PS5 Is Entering the 'Latter Half of Its Life Cycle', Says Sony | Push Square

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We don’t know about you, but it feels like the PS5 has barely broken a sweat yet. Despite being over three years old, the system’s lifespan has been hugely impacted by the pandemic, which has seen its first-party software cadence slow to a crawl and its early years massively affected by hardware shortages. It’s a little odd to hear Sony talk about the system entering the “latter half” of its lifecycle, then.

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But fiscal year target is off

A decrease of four million units

But, according to Bloomberg, that’s exactly what Senior Vice President Naomi Matsuoka said during the organisation’s recent earnings call. While the new-gen system sold well over the holidays, it failed to meet the manufacturer’s lofty expectations, forcing it to revise its forecast down from 25 million units to 21 million units. It should be noted these are still massively impressive numbers, but obviously missed targets will always be painted as a negative.

“Looking ahead, PS5 will enter the latter half of its life cycle,” Matsuoka said. “As such, we will put more emphasis on the balance between profitability and sales. For this reason, we expect the annual sales pace of PS5 hardware will start falling from the next fiscal year.” In other words, this current period is presumably the platform’s peak, and the firm is predicting a gradual decline from here.

Of course, nothing the manufacturer’s saying here is all that controversial really. It stands to reason there’ll be a gradual slowing of PS5’s sales unless there’s a price cut, and given Sony’s razor-thin margins, it looks like it’s going to focus more on profitability moving forwards. That’ll naturally impede the number of units it ships, which are unlikely to hit these kinds of highs again unless something unexpected happens.

So, the platform holder is communicating sensibly and honestly with its investors, which is what a responsible corporation should do. We know it’s continuing to invest in software for the system, and while