Sony Sold 2.6 Million PS5 Consoles Ahead of GTA VI Launch

Sony sold 2.6 million PlayStation 5 consoles in the most recent quarter, bringing total cumulative sales to 98 million. And the company said that its successor, the PlayStation 6, is still on track.

Sony made these revelations as part of its quarterly earnings report. The firm said that it earned a net income of ¥449.6 million on revenues of ¥3.4 billion in the quarter ending September 30. Those figures represent gains of 44 percent and 10 percent, respectively, year-over-year (YOY). Sony’s Game & Network Services business was again its biggest by far, with revenues of ¥1.2 billion in the quarter, up 8 percent YOY.

“Although new PS5 unit sales are gradually declining as expected in this stage of the console life cycle, the PS platform continues to expand and grow in a stable manner,” Sony CFO Lin Tao said during a post-earnings conference call. “We have been able to offset the rise in memory prices through adjustments to promotions and pricing, as well as additional cost-reduction, and we expect hardware profitability for the current fiscal year to remain on par with the previous fiscal year.”

Those 2.6 million units sold in the quarter represent a massive 35 percent YOY decline, though the overall ecosystem does look solid: Sony noted that PlayStation monthly active users (MAUs) were up 7 percent in the quarter to 127 million, a record high for that quarter, while total playtime was up 4 percent YOY. And the recently released Marvel’s Wolverine has now sold 2.4 million units as first party software sales hit 8.2 million units and total software units hit 88.2 million units.

Sony now expects to sell 7.9 million PS5s in the current quarter, thanks in part to the coming release of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) VI, and then 1.5 million units in the next quarter, which is the final quarter in Sony’s fiscal year.

“From next fiscal year onward, there will be investment in the new platform [PS6], Lin Tao added, noting that Sony is making “solid progress” on the next PlayStation. “For future growth, we have to attach great importance to a new platform and make the necessary investments for that. We have to support the soundness of our platform and think about how rationally we can invest in that platform. We will announce that at an appropriate time in the future.”

Sony hasn’t said when we can expect the PS6, but 2028 is the most likely timeframe.