This generation of consoles, in many ways, belonged to Sony with their PlayStation 4. With Microsoft stumbling out of the gate, something they never quite recovered from, Nintendo now being in its own bubble, and a slate of first party titles that were killer from a critical and financial standpoint, they have the momentum coming into this next generation, and the question is will they hit the ground running once again? Well, one analyst says yes, despite everything else happening.
In February, Japanese analyst Hideki Yasuda of Osaka firm Ace Research Institute predicted Sony would manage to move 6 million PS5s by the end of this fiscal year, which ends on March 31st, 2021. Now, a little thing called COVID-19 happened, you may have heard about it, that has changed the landscape a good deal. But Yasuda is holding firm in that initial prediction, saying that despite the pandemic, as well as what some see as ‘weak’ marketing on the part of Sony, he still sees the PS5 moving the same amount. He even stands by his other prediction that it will ship 15 million the next fiscal year, between April 1st, 2021 and March 31st, 2022. He says that the demand for gaming and entertainment hasn’t been impacted by current events, and points to Sony’s recent financial earnings report as how strong the brand currently is (thanks to Twinfinite for translations).
Of course, Yasuda seems to not be factoring in the possibility that stock will be staggered to a significant degree due to the pandemic, or that regions in Asia won’t see a major ‘second wave’ that could, again, affect production lines. We’ll just have to wait and see, but if everything goes smoothly, well, his predictions don’t seem too out there. Sony is definitely going into this generation with a strong base.
