Despite all the economic woes of 2020, both Sony and Microsoft were able to fulfill their promise of bringing next-gen consoles before the year ended. Needless to say, both launches were a success and caused a frenzy with units getting sold out within minutes. Sony’s latest financial report details that the company sold 4.5 million PlayStation 5 units during its launch quarter which is similar to the PS4’s figures at launch.
It may be possible, though, that the PlayStation 5 could surpass its predecessor’s numbers but unfortunately, Sony was only able to release a limited number of consoles at launch due to the pandemic.
The PlayStation 4, on the other hand, saw a steady decline in sales in 2020. Its sales dropped a good 77-percent compared to the previous year and sold the least number of units in the 3rd quarter of 2020. Nonetheless, it was still able to sell pretty well despite the new-gen consoles coming out.
Yet despite the high number of PS5 sales, Sony may not be earning as much from them as one would think. The company has disclosed that it was selling PS5 units with razor-thin margins meaning it was being sold at a price that’s less than the manufacturing cost.
Still, Sony still had a very fruitful year for its general gaming segment. Analyst Daniel Ahmad says Sony had its best quarter in PlayStation history which may be largely due to the PS5 launch and software sales. There was a 40-percent increase in total revenue and a 50-percent increase in operating profit which comes from increased game sales and PlayStation Plus subscriptions.
As for its competitor, Microsoft wasn’t as specific on the sales of the Xbox Series X or the Series S but did report that its hardware revenue was up 86-percent year-on-year.