Sony has revealed that it sold 6.3 million PlayStation 5 consoles during the first quarter of 2022, bringing total sales of the console to 38.4 million units. This marks a significant increase from the 2 million units shipped during the same quarter in the previous year. Sony exceeded its fiscal year 2022 forecast by shipping 19.1 million PS5 consoles, surpassing its earlier estimate of 18 million.
However, there was a decline in the number of game software units shipped from 70.5 million in Q4 2021 to 68 million in the same quarter of 2022. Revenue from game software was up overall, but the flat number of PlayStation Plus subscribers and the slight increase in monthly active users for PlayStation Network was underwhelming.
This could be due to the lack of major first-party game releases during the quarter, but it may also reflect the impact of the earlier hardware supply issues on software sales and subscriptions. These are important for Sony to create a “virtuous cycle” of mutually reinforcing console and game sales.
Despite this, Sony reported strong financials with an operating profit of a record 1.21 trillion yen (around $8.9 billion) for the year, and a 35 percent rise in revenue to 3.06 trillion yen (around $22.5 billion) in the first quarter. Sony did not disclose sales figures for its PlayStation VR2 headset, which launched during the quarter.
Bloomberg considers Sony’s profit forecast for the current fiscal year to be conservative, as the company expects operating profit to drop by roughly 3 percent year-over-year to 1.17 trillion yen (around $8.6 billion). This may be due to expectations of reduced consumer spending and lower sales of in-house PlayStation Studio games.
