Sony has revealed its financial results for the first quarter of the financial year. While we already knew the PlayStation 5 console had topped 10 million sales, the company confirmed the PlayStation 4 console has now reached 116.4 million units sold worldwide during its lifetime. In more good news for Sony, the PS5 Disc Edition has also broken even and will no longer be sold at a loss, as reported by Bloomberg.
Despite selling a total of 116.4 million units, sales of the PS4 console have dropped dramatically since this time last year. There were 500,000 units sold between April and June 2021, down from 1.9 million this time last year. This isn’t surprising bearing in mind the release of the PS5 console will have taken a huge chunk of sales away following a record breaking launch. In contrast, 2.3 million PS5 consoles were sold during the same period and the console has sold a total of 10.1 million units in its lifetime.
During the follow up earnings call, Sony Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki confirmed the PS5 Disc Edition had matched their predictions and had broken even by the end of the financial quarter. While the Digital Edition is still selling at a loss, this will be offset by the sales of other hardware, including PS4 consoles and peripherals for both generations. PS5 console sales have been impacted by component shortages that have led to revised console designs. While Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan had previously stated the company was “some time from being able to meet all the demand that’s out there,” Totoki confirmed they have now acquired enough chipsets to be able to hit PS5 sales targets for the rest of the fiscal year.
PlayStation is Sony’s most important sector at the moment, making up 29% of the company’s profits. The company’s sales increased by nearly 15% to 2,256.8 billion yen; according to ResetEra, this is Sony’ biggest ever Q1 revenue. Sales in the game & network services sector increased by 1.6% to 615.8 billion yen for the quarter, led mostly by a 117% increase in console hardware revenue and a 90.8% increase in sales of peripherals and accessories. This was offset by a 27% decrease in the sales of non-first party titles and DLC add-ons.
Elsewhere, there was a 9.3% increase in income from network services like PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now despite PS+ suffering a 1.3 million drop in users from the previous quarter. Throughout April to June, there was an average of 104 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network. Between them they spent an average of $37.09 on products from the PlayStation Store. Total gameplay time for all PlayStation players during the same period has decreased 32% compared to this time last year, but because there is still an 18% increase when compared to two years ago, Sony still sees a “steady growth” overall.
