Sony has sold over 40 million PS5 consoles
It may take a long while to catch up to the PS4.
It didn't take long for Sony to cross another PlayStation 5 milestone. The company confirms it has sold over 40 million PS5 consoles since the system's debut in November 2020. That's roughly 8 million units sold since the start of the year. That unsurprisingly doesn't top last year's holiday sales, when Sony moved 7.1 million PS5s in one quarter. However, the company says inventory is finally "well-stocked" and keeping up with demand — you might not have to wait for stores to get fresh supplies.
The PS5 reached the 10 million mark in its first eight months. However, it also had the benefit of launching during a holiday when many people were stuck at home during the early pandemic — it became Sony's fastest-selling console to date. The tech giant is now is getting closer to that pace even in the post-holiday period, when demand tends to drop.
The company had shipped over 117 million PS4s as of early 2022, and nearly 157 million PS2s as of 2013. Nintendo, meanwhile had moved nearly 123 million Switches as of the end of 2022. Those leads aren't surprising given the extra years of sales involved, but they suggest Sony has a while to go before it eclipses both its all-time best figures as well as the current-gen competition.
How that momentum changes isn't clear. A redesigned or upgraded console isn't guaranteed to arrive in the near future. At the same time, the game catalog is improving. More PlayStation games are PS5-only, including upcoming blockbusters like Spider-Man 2. Sony is also going into late 2023 with a few potential system-selling accessories, including PlayStation VR2 and the Project Q streaming device. There's no guarantee Sony will continue to enjoy rosy sales, but the ingredients are there for a strong year.
