Hammer time – Sony PS5 sales race to 50 million units

PlayStation 5 FTW.

Sony PlayStation 5 and Dual Sense controller by Kerde Severin via Unsplash.
Image by: Kerde Severin via Unsplash.

Sony announced it has sold 50 million PS5 consoles to consumers. A monumental achievement as it enters its fourth year on the market.

Sony also admitted the race to 50 million was undoubtedly spurred by last month’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. PS5 sales reportedly reached unprecedented record highs in November. In fact, 2023 has been really good to the company. Despite not releasing the exact numbers for the month of November, this year paints a pretty full picture.

Based on records past, Sony reached over 25 million lifetime sales by the end of September 2022. This increased to over 30 million by the end of January 2023. By June, however, Sony managed to sell yet another 10 million units. Finally, as of 20 December, those digits increased by an additional 10 million. Sony, therefore, sold 25 million PS5 consoles this year alone.

We can’t forget the slate of popular PS5 titles released throughout the year. There’s been the first-party, heavy-hitter Marvel’s Spiderman 2, followed by timed-exclusive Final Fantasy XVI. Third-party smash hit Alan Wake 2 and GOTY award winner Baldur’s Gate 3 also helped push sales. In fact, this year’s been a great year for gamers, hasn’t it?

“Achieving this PS5 sales milestone is a testament to the unwavering support of the global PlayStation community and their passion for the incredible experiences created by the talented developers from PlayStation Studios and our partners,” said soon-to-be-retired Jim Ryan, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Despite Sony announcing a price increase to its consoles, the PS5 had some decent discounts throughout the year. Production is also at an all-time high, and scalpers have seemingly disappeared since the pandemic-fuelled era. Player engagement, too, has increased thanks to a bunch of new gadgets including a console refresh, PSVR2, and PS Portal. The latter has sold out achieving a spot in the top 4 best-selling systems in November.