Sony Interactive Entertainment announced today that the PlayStation 5 console has sold more than 10 million units worldwide, the fastest selling console in the company’s history. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan that while sales figures for different regions are deceptive because they’ve been dictated solely by console supply shortages, China has become an important market that is showing the “same sort of energy” as that seen in the West.
The PS5 has now sold more than 10 million units as of July 18, 2021, a feat achieved in just over eight months since the console had a record breaking launch on November 12, 2020. Ryan thanked the players who enabled them to meet this milestone:
I can’t express enough the deep gratitude we feel for our passionate community of PlayStation fans who have embraced PS5, and the world-class development and publishing partners who bring such incredible gaming experiences to our platforms. While PS5 has reached more households faster than any of our previous consoles, we still have a lot of work ahead of us as demand for PS5 continues to outstrip supply. I want gamers to know that while we continue to face unique challenges throughout the world that affect our industry and many others, improving inventory levels remains a top priority for SIE.
Issues impacting the production of the console have included the global semiconductor shortage as well as the shortage of other components like the CPU and GPU units from AMD. The shortages are rumored to be the reason behind the revised console designs due to go on sale shortly in Japan, and are hopefully one of the ways Sony can make sure the PS5 supply shortage does not continue into next year. Ryan later clarified with Reuters that “we’re some time from being able to meet all the demand that’s out there, which makes me feel bad.”
Because sales of the PS5 have been dictated by inventory allocation, it is far too early to be able to tell which markets have the highest demand. However, Ryan did highlight their success in China where pre-orders of the console sold out in 20 minutes:
The one launch that I would call out is China. The console gaming model is not well established there, it’s all free-to-play and mobile, but we had a hunch that the time might be right to change that and rolled a few dice. We made a lot of noise at launch, allocated a good amount of stock, and it blew through very, very quickly. Same sort of energy that we see in the West. It’s early days yet but we’re encouraged by that.
Sony is now looking to have another record breaking “year two”; the PS4 console sold 14.8 million units in its second year and Sony intends to beat this with the PS5. After that they want to have their best ever year of console sales, selling around 23 million units to beat the record set by the original PlayStation in 1998 with 22.6 million units. With the way the console is selling right now, there’s a chance they might even meet those ambitious targets early.
[Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment, GamesIndustry.biz, Reuters]
