Sony misses PS5 sales target as console enters ‘latter stage of its life cycle’

Sony now expects to sell 4 million fewer PS5 consoles in its 2023 fiscal year ending March 31st compared to previous projections, Bloomberg reports. The revision came as part of today’s third-quarter earnings release which saw Sony lower the PS5 sales forecast from the 25 million consoles it expected to sell down to 21 million.

While PS5 sales were up in Sony’s third quarter, increasing to 8.2 million units from 6.3 million in the same quarter the previous year, Bloomberg notes that this was roughly a million units lower than it had previously projected. That’s despite the release of the big first-party title Spider-Man 2, strong sales of third-party titles, and the launch of a new slimmer PS5 in November. 

In its third quarter, Sony’s gaming revenue was up 16 percent versus the same period the previous year, sitting at 1.4 trillion yen (around $9.3 billion), but operating income was down 26 percent to 86.1 billion yen (around $572 million) due to promotions in the third quarter ending on December 31st.

According to Sony, the company plans to emphasize profitability over unit sales as the console approaches its fourth birthday. “Looking ahead, PS5 will enter the latter stage of its life cycle,” said Sony senior vice president Naomi Matsuoka in comments reported by Bloomberg. “As such, we will put more emphasis on the balance between profitability and sales. For this reason, we expect the annual sales pace of PS5 hardware will start falling from the next fiscal year.” Sony added it has no plans to release “any new major existing franchise titles” in its next fiscal year.

Competition is only going to get more intense in the console market in 2024. Later this year, Microsoft is expected to release a refreshed Xbox Series S and a disc-less Xbox Series X codenamed Brooklin with double the amount of storage as its existing model, while Nintendo is also expected to release a follow-up to its seven year-old Switch console. Sony could also have new hardware of its own on the way, with a PS5 Pro rumored for late 2024.