PlayStation 5 Slim Is Selling Well, but Not Well Enough; 100 Million Units Won’t Be Enough to Recover Development Costs Next Generation
The PlayStation 5 Slim seems to be selling well compared to the original model, but it seems like it is still not enough to outperform the PlayStation 4, according to a new report.
As reported by GamesIndustry Japan, securities firm Toyo Securities held a seminar on December 27th to discuss PS5 sales. According to the firm, Sony will sell around 18.5 million units in 2024, missing its target of 25 million units. While it was previously assumed the console was not selling enough due to manufacturing issues, the reality seems to be different, as while the PlayStation 5 Slim is selling well, its sales are not enough to outperform the PS4's sales in a similar timeframe. Still, it is doing well, and it's likely SIE interim president Hiroki Totokoi will highlight them in the company's next financial results.
While sales not hitting their targets, even with the success of the PlayStation 5 Slim, is not a major issue now, it may be a much bigger issue in the next console generation, which isn't all that far off now. According to GamesIndustry Japan, conversations with third parties revealed how difficult it is to recover the current huge development costs with an install base of 100 million units, as even porting titles to Xbox consoles and PC doesn't help all that much. In their report, Toyo Securities highlights this issue as well, saying that this will become even more of a problem in the next generation of consoles, suggesting that Sony should stop seeking increased performance, which leads to increased development costs, and release a smaller system with bigger mass market appeal.
As the massive Insomniac Games leak last month revealed, development costs are going out of control for AAA games and are hardly sustainable. With
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