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Sony has said sales of the PlayStation 5 can pick up in order to hit its record-breaking target set for this financial year.
Sony kicked off the current financial year by selling 3.3 million PS5s during the three months to June, a figure up significantly on the 2.4 million sold during the same period last year but lower than expectations.
Sony has set a target of selling 25 million PS5s this financial year, a figure that would be a record for a PlayStation console. Since going on sale in November 2020, PS5 has sold 40 million — a figure tracking slightly behind the PlayStation 4.
Reuters reported that Sony said it plans promotions to help sales momentum. “We believe that there is ample possibility for us to catch up,” Sony president Hiroki Totoki said.
Meanwhile, the PlayStation business continues to post strong financial performance. Sales for the three-month period were up 28% to 771.9 billion yen ($5.3 billion) off the back of an increase in sales of third-party games, including add-on content, an increase in sales of hardware, and a significant impact of foreign exchange rates. Operating income, however, was down 7% to 49.2 billion yen ($343 million), mainly due to an increase in costs from Sony’s $3.6 billion acquisition of Destiny developer Bungie.
Looking to the rest of the current financial year, Sony revised its PlayStation sales prediction up 7% to 4.1 trillion yen ($29.1 billion), although its operating income prediction remains unmoved due to a “deterioration in profitability” of the PS5 hardware, “mainly due to changes in promotions by geographic region and the sales channel mix”.
This sounds like a reference to various temporary PS5 price cuts, including this month’s first-time discount that saw PS5 drop to at least $449.99 in the U.S., £399.99 in the UK, and €459.99 in Germany. Sony also mentions the “impact of changes in the launch dates of a portion of first-party titles”, which may be a reference to the delay of Nuaghty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer project.
PlayStation is set to enjoy a significant boost when Insomniac’s hotly anticipated Spider-Man 2 comes out on October 20.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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