Even after two price increases, and a continued dearth of exclusives, PlayStation 5 sales have only increased compared to last year.
The way some people talk about the PlayStation 5, you’d almost think it was an embarrassing failure. Sony’s lack of first party exclusives, and multiple price increases, haven’t helped the console’s image in some online circles but that doesn’t mean it isn’t selling well.
Whenever new sales figures roll in, it’s abundantly clear that Sony hasn’t bungled the PlayStation 5 and certainly not to the degree Microsoft has with the Xbox Series X/S.
According to a recent earnings report from Sony, the PlayStation 5’s lifetime sales are now at 84.2 million, which means it’s doing nearly as well as the PlayStation 4, the company’s second best-selling console.
The report reveals that during the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year (April to June), the PlayStation 5 sold 2.5 million units, which helped it cross the 80 million mark. This quarter saw a further 3.9 million units sold on top of that.
That means the PlayStation 5 is selling slightly better than last year, which is unusual for a console in its fifth year but perhaps a result of rapidly declining sales for the Xbox Series X/S.
In 2024, the console had sold 6.2 million in the first half of the year, whereas this year it’s sold 6.4 million. That’s not a big increase, but normally you’d expect it to be notably down, year on year, at this point in its lifecycle.
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Software sales are also up compared to the last year, as well as monthly active users on the PlayStation Network, demonstrating that despite the console growing more expensive, more people are investing their time and money into it.
Is the PS5 outselling the PS4?
This is the PlayStation 5’s fifth year on sales and by this same point in the PlayStation 4’s lifetime it had sold 86.3 million, so the PlayStation 5 is behind by only 2.1 million.
The PlayStation 4 sold 117.2 million consoles by the end and it seems likely the PlayStation 5 will end up with a similar number, depending on when the PlayStation 6 comes out and for how long the two formats are sold together at the same time.
If there’s one thing to take away from this, it’s that consoles are far from dead. This can also be seen in the Nintendo Switch 2’s success, which has become the fastest-selling console of all time.
Although fans are frustrated at the lack of PlayStation 5 exclusives this generation, Ghost Of Yōtei (which launched in early October), has sold 3.3 million copies in its first month.
For the record, predecessor Ghost Of Tsushima managed to sell 2.4 million copies in just three days and then five million copies in its first four months, so Ghost Of Yōtei seems to be on track to do just as well.
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