PlayStation 5 nears 40 million lifetime sales, and Sony thinks it could become a record-breaker

The PlayStation sold 19.1 million units during the past fiscal year to close in on 40 million lifetime sales.

According to the Sony's fiscal report for the year ended March 31, 2023 (FY22), PlayStation 5 hardware sales hit 6.3 million units during the fourth quarter, taking annual sales to 19.1 million units. 

For context, that's an uptick on the 11.5 million sales the PlayStation 5 delivered across FY21, and means the console has now sold over 38 million units since launching in November 2020. 

"Last quarter, PS5 hardware sell-in reached 6.3 million units, a record high for PlayStation consoles for the fourth quarter, and 19.1 million units for the full fiscal year of FY22," said the company. "Distribution inventories have also normalized, and we are now able to deliver PS5 to customers without waiting almost all over the world."

Sony said demand for PlayStation 5 hardware had a notable impact on its Game & Network Services (G&NS) segment, with sales increasing by 33 percent year-on-year to 3.64 trillion yen ($26.7 billion).

Operating income, however, declined by 28 percent to 250 billion yen ($1.8 billion) due to rising development costs and the recording of expenses associated with major acquisitions, including Sony's purchase of Destiny developer Bungie.

Ain't no party like a first-party

On the software front, full-game sales for both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 decreased to 264.2 million units in FY22 from 303.2 million units in FY21. Unit sales of first-party titles remained fairly flat, totalling 43.5 million units in FY22 compared to 43.9 million units in FY21.

Sony was eager to point out, however, that dollar-based sales of first-party releases actually increased. It said that thanks to the performance of major releases like God of War Ragnarok, which has sold 11 million copies to-date, "sales of first-party software for the full fiscal year of FY22, including Bungie, grew significantly, with dollar-based sales increasing by 41 percent year-on-year."

As for PlayStation Plus, the subscription service boasted 47.4 million subscribers at the end of FY22, which is exactly the same number it had at the end of the previous fiscal year. The number of Monthly Active Users (MAU), however, increased to 108 million in Q4 FY22 from 106 million in Q4 FY21.

Looking ahead, Sony expects its G&NS division to deliver sales of 3.9 trillion yen and operating income of 270 billion yen across FY23. It predicts that an increase in sales of peripheral devices and an improvement in hardware profitability will allow it to meet those targets.

Notably, the Japanese company said it wants to "continuously accelerate penetration" of the PlayStation 5 and is targeting hardware sales of 25 million units during the current fiscal year–which would represent the highest ever total for any PlayStation console in history.