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7.8 million PS5 consoles shipped, outselling PS4 in the same period

Dom Peppiatt avatar
News by Dom Peppiatt Editor-in-chief
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The PS5 is off to a phenomenal start, according to Sony's latest earnings report, as the company reveals the new console has sold over 7.8 million units.

According to the latest financial report, Sony managed to ship 4.5 million PS5 units worldwide by the end of 2020, meaning that a further 3.3 million units have since been sold in 2021. There may be an issue with scarcity, but that's not stopping Sony from hitting some major milestones.

This means that Sony has met a major target it set for itself and the lifetime sales of the PS5, exceeding the number of PS4 shipments it made in the same period after the console's launch in 2013-2014. We know that the PS5 was the biggest console launch ever for Sony – we also now know that its first few months on sale were the best, too.

And just because the PS5 is selling like proverbial hotcakes, that doesn't mean the last-gen hardware has been hung out to dry. Sony reports an additional 1 million PS4 consoles have been sold in the last quarter, resulting in a massive 115.9 million units sold in the console's lifetime. As you'd expect, that's slightly down on the 1.4 million units sold in the last quarter, but that's not surprising given the marketing focus is squarely on the PS5 now.

Sony's good news doesn't stop there, either: the report notes that the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers is up, again. The service now boasts 47.6 million, a 14.7 percent increase year-on-year.

Overall, Sony has had a bumper year:  Sony's Game & Network Services Division is responsible for bringing a massive $25 billion in revenue to the company thanks to the PS5 launch. As analyst Daniel Ahmad points out, hardware alone is responsible for 20% of that figure, with digital software and add-on content (such as microtransactions and DLC) picking up 21% and 34% of the number respectively.

Also, if you wanted further proof that physical games are dying, they accounted for a mere 5% of the division's revenue. PlayStation peripherals make up the final 6%.

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