The PlayStation 5 is Sony's fastest-selling console to date

[Shawn Knight]

The big picture: The PlayStation 5 is the fastest-selling console in Sony Interactive Entertainment’s history, having reached 10 million units sold just eight months after launch. For those keeping record, that's roughly one month faster than the PlayStation 4 - and it all happened during a global pandemic.

As of July 18, 2021, SIE has sold more than 10 million PlayStation 5 consoles worldwide. Had the global pandemic not hampered the supply chain and changed how many major retailers do business, resulting in a market that’s ripe for scalpers, Sony might have reached the milestone even sooner.

For reference, it took roughly nine months for Sony to sell its first 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles.

Sony launched the PlayStation 5 on November 12, 2020, just two days after Microsoft dropped its new Xbox Series X and Series S consoles. The digital edition starts at $399 while the base model with an optical drive commands $499. Pre-orders for the PS5 sold out in less than 24 hours, and the console has remained a hot commodity ever since.

Given the perfect storm of bots / scalpers / the pandemic, it’s been incredibly difficult to find a next-gen console in the wild. A quick check over on eBay reveals that PlayStation 5s are still commanding anywhere between $700-$900. It is possible to beat the scalpers, but you’ll need a solid strategy and / or a good bit of luck.

Image credit Girts Ragelis, iStock.com

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/90586-playstation-5-sony-fastest-selling-console-date.html

 

[Achaios]

Can smne tell me why SONY refuse to make a profit out of their console and persist in setting an MSRP below cost manufacture?

I mean, Scalpers happily go buy these by the dozens and then easily sell them at twice or three times SONY's MSRP and ppl literally exchange punches with each other to buy the consoles at 3XMSRP.

Why does the guy who sets Marketing Strategy at SONY for Consoles still have his job?

 

[Dimitrios]

In which universe?

 

[m4a4]

Can smne tell me why SONY refuse to make a profit out of their console and persist in setting an MSRP below cost manufacture?

I mean, Scalpers happily go buy these by the dozens and then easily sell them at twice or three times SONY's MSRP and ppl literally exchange punches with each other to buy the consoles at 3XMSRP.

Why does the guy who sets Marketing Strategy at SONY for Consoles still have his job?

Because, at the least, that's precedence.
You'd pretty quickly turn gamers against you by cashing in on the greed (when a console maker's main form of profit is the games/software sold on the consoles).

Right now, gamers hate scalpers for doing it. Why paint a bullseye on yourself for short term gain?

 

[Dimitriid]

This basically means that no MSRP will mean anything ever again for consoles. Sure you might be able to get MSRP by the time the console has a redesign or new version so 3-4 years after launch.

This also means that "gamers" as a community have fully embraced widespread scalping as an acceptable part of their experience.

And yes we're not far off from that becoming the reality for PC gaming as well given the state of GPUs: the only question like @Achaios above mentions is whenever or not companies like Sony, MS and later Nvidia and AMD get smart about it and benefit from the price scalping themselves instead of giving away much of their margins, I suspect they will in the future but for now they're the biggest losers in this new reality.

 

[Nobina]

This basically means that no MSRP will mean anything ever again for consoles. Sure you might be able to get MSRP by the time the console has a redesign or new version so 3-4 years after launch.

This also means that "gamers" as a community have fully embraced widespread scalping as an acceptable part of their experience.

And yes we're not far off from that becoming the reality for PC gaming as well given the state of GPUs: the only question like @Achaios above mentions is whenever or not companies like Sony, MS and later Nvidia and AMD get smart about it and benefit from the price scalping themselves instead of giving away much of their margins, I suspect they will in the future but for now they're the biggest losers in this new reality.

It's been like that for quite some time. Gamers get "outraged" at something yet those same gamers still buy it eventually. Marketing is too much for some to handle. They can't resist not having the latest thing. They were bred since kids to behave like this cause it's not their parents who raised them. Am I going too deep on this? xd

 

[VitalyT]

Why does the guy who sets Marketing Strategy at SONY for Consoles still have his job?

For starters, because he is not a guy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christie-patel-385916b/?originalSubdomain=uk

Christie Patel is evidently into masochistic extremism of financial suffering, which she promotes vigorously.

 

[Dimitriid]

It's been like that for quite some time. Gamers get "outraged" at something yet those same gamers still buy it eventually. Marketing is too much for some to handle. They can't resist not having the latest thing. They were bred since kids to behave like this cause it's not their parents who raised them. Am I going too deep on this? xd

You're not, but you shouldn't stop at "the parents" since the parents have no choice but to exist on a late capitalist, deeply consumerist society: it's really easy to take advantage with well placed marketing that cultivates people that feel have no options but to go into debt to pay scalper prices.

