Sony sold 4.5 million PlayStation 5 units worldwide in 2020, as revealed by information published along with the company’s latest earnings report. The figure highlights Sony’s current ability to mass-produce the console, which has been extremely difficult to buy since its launch in November.
Demand for the PlayStation 4 fell sharply year on year, with 1.4 million units sold in the October-December quarter – a 77 percent decrease from the previous year. Sony managed to sell fewer PS4s in the holiday quarter than between July and September.
Sony’s gaming business in general performed much better than a year ago, with analyst Daniel Ahmad writing down which was really the best quarter in PlayStation history. Revenue increased 40 percent to 883.2 billion yen ($ 8.4 billion), partially driven by PS5 sales. Operating profit increased 50 percent to 80.2 billion yen ($ 763.3 million) due to higher game sales, PlayStation Plus subscriptions and better margins on PS4 hardware.
Sony notes, however, that the expenses related to the launch of the PS5 have offset some of its profit gains, and it also confirms that the PS5 hardware itself is being sold for less than its manufacturing cost. There was a loss due to “strategic prices for PS5 hardware that were set below manufacturing costs”, says the company.
There is not much to read in the PS5 sales figures until people who want to buy one are actually able to do so. But at the very least, the console’s launch appears to be broadly comparable in size to that of the PS4; the PS4 also sold 4.5 million units in its release quarter.
Microsoft did not release specific sales figures for the Xbox Series X or Series S with its earnings report last week, but the company said Xbox hardware revenue grew 86% year over year.