Sony says they are planning to sell at least a hundred million PlayStation 5 units over the course of its lifetime, revealing that the company is releasing its next-gen console in the best condition ever. The PlayStation 5 does come at a prime time in terms of both video games interest and considering where Sony is a distributor of first-party games.
The world’s hunger for video games is at an all-time high because of the global pandemic closing down the production of various forms of entertainment like TV series and movies. Sony is established to benefit from this as last generation’s leader, and its backward compatible PlayStation 5 will allow individuals who played the PlayStation 4 in the past to continue to enjoy their games on the next-gen console.
According to recent reports, Hiroki Totoki, Sony’s chief financial officer, discussed the company’s sales goal for its next-gen console in a presentation to investors. In addition to its long term goal of achieving 100 million consoles sold, he confirmed Sony’s more instantaneous goal of surpassing the PlayStation 4 in the new system’s first year on the market.
This may be possible thanks to the PlayStation 5’s outstanding release lineup including Bugsnax, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and a library of popular PlayStation 4 games through the PlayStation Plus Collection.
Even though it might seem like 100 million PlayStation 5 units sold is a big goal, the company already achieved it before. Based on the company’s sales figures, every PlayStation except for one has reached this goal.
The exception is the PlayStation 3 which only attained just over 87 million systems sold. In comparison, no Xbox console has ever reached such numbers, with the Xbox 360 coming in the closest at 84 million units sold. Other platforms that have sold at or above 100 million are the Nintendo DS, Game Boy, and Wii systems.
Considering the success of the gaming industry and Sony’s previous sales numbers, it seems more than rational to expect that the PlayStation 5 will hit 100 million units sold when its life has reached its limit. Even the PlayStation 3 which was considered the underdog of its generation because of being expensive during its release, ultimately defeated its competitors to reach the top spot versus the Xbox 360.
It will really be interesting to see how everything falls out in the years to come, especially considering Nintendo’s consistent success with the Switch, the increasing popularity of cloud gaming platforms, and Microsoft’s two-pronged system lineup.
