Sony shipped 4.5 million PlayStation 5 units worldwide in 2020. The number highlights Sony’s current ability to mass-produce the console, matching PS4 sales during that console’s 2013 launch quarter.
Sony sold 4.5M PS5 consoles last year 👀 pic.twitter.com/7yS2UPOeAe
— B/R Gaming (@BRGaming) February 3, 2021
Demand for the PlayStation 4 dropped dramatically year-on-year, with 1.4 million units shipped in the October-December quarter — a 77 percent decrease from the previous year. Sony actually managed to sell fewer PS4s in the holiday quarter than it did from July to September.
Sony’s gaming business overall performed much better than a year ago; with the analyst, Daniel Ahmad noting that it was actually the best quarter in PlayStation history. Revenue increased 40 percent to 883.2 billion yen ($8.4 billion), partly driven by PS5 sales. Operating profit was up by 50 percent to 80.2 billion yen ($763.3 million); because of higher game sales, PlayStation Plus subscriptions, which saw a 9 percent boost, and better margins on PS4 hardware.
While the PS5 got off to a running start, Sony also confirmed that it’s losing money on every PS5 sold because it set “strategic price points for PS5 hardware that was… lower than the manufacturing costs.”
The cost of the launch itself also cut into potential profits, as would be expected with an all-new console. Sony’s aggressive price point for the PS5 was meant to undercut the Xbox Series X, as you can get a digital version of the PS5 for $400, a full $100 cheaper than the X at $500, sacrificing only a disc drive for the difference.
Though Sony also sells a disc model PS5 for $500; and that has been the more widely available version since launch, even if it’s not the one most players want. It seems as if they’re selling at a loss on both consoles.
Bloomberg reported as far back as February 2020; that scarce components had driven the manufacturing cost of the PlayStation 5 to $450. Analyst Michael Pachter, in an October interview, speculated that Sony would break even on the $499 PlayStation 5, but lose money on the $399 Digital Edition that lacks an optical disc drive