SUMMARY
- PlayStation 5 is the latest in the proud series of gaming consoles from Sony.
- PS5 outsold its Xbox rival 3-to-1 in 2023.
Sony Interactive Entertainment is the company that produces the successful and the top of the line video game console the PlayStation 5. The PlayStation 5 was first announced in April 2019, as an upgrade to the PlayStation 4. The console was made available on November 12, 2020, for selected regions after which it went global.
The Xbox Series X/S consoles from Microsoft which is the PlayStation 5’s biggest rival are both from the ninth generation of video game consoles and were both introduced at the same time.
The main hardware component of the PlayStation 5 is the AMD GPU with a 4K resolution display at up to 120 frames per second. The console also comes with features such as ray tracing for realistic lighting and reflections, high-speed data streaming capability, and hardware-accelerated 3D audio effects. It also boasts features like backward compatibility with most PS4 titles, and the DualSense controller.
The lifetime sales of PS5
The PlayStation 5’s launch was marked by a difficult global scenario. During this time there was a global scarcity of semiconductors, coupled with a rise in demand for video game consoles owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the PlayStation 5 to be in restricted availability from the time of debut until 2021.
However, things were not as bad for Sony as it first seemed like. Just after completing two weeks after its release, Sony announced that the PS5 marked the biggest PlayStation launch ever, leaving behind the 2.1 million units that the PS4 sold in its first two weeks of release in 2013.
PS5 sold 103,901 conventional consoles and 14,181 Digital Editions sold in its first week of release in Japan, and by this feat, it became the best-selling console in the nation for that week with a total number of sales at 118,082 units.
To put it in perspective, the PS4 only managed to sell one million consoles a full year after launch. The PlayStation 5 emerged as the top-selling console in the UK during November sales. Additionally, within the first week of its availability, more than 43,000 units also were sold in Spain.
Sony declared that 4.5 million PS5 devices had been shipped overall during its fiscal quarter that ended on December 31, 2020, and these figures were comparable to those of the PS4’s initial numbers. However, by March 31, 2021, PlayStation 5 overtook this number by selling 7.8 million units units whereas the predecessor sold 7.6 million units during its first two quarters.
The PlayStation 5 console was said to have sold over 40 million units worldwide in July 2023. Additionally, according to the latest reports, the console was said to have sold more than 50 million units globally by December 2023.
The best-selling gaming console in history
However, despite of the amazing sales figures, the PS5 isn’t the best-selling gaming console of all time. The PS5 loses this title to one of its predecessors.
Sony’s wildly successful initial PlayStation prompted the arrival of the PlayStation 2, which debuted in 2000. The PlayStation 2 is presently the console with the highest sales volume ever. At the time of its launch, the PS2 competed with Microsoft’s Xbox, Sega’s Dreamcast, and Nintendo‘s GameCube.
With over 155 million copies sold worldwide, which is nearly quadruple the combined sales of the Dreamcast, GameCube, and Xbox, PlayStation 2 it is the best-selling video game system of all time. The production of the PS2 was stopped on January 4, 2013, by Sony. PlayStation 2 has been able to achieve this astronomical sales number due vast game library and its DVD playback capability.