PlayStation: PS5 sales are no longer taking off, but profits are soaring

Component shortages are weighing heavily in the long-range battle playstation and Xbox. Sony has just published the figures for its fourth quarter of 2021, and this time it is no longer possible to avoid the problem: PlayStation 5 sales have stalled over the period, with only 3.9 million PS5 sold between the months of October and December 2021. This is almost 3 million units less than the 6.4 million of PS4 sold at the same stage.

In the end, Sony has sold 17.3 million PS5 since the November 2020 launch, compared to 20.2 million PS4 (at the same stage still). These relative difficulties are forcing Sony to revise its objectives downwards: the 22.6 million units sold at the end of March have been replaced by a more reasonable objective of 19.3 million units, which by the way means that Sony expects to sell more than 2 million consoles between January and March. Ouch!

If the shortage of components therefore weighs very heavily on these figures, in the end it is undoubtedly a good operation for Xbox, which would be around 12 million Xbox Series sold. 1.3 PS5 sold for 1 Xbox Series, Microsoft would undoubtedly have signed with both feet for such a limited gap at the start of gen. Remember, however, that the division Microsoft Gaming has for it the advantage of being able to sell its Xbox Series S much more easily. Another unpleasant observation, Sony will not be able to take full advantage of the big releases of this first quarter (Horizon Forbidden West in particular) to push sales of its PS5. Admittedly, the shortage will undoubtedly have ceased by the end of the year… but at that time, the big games will be rather expected on the competing machine (Stalker II, Starfield). When it doesn’t want…

Still in the list of disappointments, PlayStation recorded a drop in sequential game sales, which is extremely rare for a Q4: Sony thus sold 92.7 million PS5 and PS4 games in the fourth quarter, against 104.2 million in the previous Q3. 62% of games sold were directly downloaded (53% last year) and PlayStation Studios sold 37.3 million games over the year. On the financial side, however, not much to report. Admittedly, the turnover target has been revised downwards, but the 21.8 billion euros made over the year are still a record (6.2 billion euros over the quarter). As for operating profit, its objective has been revised upwards (2.6 billion euros for the year and 718.3 million euros for the quarter). The big score is rather to be found on the side of PlayStation Plus, which now has 48 million subscribers (+600,000 over the quarter). PlayStation also has 111 million active players, down 3 million from Q4 2020.

Finally, we note that for the first time, the profits of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) are largely driven by the Sony Pictures division (nearly a billion euros) and exceed those of PlayStation over the quarter. Some Spider-Man: No Way Home been there…