX. Both of which are mostly used for excellent last generation games.

I see a bright future. Yes we are going to see sales stagnate from pandemic highs, as obviously people spent a lot on gaming when stuck at home, with a bank full of printed money hand outs.

The doom mongers are wrong though.

Living costs such as housing and energy are cleaning out consumers bank accounts, but I believe consumers will sacrifice big ticket luxuries like new cars in the first instance, as well as cutting back on eating out, multiple foreign holidays and new clothes for every season.

Instead their disposable income will be pumped into things like phones and gaming.

I see them cutting back so much on the items I listed, that despite overall disposable income falling, the money they have for gaming actually increases.

E.g. no new car = no £500 monthly finance payment. £250 of that is sucked into rent/energy cost increases, with £250 more for gaming above their original gaming budget.

@ChrisDeku

I can see the logic in what you're saying but I have to disagree with the bit about them not caring.

Of course they care .... is it good that people are still spending money on PS4 software? of course it is but would Sony prefer that money to be Spent on PS5 hardware and software if they could have it all their own way? I'm 100% certain they would.

I say this next bit in jest, so please don't take me too seriously but what you said reminds me of Microsoft trying to convince people that they're not bothered about selling Xbox consoles as long as they can sell Game Pass Subscriptions to people.

@Ultimapunch you still can't buy a drive for PS5/Pro in Australia - and haven't since November. Clearly Sony doesn't/didn't think it was that important.

What are people doing? They won't have any games to play on the PS5! Apparently.

@themightyant the drop makes sense to a degree. (Not all of it of course!)

The year prior would include sm2, which outsold Astro not multiple times over, and iirc first party normally sells well physical?

PC gamers especially love to trumpet the death of consoles and how generally awful they are. I hope they enjoy the likely 2 year wait with their ugly faces pressed against the window when GTA VI comes out!

@Member_the_game Lets ask the main question? Who is on the PS4 even now?
people who play sports games or fortnite et al. AKA people who are paying sony in microtransactions and subscriptions.

People who cannot yet afford one? they can buy new games on the ps4 due to the long cross gen.

Either way, they're an active user and profitable for the company.

Shipped doesn't mean sold.
And i don't give much about these shipped and sold numbers, since they are sometimes lied.
I remember how they said, that Sonic Generations sold 3 million copies day one.
Several weeks later, a new headline with: it sold 2 million copies since launch came out.
Big liars.

I don't trust Sony's numbers. They've been lying constantly for ages. Either relying on tricks like short supplies to make people believe their products are more successful than they are. Or straight out inventing numbers, like the PS2 magical arse pull.

@Randinator123 VGC has PS5 at 72.24 million sold. Not sure how entirely accurate they are, but I’d say over 70 million sold would be great.

@breakneck

I'm struggling to work out whether you're agreeing with me or disagreeing.

Either way, in answer to your question.... I'd like to think that most serious gamers will have upgraded to PS5 by now.

It won't apply to everyone of course but I'd be willing to bet that an awful lot of Active PS4 users will likely be children who've been given it as a hand me down when Daddy bought a PS5.

As you say though, either way it's still a form of income for Sony so all good I guess

And most of them are just playing free to play games, sports games and CoD.

@Nintendo4Sonic man, that's just hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

N.i.c.e. more ps5 sold sounds good.word up son

Wow, those are some numbers! Also this being the highest Q3 in history is amazing! So I guess, between Sony and Nintendo, consoles sales are still plummeting, huh IGN?

@Rhaoulos @Nintendo4Sonic Both of you really don't understand how retailers works.

If someone plays Call of Duty or Fifa every single day or night, is that person seriously a "casual gamer"? My friend switched over from Playstation to PC, and he barely has time to game on it. I guess he must be a "hardcore gamer" according to some of these comment's because he's on PC. 🙄 These labels are dumb and mostly meaningless.

The PS5 shows how FAR (and by that I mean VERY FAR) the perception is between the internet and reality.

If you believe the internet, the Playstation brand is dead and Sony is on the verge of bankruptcy, but the reality is just the opposite.

You should really stop paying attention to all the idiots on the internet. 75 million in this day and age with the current economic situation is a huge success. And GTA VI is still to come....

Other sites say over 100 million. I don't believe sony anymore lol

@KawakiisaFraud This times 1000. The hate boner the online warriors have is too funny. The vocal minority fails again. Playstation's continued success is impressive.