Due in part to the PlayStation 5 failing to meet sales expectations due to the previous holiday season, Sony has now stated that the system is “Entering the latter stage of its life cycle.”
Sony had set an arguably ambitious sales goal for their platform, aiming for 25 million units sold by the end of this financial year in March 2024, but the company has since revised that to only 21 million units. This is due to sales during the 2023 Holiday period coming in lower than Sony expected despite the company aggressively promoting it.
Sony had managed to sell 8.2 million units during their third quarter which ended December 31st, a figure that was up from the previous year’s 7.1 million units, but that was still not enough to hit expectations for the 2023 financial year. It should also be noted that during this period it was found that the PlayStation 5 outsold its biggest competitor, the Xbox Series S/X, by a 2-1 margin.
According to an article by Bloomberg, Sony senior vice president Naomi Matsuoka stated the company expects sales to fall and begin a downward trend in the next fiscal year, beginning in April 2024. He stated:
Looking ahead, PS5 will enter the latter stage of its life cycle. 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.
The PlayStation 5 launched in 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has sold 54.7 million units since then. With the life cycle of consoles being 7-8 years, and it already being 4 years old, it is not an unfair statement to make. For gamers, it might not feel that way given the fact for the first two years of its life it was almost impossible to find due to the combination of the pandemic, parts shortages, and scalping that plagued both consoles in those early days.
This conversation almost undoubtedly turns then to the potential of a PlayStation 6 being developed for release. While it is probably being developed, consoles take multiple years to be finalized, this is plenty of life left in the PlayStation 5 era. This includes rumors of a PlayStation 5 Pro, similar to the one released in the previous generation. Additionally, new rumors have implied the studio is working on a new handheld to download and Play PS5 titles, different from the recently released streaming-only handheld device the PlayStation Portal. As with all rumors though, these should be taken with a grain of salt.
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