PS5 console sales are falling faster than expected as lifetime total hits 61,700,000-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

The PS5 is already slowing down (Sony)

Sony’s profits are up this quarter but sales of the PS5 continue to fall at an alarming rate, as they dip below that of the PS4.

Although the sharply declining sales of the Xbox Series X/S made the headlines first, especially after a disastrous Christmas last year, the truth is PlayStation 5 hardware isn’t selling as well as expected either.

Sony missed its sales targets in February and while the PlayStation 5 has still sold well, it’s behind where the PlayStation 4 was at the same point in its lifetime, with the gap continuing to widen – as shown by the latest financial results.

The PlayStation 5’s lifetime total has now hit 61.7 million but year-on-year sales continue to fall, with only 2.4 million PlayStation 5 consoles sold between April and June this year, compared to 3.3 million at the same time last year.

The obvious reason for the poor performance is the lack of major exclusives and Sony’s continually poor marketing over the last couple of years, especially in terms of fan-orientated events like the summer showcases.

This is in stark contrast to the fast pace of new releases at the start of the generation, with Sony attempting to compensate with third party exclusives such as Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Stellar Blade.

Microsoft does not release sales figures for the Xbox Series X/S but its lifetime total is believed to be around 29 million. The recently updated total for the Nintendo Switch, which first launched in 2017, is 143.42 million.

The problem is that as disappointing as the results are they’re not quite bad enough for Sony to do anything drastic about it. Operating income was still up 32% on last year, with overall sales – including software and subscriptions – up 12%.

At this rate it’s going to be a very short generation (Sony/Microsoft/Metro)

Even then, overall software sales for the year are down year-on-year, from 56.5 million to 53.6 million. Again, it’s not that these results are terrible but that four years into the generation (especially one that had a slow start thanks to the pandemic) should see the PlayStation 5 at its strongest, not on the decline.

There’s one time-honoured solution for this problem, one which Microsoft has already set in motion with its next gen Xbox teases, and that’s that the PlayStation 6 will be released sooner rather than later.

However, with the PS5 Pro widely expected to be announced this year it really does seem too early and yet it’s not clear what else Sony can do. Especially given that, unlike Microsoft, they’ve made far less effort to push their streaming plans and subscription services.

One obvious assumption is that Sony will begin to rely more on day one PC releases for first party titles, although given how few of those there are at the moment that’s not much of an immediate solution.

Astro Bot probably wouldn’t do well on PC anyway (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

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