Sony is reportedly projecting to sell over 10 million PS5 consoles during the 2023 holiday season. Yes, we’re barely out of February and we’re already talking about Christmas. Nonetheless, Sony specifically expects to sell about 10.5 million PS5 units in the third quarter of FY 2023 (that’s October, November, and December this year).
The new “PS5 Slim” model could boost console sales
To put this 10.5 million number into context, which comes from a report by Insider Gaming from anonymous sources, Sony revealed that it only shipped (which is different from “sold”) 7.1 million PS5 consoles over last year’s holiday season. This means that the company expects a roughly 30% increase in sales during this year’s holiday season over last year’s.
This projection banks on the upcoming “PS5 Slim,” which is apparently expected to be in production by April 2023 and available for sale around September 2023. This new PS5 model with a detachable disc drive will reportedly replace the current ones, though the disc drive itself may not be compatible with the PS5 digital version. Either way, this 10.5 million number likely includes all PS5 models together, rather than just this PS5 Slim alone.
Overall, Sony hopes to sell over 30 million PS5 consoles for the entirety of FY 2023, which is close to the 32 million units the company says it has sold since the PS5 launched in November 2020. Given that PS5 sales almost doubled over last month in the UK, in part due to better console supply, it looks like Sony’s optimistic forecast is not too far off the mark.
