Sony sold over 20 million PlayStation 5s in its last fiscal year, an impressive number that nevertheless failed to hit its original goal of 25 million, and even missed its revised target of 21 million consoles sold. The latest numbers make it clear that the next-gen hardware will probably never catch up to the sales of the PS4, even as Helldivers 2 crushes all expectations after becoming the fastest-selling Sony-published game in the company’s history.
The PS5 has now reached 59.2 million lifetime sales, Sony revealed in its latest earnings presentation. That puts it just shy of the 60 million achieved by the PS4 in a similar time frame, though the company is quick to note that the PS5 hasn’t had the benefit of a $100 price cut like its predecessor did (though Sony has been pushing plenty of discounted PS5 bundles in the last 12 months). The company expects to sell just 18 million more PS5s in the coming year, but also to make PlayStation more profitable near the end of this console generation thanks to cost-cutting and more players playing more games.
“As we enter the second half of the console cycle, we expect the number of new PS5 units sold to gradually decline,” Sony president Hiroki Totoki told investors. “However, by steadily maintaining and expanding the consistently increasing number of active users and user engagement, while also strengthening control over business costs, we believe that we will be able to steadily increase sales and profits from the PS platform going forward.”
Helldivers 2, on the other hand, has been a surprise hit. The alien shooter’s already sold over 12 million copies, which Sony says makes it the fastest-selling exclusive in a three-month period in the company’s history, even surpassing 2022's God of War Ragnarök. While that game benefitted from being backwards-compatible, Helldivers 2 has clearly benefitted from being day-and-date on PC, even if Sony recently fumbled the bag with Steam users over a PSN login fiasco.
Sony seems poised to have a quieter upcoming year by comparison. The company confirmed there are still no new big-budget sequels planned to release during that time frame. One of the only big games coming in the immediate future that we know of is Firewalk’s online sci-fi shooter Concord, though even that has only been teased with a vague CGI trailer. It seems likely we’ll learn more about it at the next PlayStation Showcase, which is rumored to be scheduled for before the end of May.
Yesterday, Sony announced that instead of replacing former Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan, it would promote two of its SVPs, Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino, to lead its game studio and platform business groups, respectively. Both men will report directly to Totoki as Sony seemingly reigns in the division following recent concerns around increasing budgets, longer development times, and acquisitions like Destiny 2 maker Bungie that have turned out to be much messier than previously expected.