The PlayStation 5 struggles to launch. more than a year after its release, production has stagnated to the point of seeing its older sister supplant it in terms of shipments. Judge instead.
Of course, this observation is surely biased by a current context which drags on with this pandemic of which it is difficult to see the end. Moreover, the Japanese firm does not hide it by declaring the following thing in its financial report:
Sales expected to be lower than October forecast due to an expected drop in sales of PlayStation 5 hardware unitsmainly due to component supply shortages, especially semiconductors
Indeed, as at its beginning, PS5 production is being slowed by a semiconductor shortage that is crippling just about every industry that depends on it. A problem that has an impact on the production of the latest from sonyand by ricochet on shipments, and ultimately sales.
2021 ended with a mixed final quarter for the PS5 as only 3.9 million consoles were shippedwhile for comparison it was 4.5 million units over the same quarter of the previous year. Worse, the PS4 during this time sold 6.4 million copies worldwide.
The PlayStation 5 has sold in 17.3 million units as of December 31, 2021 according to Sony.
This compares to 20.2 million for PlayStation 4 in the same timeframe, when launch aligned
PS5 has faced significant supply issues. It has been unable to keep up with PS4 despite request pic.twitter.com/Nz60oElCyK
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) February 2, 2022
Are you getting away with this nugget of numbers? Clear, here are the total shipments over the period since the launch of the PlayStation 5:
- PS5: 17.3 million units.
- PS4: 20.2 million units.
Once again, these raw figures reflect a particular context which strongly impacted the forecasts. The PS5 is struggling to meet high demand, and inventory shortages aren’t about to end. However, it is observed that the PS4 still makes people happy even allowing to overtake his little sister.
A PlayStation Plus that is capping?
The financial report also tells us that the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers increased from 47.4 million to 48 million, or 600,000 new subscribers.
A nice figure which shows, however, that the service is starting to reach a certain ceiling which is just waiting to be broken with the famous rumor of a “Spartacus” project which is supposed to offer a competitor to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass in merging the PS Store and PS Now.
Finally, and if you are curious, you can consult the whole report by following this link.
Source: www.sony.com
