A surprising new report reveals that sales of the PlayStation 5 have now surpassed sales of the PlayStation 4 at the same period in its lifespan, showing that gamers are eager to get their hands on Sony’s latest console. The news comes just months after Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan took to the stage at CES 2023 and effectively announced that PS5 console shortages are over, stating that gamers should “have a much easier time finding one” moving forward.
Launched in late 2020 after being officially announced the year prior, Sony’s PlayStation 5 came with a number of improvements over the aging PlayStation 4. With a solid-state drive capable of delivering lightning-fast load times and a faster processor and GPU, the PS5 promised gamers the ability to enjoy some of their favorite titles with seamless loading and next-gen graphical features like ray tracing. While the company has always prided itself on having powerful consoles, a fact made evident by the years’ worth of patent documents in which Sony calls Nintendo and Microsoft consoles ‘inferior,’ supply chain issues related to the global pandemic made the PS5 hard to come by until only fairly recently.
The latest report from market research firm Circana, formerly known as the NPD Group, has revealed that sales of Sony’s PlayStation 5 are now outpacing PlayStation 4 sales at the same point in its lifespan. The news was shared by Circana executive director Mat Piscatella as part of a Twitter thread going over Circana’s March 2023 US gaming market findings, with Piscatella stating that PS5 sales “have now surpassed those of PlayStation 4 on a time-aligned basis (29 months in market).” The thread also noted that the PS5 was the “best-selling hardware platform in units and dollars” for both March and 2023 as a whole so far.
The PlayStation 5’s swift sales are surely welcome news to Sony as the company prepares to release highly anticipated exclusive titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Death Stranding 2 in the coming years. But just as gamers are finally able to get their hands on the coveted console as more units begin to appear on retail shelves, the base PS5 may already be on its way out. Recent reports have indicated that Sony is working on new PlayStation hardware, with rumors indicating that the company could release a new version of the console entirely separate from the expected PS5 Pro hardware refresh.
With industry-leading sales and several high-profile console exclusives set to arrive in the near future, the PlayStation 5 is shaping up to be one of the company’s most successful consoles yet. The news is also a win for gamers, with more consoles sold likely translating into increased interest from developers in creating games for the consoles. Whether the unusual temperature-changing PlayStation controllers revealed in a recent patent will help further spur sales remains to be seen, though.