Sony Corporation has published its Q3 FY2020 financial results, revealing that it sold 4.5 million PlayStation 5 consoles by the end of December 2020. SIE’s highly-anticipated first-party game, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, sold through 4.1 million units during the same period.
The report reveals that Sony is on track to meet its goal of selling 7.6 million PS5s during the fiscal year, and acknowledged that the company has not been able to fully meet customer demand for the console. Sony pledged to do its best to ship as many PS5s as possible.
Sony attributes the extraordinary demand to “stay-at-home” customers, who’ve also contributed to unprecendented levels of user engagement. In December 2020 alone, PlayStation saw a 30 percent increase in gameplay time compared to the same period last year. Sony also revealed that 87 percent of PS5 users were subscribed to PlayStation Plus by the end of December, which it called “an extremely high level.”
“We had more game software titles at the launch of the PS5 than at any previous PlayStation console launch in our history, and those titles have sold well,” Sony wrote. “Continuing with our strategy of enhancing user engagement, we intend to take steps to further enhance the appeal of our network services offerings.”
Elsewhere in the report, Sony revealed that it initially made a loss on PS5 hardware due to “strategic” pricing. However, those losses and the costs associated with the PS5’s launch were offset by an increase in operating income from selling video games and network services. The company expects sales to continue to increase.
