Sony announced its latest financial report yesterday, which showed that the PS5 console has shipped 17 million units since its launch in November 2020. Let’s compare that number to previous-gen consoles and rival consoles.
Behind the PS4 period
The PS5 has achieved a shipment of 17.3 million units since its launch, which is undoubtedly a very large number, but compared with the performance of the PS4 during the same period, the new console still lags behind. In the same time period, PS4 shipments reached 20.2 million units, nearly 3 million units ahead of PS5’s results. Of course, there is a well-known reason behind this, that is, the global impact of the epidemic has caused serious problems in the supply chain.
Sony management says they’ve sold every PS5 they can make (and players who want to buy a console know this), so the current situation is extremely short of supply. Meanwhile, the issue also affects rival Xbox and Nintendo consoles. The supply chain problem has been serious enough for Sony to officially announce that it has lowered its PS5 sales target for this quarter, from 22.6 million to 19.3 million originally planned to ship by March 2022.
Compared to Xbox
Microsoft has long since stopped releasing official sales figures, but estimates by Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad suggest that Xbox Series X|S sales are around 12 million units. If calculated according to this sales volume, the PS5 is far ahead again.
However, Sony and Microsoft’s business strategies have diverged considerably in this generation. Microsoft began to let the game land on the PC platform synchronously on the first day of listing. If you play through cloud streaming, players can directly play games on the Xbox platform without even needing a PC and a console.
Compared to Nintendo
The NS console launched in 2017 was a huge success. The NS sold 17.8 million units in its first year on the market, slightly higher than the PS5’s first-year result. As of September 30, Nintendo has sold 93 million NS consoles worldwide. This week, Nintendo will update its sales data again in its earnings report. NS was a popular item on Black Friday and Christmas last year, so in Thursday’s financial report, we will see this machine hit the 100 million unit sales mark.
Although the PS5 sales, which are limited by production capacity, are not as good as the NS in the same period, they have surpassed the career sales of Nintendo’s previous host Wii U (13.56 million units). Of course, the sales of Wii U are always beaten by various players…
All in all, the PS5 is currently leading the battle against its direct competitor, the Xbox Series X|S, and some analysts believe that by the end of 2022, the PS5 will sell twice as much as the Xbox Series X|S. However, the two manufacturers are no longer completely competing on the same track.