Sony tops 38.4 million in PS5 sales with a record-breaking fiscal year

Cal Jeffrey

Cal Jeffrey

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In a nutshell: Sony once again sits atop the console wars throne. Not only has it more than doubled Xbox Series shipments, but its overall financials are also in good health. Despite a dip in software sales, hardware and overall revenues are up significantly. The company was tight-lipped about its newly launched PS VR2, but outside analysts say it's on track to being the fastest-selling VR headset on any platform.

Despite a slow start due to supply constraints, Sony has managed to pull off a win with the PlayStation 5. The best-selling home console has sold 38.4 million units since launch, doubling Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S sales of 18.5 million and smashing all quarterly records by moving 6.2 million PS5s in the last quarter of its fiscal year – that's up from 2 million in Q4 FY2021. Total units shipped for FY2022 were 19.1 million, edging out its beancounters' forecast of 18 million.

The company notes that its distribution inventories have normalized, allowing it to get consoles to customers without a wait. This turnaround leaves scalpers crying on stockpiles of PS5s that they bought up to extend and cash in on Sony's initial limitations.

While hardware sales looked great, Sony took a hit in the software division. Game sales for the quarter dipped to 68 million, down from 70.5 million for the same period in 2021. The year's totals were even worse, dropping from 303.2 million to 264.2 million.

The lack of quality PS5 titles is at least partly to blame for declined sales. Additionally, studios seem stuck in a trend of developing games for the PS4, then sprucing them up for the PS5 rather than working on proper next-gen-dedicated titles.

Despite the decline in software shipments, overall revenues are up for Sony's combined gaming sector. The division had $7.9 billion in revenue and $29 billion in total sales – up from $4.9 billion and $19.9 billion, respectively. The positive growth has Sony's accountants forecasting a continued uptick of seven percent for FY2023. They also predict that hardware sales, including consoles and peripherals, will continue to increase next year.

Sony did not single out PS VR2 numbers, instead lumping them into the Game & Network Services category. Perhaps this should not be too surprising considering the company was disappointed with initial sales of the expensive accessory. However, external estimates predict the company moved over 270,000 to 300,000 units in its launch month alone. If those numbers are accurate, it's an impressive start for any VR headset.

Sony's first-generation headset sold 915,000 units in its first four months. Likewise, Meta's Quest 2 moved about one million in its launch quarter (three months). So the PS VR2 is right on the edge of being the fastest selling VR headset ever. Like its PS5 counterpart, it just needs more software to drive demand.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98499-sony-tops-384-million-ps5-sales-record-breaking.html

 
Sony is dominating the console market, yet they're fighting tooth and nail to screw over Microsoft because they're worried it will create a monopoly. Makes sense. They should file a petition with the courts that stops every other company from even selling consoles, because competition is bad, mmkay?
 
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OortCloud said:
If somebody reverse engineers the thing and makes a proper PC driver for it, it would sell like hotcakes.
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Yeah, I agree. I've been pretty impressed with the VR2. Graphics are sharp, and there is virtually no screen door effect like there was on the first-gen headset. Plus, it's just plug-and-play. The old version had to have a camera, a hub and like six cords. It was ridiculous. I also like how the VR2 has a button on it that you can push to see through the cameras. It comes in handy if you have to grab something (like your drink) or if you want to see your surroundings without removing the headset. Unfortunately, I haven't tried anything from Oculus/Meta or any other VR maker, so I can't speak for how it is compared to other PC headsets. But certainly, it would open up opportunities for more sales if they could make it compatible X-platform.
 
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Kashim said:
Sony is dominating the console market, yet they're fighting tooth and nail to screw over Microsoft because they're worried it will create a monopoly. Makes sense. They should file a petition with the courts that stops every other company from even selling consoles, because competition is bad, mmkay?
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If the government will hinder or eliminate your competition for you, you’d be stupid to pass that up.

This is why less government is always better: because it will always be corrupted by the rich and powerful. History has shown this every. single. time.
 
