Although sales of the PlayStation 5 have decreased from this time last year, the device has still sold 61.7 million units since its 2020 release.
According to Sony’s most recent financial reports, the company sold 2.4 million units in the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, which corresponds to April to June 2024, as opposed to 3.3 million units in the first quarter of the 2024 fiscal year.
Though Sony reduced its entire PS5 sales target for this fiscal year to 18 million units from its previous objective of 21 million units, the dip was partly anticipated. Even though Sony had set a goal of selling 25 million devices by the end of the year, it was only able to sell 20.8 million, falling short of both goals. However, this was still a record for PS5 sales.
Despite the decline in hardware sales, Sony disclosed that its monthly active user count—a crucial performance metric for gauging audience engagement and, consequently, the likelihood of increased spending on software, subscriptions, and other related expenses—had increased over the previous year.
During this time, Sony reported 116 million monthly active users, up from 118 million during the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal year but down from 108 million the previous year.
A lot of people will speculate that the dearth of PS5 exclusives is the cause of the decline in hardware sales, and Sony has already said that no new titles from its big franchises will be released in this fiscal year. Thus, no God of War, Spider-Man, The Last of Us, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet and Clank, and so on.
Sony foresaw the decline in sales and ascribed it to the PS5 reaching the end of its lifecycle during their earnings call in February 2024. As a result, the massive gaming company decided to lower its sales projection for the PS5 to 18 million units for FY2025 (April 2024 to April 2025). To put things in context, the PS5’s initial sales target for FY2024 (April 2023 to April 2024) was a whopping 25 million units; however, this estimate was eventually lowered to 21 million units. It is interesting to note that PS5 shipments for FY2024 were still about 200,000 units below the lower estimate, which perhaps prompted Sony to set a more realistic goal for the current fiscal year.
