Sony keen to bolster first-party earnings as PS5 nears 75 million lifetime sales

The PlayStation 5 has achieved 74.9 million lifetime sales following a bumper holiday season.

The console shifted 9.5 million units during the third-quarter of the current fiscal year, a significant year-over-year increase on the 4.5 million units sold in Q3 FY23.

That upswing follows the launch of the PlayStation 5 Pro, which debuted in November 7, 2024. Over 40 percent of people who purchased a PS5 during the quarter were new users, leading to a substantial increase in the number of monthly active users (MAUs).

“Cumulative unit sales of PS5 from launch until the end of December are essentially the same level as the cumulative unit sales of PS4 for the same period of time since launch, even though PS5 had a higher price,” explained Sony.

“Furthermore, MAUs after the same amount of time has passed since launch have increased significantly by approximately 1.4 times. This shows that the user base for the PS platform has significantly expanded from the PS4 generation due to the PS5ʼs backward compatibility and our various user engagement initiatives.”

Quarterly software sales increased to 95.9 million units from 89.7 million units over the same period. Despite that year-on-year upswing, sales of first-party titles actually declined to 11.6 million units from 16.2 million units in Q3.

The company said it intends to expand earnings from first-party software next year with the release of Ghost of Yōtei and other titles.

PlayStation MAUs increased to record levels in December 2024

Discussing its wider platform business, Sony said the segment is gathering momentum with PlayStation Plus revenue increasing by 20 percent year-on-year on a U.S. dollar basis. The number of MAUs across PlayStation platforms in December 2024 rose by 5 percent year-on-year to 129 million–the highest number in PlayStation history.

Overall playtime also increased by 2 percent over the same period, marking the seventh consecutive quarter of year-on-year growth. 

All of the above resulted in sales within the Games & Network Services segment (which houses Sony’s video game business) rising by 16 percent year-on-year to 1.6 trillion yen ($10.4 billion). Operating income rose by 37 percent to 118 billion yen ($767.2 million) over the same period.

It’s a performance that has resulted in Sony upgrading its fiscal forecast.

“Taking into account the results of the quarter, we have revised upward our full-year forecast for sales by 3 percent to 4 trillion 610 billion yen and operating income by 7 percent to 380 billion yen compared with our previous forecast,” added the company.

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