The PS5 may not be selling at quite the pace that Sony wants it to, but that it’s still been a massive success for Sony is inarguable. As of March 31, the console has sold over 59.3 million units worldwide, and being at roughly the halfway point in its lifecycle, you would guess that that number is going to go significantly higher in the years to come.
Already, in fact, the PS5 has been more profitable for Sony than any past PlayStation console has been. As part of a presentation shown during Sony’s recent business segment briefing, the company revealed that the current console generation is its most profitable one to date.
Not only has the PS5 generation seen sales worth $106 billion in its first four years (compared to $107 billion across seven years of the entire PS4 generation), Sony also says life-to-date spend per console is 26 percent higher for PS5 compared to PS4 within the same timeframe. On average, Sony has seen $731 being spent per PS5 console on content, services, and peripherals, compared to $580 per console during the PS4 console generation.
That’s thanks to spending on DLC and in-game microtransactions being up by 176 percent, on services by 57 percent, and on peripherals by 34 percent- though notably enough, spending on full games is down by 12 percent compared to the first four years of the PS4 generation.