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Cal Jeffrey said:
Yeah, I agree. I've been pretty impressed with the VR2. Graphics are sharp, and there is virtually no screen door effect like there was on the first-gen headset. Plus, it's just plug-and-play. The old version had to have a camera, a hub and like six cords. It was ridiculous. I also like how the VR2 has a button on it that you can push to see through the cameras. It comes in handy if you have to grab something (like your drink) or if you want to see your surroundings without removing the headset. Unfortunately, I haven't tried anything from Oculus/Meta or any other VR maker, so I can't speak for how it is compared to other PC headsets. But certainly, it would open up opportunities for more sales if they could make it compatible X-platform.
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Yes I have PSVR1 too. I never use it because it's just too much hassle to set up all that kaboodle and not great even when you do. But the new one looks good and is so reasonably priced. Probably sold at a loss so Sony would not be keen to support a PC driver!
 
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bviktor said:
But... I thought MS needs to be stopped because they're hindering market competition by selling half as many consoles in the past decade. Or something, I don't know, ask the CMA.
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Where MS is anti-competitive in gaming is trying to leverage the windows install base to bolster Xbox and vice-versa. Imagine if windows 8 succeeded and windows mobile succeeded, Xbox on windows or whatever it's called would have been the bolt-on to that ecosystem and UWP and the windows app store might now be the norm. If the plan executed perfectly they might have been well on their way to an anti-competitive situation like Apple with a walled garden they can exert excessive control over.

It's understandable why Valve pushed so hard for Linux, it's a way to insure against the darkest timeline.
 
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Kashim said:
Sony is dominating the console market, yet they're fighting tooth and nail to screw over Microsoft because they're worried it will create a monopoly. Makes sense. They should file a petition with the courts that stops every other company from even selling consoles, because competition is bad, mmkay?
Click to expand...
oh, this is one of the post "tell me you have no idea how market works without telling you have no idea how market works"

There is a simple way to be successful on gaming market, and console market. That what made xbox 360 so successful and good platform for gamers. This mysterious things is called 'good games'.
2 generations ago MS knew about this. They made great games and created and nurtured many talents. x360 was a platform worth getting, and financially was doing as good as any other (rrod recovery apart).
But that was simply thrown to the toilet with coming of xbox one. No new, platform oriented games, focus on failed idea of kinect and not cutting it off early enough, no new titles, stupid marketing ideas (always online anyone?). But, again, - no new games.
This did not changed with coming of the xsx. For last 10 years execs are saying: this year will be the best! - and what we got - failed Halo, crackdown? I can't really even recall any first party games which would catch my attention.

Now, MS have more than twice as many own studios than sony. MS have hundreds times more financial support. MS is owning moth xbox and windows platform, and publishes games on both. They made a GP and charge a dollar per month. They do not create a good games for years, and is anyone surprised they do worse financially right now?

Do you really think, that solution for bad marketing and development strategy is simply acquiring and consolidate more and more large publishers? This is a definition of lack of fair competition. Which has been as well highlighted by british CMA.

If you had a 2 same size comapnies, one creates great product people want to pay for, and other not producing anything worth buying, and whatever they produce they sells at a loss because they want to undercut others, is your understand of 'good competition' hints in anyway the company making worse product should be allowed consolidating other big companies so they will simply use sheer money power to still provide poor products, but with such a quantity other companies will turn not into competition, but into customers?
Because that's what MS is aiming for: enable GP on Switch, PlayStation and everywhere else to always get a cut of the sale, which means there will be no competition anymore, but only customers.
We seen how this worked on OS, on Cloud services, and they want to achieve same here.
And saying, that many times smaller company, with many times less studios, finances, work force, but with proper management and focus on delivery a good product is not competitive only shows how many people are just dumb.
 
Every game from Microsoft on Xbox also releases on PC, and on a $15 (at most) a month game pass service.
Honestly, I'm surprised console sales between Microsoft and Sony is still a topic.

This is one of few areas where I think Sony is wise from the business aspect.
You want to play the God of War 88 re-release, re-remastered, re imagined, 2nd gold edition?
You need a PlayStation.
 
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I expect a long generation which probably helps Sony further. Slow start with restricted sales. Only now it feels like many developers are starting to move on from the previous generation after the longest period of cross platform titles in console history.

Microsoft gambled on the split SKUs giving them an edge but in the end it hasn't worked. It will only be an anchor constraining partners to support a weaker platform for potentially a very long time. I noted as the previous generation went on the gap between PS4 and One X actually widened as developers perhaps put less effort in or exploited Sony's best selling machine more.

