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Sony has sold over 38.4 million PS5s following a record-breaking year
It sold 19.1 million units in fiscal 2022, compared to 11.5 million the year before.
Now that it's solved its supply shortages, Sony is seeing a lot of pent-up demand for PlayStation 5 consoles. The company just announced its second consecutive blockbuster quarter, selling 6.3 million PS5s — an impressive figure in a non-holiday period — compared to 2 million last year. That brings its total for fiscal year 2022 to 19.1 million, handily beating its own forecast of 18 million. The company has now sold 38.4 million PS5s since the console was released in late 2020.
The news wasn't quite as good on the software side. Game sales were down to 68 million from 70.5 million a year ago, and lower for the fiscal year (264.2 million compared to 303.2 million in fiscal 2021). PlayStation Network users dropped to 108 million from 112 million the quarter before, though PS Plus subs were up very slightly.
All of that added up to a fairly large boost in revenue in the Gaming & Network Services division, up to 1.073 trillion yen ($7.9 billion) compared to 665 billion yen ($4.9 billion) the year before. Operating profit was down, though, due to a hit in foreign exchange rates. For the year, Sony hit 3.9 trillion yen in sales ($29 billion), up from 2.7 trillion yen ($19.9 billion) the year prior.
The company is confident that trajectory will continue into next year, forecasting a 7 percent boost in revenue for fiscal 2023. It's predicting increased hardware sales, including peripherals, though it didn't say anything about results for the PlayStation VR2 to date.
Sony's gaming segment still dominates its other divisions, though its chip/sensor and entertainment technologies (TVs, cameras, etc.) were also bright spots. Overall, Sony set a new fiscal year sales record with 11.5 trillion yen in sales ($84.8 billion) and 1.21 trillion yen ($8.9 billion) in profits.
Sony, of course, just scored a major win over its biggest rival as well. Yesterday, the UK blocked Microsoft's merger with Activision over cloud gaming concerns, though Microsoft has vowed to contest the decision.
