PlayStation 5 Boasts Best Quarter Yet After Huge Increase in Sales

Sony’s video game division had its best financial quarter since the launch of the PlayStation 5, with a huge increase in sales of consoles and first-party software.

As revealed in Sony’s third quarter 2022 financial results, the PS5 had its best sales quarter with 7.1 million consoles sold in the three months ending December 31, 2022. This brings the console to 12.8 million sold in fiscal year 2022, and 32 million units shipped since launch. That’s a 34% year-over-year increase, a figure that demonstrates that the supply issues that once plagued the console may well be behind us.

The success of the PS5 saw Sony increase its annual sales target from 18 million to 19 million.

Sony’s Game & Network Services segment revenue reached 1,246.5 billion yen, up 53% year-on-year, while operating profit was 116 billion yen, an increase of 25% year-on-year. This not only represents the best quarter of the year, but the best quarterly results in the PS5’s entire lifespan.

Sony had similar good news beyond console sales. Its 86.5 million video game sales didn’t quite hit the highs of last year’s third quarter (92.7 million), but the third quarter of this year saw a substantial increase in game sales. proprietary games; of the 86.5 million games sold, 20.8 million were first-party. 11 million of them were God of War Ragnarok alone.

PlayStation Plus saw a slight increase in subscribers from 45.5 million to 46.6 million. That doesn’t bring it back to its peak of 48 million users, but the service’s monthly active users have jumped to 112 million. PS Plus revenue also rose for a second straight quarter, likely driven by subscribers to higher-tier PS Plus packages.

So it was a strong quarter for PlayStation. But while it looks like supply issues won’t hamper the console anymore, it certainly kept it from hitting the same numbers as its predecessor. At this same point in its life cycle, the PlayStation 4 had shipped just under 38 million units.

For more on PlayStation, check out our articles on the new PS5 beta software update that adds Discord voice chat, plus PS Plus games for February and the end of the PS Plus collection for PS5.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.