There is every chance for refresh consoles in another 18 months or so and they'll still be designing titles for Series S and its 8GB of 'fast' RAM for another five years....
 
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jimmy12 said:
Where MS is anti-competitive in gaming is trying to leverage the windows install base to bolster Xbox and vice-versa. Imagine if windows 8 succeeded and windows mobile succeeded, Xbox on windows or whatever it's called would have been the bolt-on to that ecosystem and UWP and the windows app store might now be the norm. If the plan executed perfectly they might have been well on their way to an anti-competitive situation like Apple with a walled garden they can exert excessive control over.

It's understandable why Valve pushed so hard for Linux, it's a way to insure against the darkest timeline.
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What is actually stopping Sony from leveraging Windows to play their games and create a platform to play them in on it? I'll wait...

And why wouldn't Valve want to push an OS that they can control (without waiting on another corporate entity)? It has little to do with who is controlling it and more about customer experience and quick updates.
 
We have a lot of kids, so we own every device under the Sun. I love em all, this is a great generation for hardware. High end consoles in particular have made massive strides in the last 5 years. If I play on our PS5 rather than my high end PC, I no longer feel like it's a second best experience, it's absolutely right up there now.

I don't think Sony have particularly knocked it out of the park in terms of new releases, but they're doing better than everyone else, and I guess that can make all the difference. Gamepass is an unbelievable offering, but a couple of killer titles would make a lot of difference to Xbox.
 
m4a4 said:
What is actually stopping Sony from leveraging Windows to play their games and create a platform to play them in on it? I'll wait...
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Tight software integration doesn't exist between windows and ps5 but does between windows and xbox. Sony could develop a runtime to play PS5 games on PC but it would be less integrated, more quirks, more code to maintain, the runtime would have to support hardware the api might not be designed for (like intel and nvidia gpu's), a considerable painful effort. It would be much like proton, running software on a stack it wasn't necessarily designed for.

MS have always had tight windows/xbox integration, and UWP was a clear effort towards going much further down that path with a lot of forward planning required. Their on-windows runtime shouldn't be dissimilar to the on-xbox runtime, the heavy lifting of hardware support is already handled by D3D already being supported on that hardware and is probably used directly.

And there's less incentive. MS want people on xbox or windows, preferably both, for advertising and telemetry. Sony developing a runtime for windows directly helps MS as much as it helps themselves.

m4a4 said:
And why wouldn't Valve want to push an OS that they can control (without waiting on another corporate entity)? It has little to do with who is controlling it and more about customer experience and quick updates.
Click to expand...
Sure, I'm saying if MS wasn't a potential competitor there would be less incentive to go as hard as they did.
 
jimmy12 said:
Tight software integration doesn't exist between windows and ps5 but does between windows and xbox. Sony could develop a runtime to play PS5 games on PC but it would be less integrated, more quirks, more code to maintain, the runtime would have to support hardware the api might not be designed for (like intel and nvidia gpu's), a considerable painful effort. It would be much like proton, running software on a stack it wasn't necessarily designed for.

MS have always had tight windows/xbox integration, and UWP was a clear effort towards going much further down that path with a lot of forward planning required. Their on-windows runtime shouldn't be dissimilar to the on-xbox runtime, the heavy lifting of hardware support is already handled by D3D already being supported on that hardware and is probably used directly.

And there's less incentive. MS want people on xbox or windows, preferably both, for advertising and telemetry. Sony developing a runtime for windows directly helps MS as much as it helps themselves.


Sure, I'm saying if MS wasn't a potential competitor there would be less incentive to go as hard as they did.
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The answer to the question was "Sony". Sony is what is stopping Sony from taking advantage of Windows.
Last I checked, Sony and MS wouldn't be the only publishers on Windows lol

There have been, and will be many other publishers on Windows. So lets not pretend that Sony's situation is unique here. The only "advantage" MS has is that they're using the same dev tools that they provide freely to every other developer (ones that they better not break, considering how widely used and integrated they are).
 
We're not talking about porting a handful of games. We're talking about a runtime that can play games from console X on non-native OS Y. As fun as it would be to see sony release rpsc5 it isn't going to happen.
 
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