PlayStation 5 breaks 19 million units sold, forecast to sell 18 million in coming year

gamepur.com:

While big acquisitions tend to be what grabs the headlines for gaming companies, their quarterly reports are the best way to see how well they are doing. These reports tend to have numerous figures around their sales as well as how much money the company has on hand to weather tough periods, like the one that Sony continues to have with the PlayStation 5.

It hasn’t been any secret that the PlayStation 5 has had a difficult time so far in its lifecycle. With shortages at launch that have impacted the company’s sales through two holiday seasons, sales of Sony’s latest console have never quite met their expectations. We are at the start of the console’s second full year since launch and the PlayStation 5 has yet to break the 20 million units sold marker.

According to Sony’s quarterly report to investors, the PlayStation 5 has sold 19.3 million units since its launch in November 2020. This is around 14 percent lower than the PlayStation 4’s sales the same time after its initial release. This is likely disappointing for Sony but certainly not catastrophic; the PlayStation 4 has gone on to sell over 116 million units so far, so there is scope for the newest console to catch up over time.

Sony is bringing that optimism with them into the next financial year. With potential supply issues finally sorted out, the company’s report forecasts that it will sell an additional 18 million PlayStation 5 units between April 2022 and March 2023. This would be a sizeable jump from the 11.5 million units sold in the previous financial year and would put the console on good footing to catch up to its predecessor heading into the middle of its lifespan.Other highlights from the report state that the company sold 70.5 million units of software