PlayStation 5 on track to sell 25 million units this year

Sony has said the PlayStation 5 remains on track to sell 25 million units during the current fiscal year.

According to the company's financial report for the second quarter ended September 30, 2023, PS5 hardware sales for the quarter increased by 25 percent year-on-year to 4.9 million units, which Sony described as "basically in-line with our expectations."

The PlayStation 5 surpassed 40 million lifetime sales earlier this year, and if it manages to shift another 25 million units will soon eclipse 60 million sales. Sony believes the impending launch of the PS Portal handheld and the debut of a slimmer PS5 model will enable the console to hit its annual sales target.

"We plan to release a new PS5 model that is smaller, lighter, and has expanded data storage capacity. We also plan to introduce to the market PS Portal through which users can enjoy remote play in combination with the PS5," wrote the company. "These are expected to assist us in increasing the sales momentum during the year-end selling season which is the largest opportunity to sell product."

That hardware sales momentum helped Sony deliver Q2 sales of 954.1 billion yen ($6.3 billion) within its Game & Networks Services (G&NS) segment, which is an increase of 32 percent year-over-year. G&NS operating income rose by 16 percent to 48.9 billion yen ($323.6 million) during Q2 FY2023, with Sony attributing that upswing to an increase in sales of third-party titles including add-on content.

Marvel's Spider Man 2 hits 5M sales as third-party titles also perform

As for Sony's first-party roster, the Japanese company said Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has now sold through over 5 million copies worldwide since launching on October 20, 2023, and claimed the title "has become a big hit."

It also noted that more people are currently using their PlayStation and staying engaged for longer. "The overall number of monthly active users (MAU) for PlayStation in September was 107 million accounts, an increase of 5 million from the same month last year, and the proportion of PS5 users, who have high user engagement, increased to a little over 40 percent of the total," it added.

Despite that year-on-year uptick, the number of monthly active users on the PlayStation Network actually decreased to 107 MAU in Q2 FY2023 from 108 MAU In Q1 FY2023.

Looking towards the end of the year, Sony has upwardly revised its G&NS forecast due to rising third-party software sales and the impact of foreign exchange rates. It now expects sales within the division to total 190 billion yen (an upward revision of 5 percent) and operating income to hit 10 billion yen by the end of the current fiscal year on March 31, 2024.