 

[Lounds]

Can smne tell me why SONY refuse to make a profit out of their console and persist in setting an MSRP below cost manufacture?

I mean, Scalpers happily go buy these by the dozens and then easily sell them at twice or three times SONY's MSRP and ppl literally exchange punches with each other to buy the consoles at 3XMSRP.

Why does the guy who sets Marketing Strategy at SONY for Consoles still have his job?

Because it's all about market share. Why is the oculus Quest 2 the fastest growing VR headset? It's affordable and people spend easily the same price on games over the lifespan of the device.

The PS4 for example has an attachment rate of 9.6 on games, then you've got the accessories and controllers that they make more money on.

The PS3 was a massive learning curve for Sony.

 

[Adi6293]

Can smne tell me why SONY refuse to make a profit out of their console and persist in setting an MSRP below cost manufacture?

I mean, Scalpers happily go buy these by the dozens and then easily sell them at twice or three times SONY's MSRP and ppl literally exchange punches with each other to buy the consoles at 3XMSRP.

Why does the guy who sets Marketing Strategy at SONY for Consoles still have his job?

That's because most console gamers already think $450 is expensive..... they don't understand that you are getting a lot for your money here, yes some people are willing to pay more but don't take this for a norm, this Pandemic will be over soon, people won't be stock at home and the scalpers paradise will be over, same goes for GPU's and just anything really : - )

 

[Red34jfp]

I wonder how many of those technically "sold" PS5s are actually in the hands of scalpers who are trying to sell them at $700-$900.

 

[Kosmoz]

Can smne tell me why SONY refuse to make a profit out of their console and persist in setting an MSRP below cost manufacture?

I mean, Scalpers happily go buy these by the dozens and then easily sell them at twice or three times SONY's MSRP and ppl literally exchange punches with each other to buy the consoles at 3XMSRP.

Why does the guy who sets Marketing Strategy at SONY for Consoles still have his job?

Integrity and brand reputation, but more likely because they can't just increase the MSRP of a product as easy as you think after already establishing a MSRP, without major negative repercussions.

1. Most of the console customers are in the budget range of $300 - $500, like 90% of them. Any increase would actually hurt them more than gain anything.
2. The biggest profit comes from selling games and services and peripherals, not the console themselves. The more consoles you sell the more overall profit from those sources, so a good price for a console = more sales. It's all about the install base and how large the gaming community is and Sony is the biggest. You get it now.
3. Jim Ryan said last month that they expect this month (July) for their PS5 to start making a profit > https://www.archyde.com/playstation-5-console-sales-are-expected-to-make-a-profit-soon/

There you have it. They don't need to act like douche-bags and do what nvidia and AMD did with GPUs (but mostly nvidia), which is to officially scalp them themselves. And I and many others are happy about this. So GJ to Sony (and MS) for keeping the official MSRP of consoles unchanged.

P.S. That being said if this global situation continues to deteriorate (doesn't look like it, but you never know) they can do what the GPU market did by releasing a new model, like a PS5 slim and make it officially more expensive, while limiting the supply of the original PS5 so much that you can't find it anymore (like nvidia did with the 3080, because it was a too good of a deal for the games and not enough scalping for nvidia).

 

[dangh]

I think PS5 is fastest selling console ever, not only from Sony's family.

 

[bexwhitt]

I got a vip ticket from currys in the UK which was a lottery for a chance to buy a ps5, I gave it to a buddy as I can wait.

 

[Lew Zealand]

10M APUs whose die space could have been used for GPUs and CPUs.

What a waste.

 

[YungFlame]

While this is technically true, it also released worldwide from day one. Taking away the 3.5 million units of PS2 sold in Asia before the worldwide release, PS2 still sold just under 11.5 million units in the 7 months that it was available worldwide.

 

[McMurdeR]

Can smne tell me why SONY refuse to make a profit out of their console and persist in setting an MSRP below cost manufacture?

If they did that I'd buy an Xbox. I would never buy that extra PS5 controller and docking station, the 10 odd games over the next year or two, and the PS+ sub would end up being cancelled.

Consoles are an end to end platform - the money is in the full service lifetime, not in the box itself. They'll do a good deal to get one into your living room if they can build enough of them, and besides all that they'll eventually get a better margin on the revised models.

 

[Markoni35]

Interesting photo. If you put the console in the middle, then one gamepad to the left, and another to the right, it looks like a p**is.

What? Who wrote this? Not me! My keyboard was hacked!!

 

[shark975]

Xbox also announced Series is the fast selling Xbox ever do they get equal time or what?

With covid it's probably easy

https://www.ign.com/articles/xbox-series-x-and-s-fastest-selling-consoles-xbox-history

 

[ziffel66]

And the RTX video cards are the fastest selling video cards ever.

Yeah, bots are pretty fast at buying things.