Sony sold 3.4 million PS5 units after launch, highest ever for PlayStation
In contrast to Microsoft’s move to not disclose sales for the Xbox Series X and Series S, Sony has been vocal about the success of the PlayStation 5, revealing that 3.4 million units were sold during the first month of its launch in November.
Undoubtedly, the demand for PS5 is one for the books, with Sony tweeting that its PS5 launch was the biggest ever, surpassing its predecessor’s 2.1 million units sold during the first two weeks of launch, and even breaking into Google’s “Year in Search” list. (READ: PS5 was the most searched thing on Google this year, beating out toilet paper)
The demand for Sony’s next-gen console has placed the company in an uncomfortable position as people have slowly grown weary over the lack of PS5 units at retailers and reports of consoles being unavailable until later this year. Sony will be forced to deal with the demand brought by the persisting pandemic and holiday rush of last year.
According to a report by Forbes, a lot of gamers have been tracking PS5 stocks for months after launch. While there has been a “brief flurry of stock” in major retail outlets, it was still not enough to meet the demands of the gaming community. Worse still is the constant battling through hundreds of scalpers who are offering consoles at outrageous prices, which further stresses out gamers who don’t want to spend a fortune for the PS5.
The internet was quick to find a solution to ease up the difficulties in searching and keeping track of supplies with @PS5StockAlerts, which tweets timely announcements of limited PS5 supply drops. The Twitter account currently has over 600,000 followers.
Meanwhile, Digitimes has reported that PS5 shipments are targeted to reach 16.8 to 18 million units by 2021. According to the report, initial shipments will be made to North America and Europe, while units will also turn up in Asia sometime after January.
On the other hand, AMD, which supplies PS5’s CPU, has tapped into Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which provided AMD additional foundry capacity to further increase production capacity to cope up with the demand for the console.
Sony rival Microsoft also faces similar problems with its Xbox Series X and Series S shortages, with both the holiday rush and the COVID-19 pandemic further increasing the demand for the consoles. Like Sony, Microsoft is competing against bots and scalpers in queues that often end up with servers and websites lagging or crashing.
Given the rapid figures and massive success of the launch, analysts have made bold predictions pre-launch of PlayStation 5, which would suggest the console eventually breaking the 200-million mark in a few years’ time and becoming the “most successful home console of all time.” With PS5’s 3.4 million sales in its first month, this prediction may not be that far off.