Sony plans to sell 18 million PS5s in the current fiscal year, 56.6% more than in FY2021

Written by. Ryuki Ishii based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-05-10 18:02 JST)

Sony Group plans to sell 18 million PlayStation 5 in the fiscal year 2022, according to the company’s FY2021 financial report. This is 56.5% more than what Sony managed to sell in FY2021, but the company suggests that this might not be enough to meet the demand.

The new generation of consoles, including PS5, have been suffering from global supply shortages for a while. Sony sold 7.8 million PS5s in FY2020 (PS5 launched in Q3) and 11.5 million in FY2021 (April 2021 – March 2022). The FY2021 number is less than the company’s initial internal forecast of 14.8 million units.

The supply issue will likely continue in the coming months, but Hiroki Totoki, Executive Deputy President and CFO of Sony Group, mentioned today that the calculation for the FY2022 forecast was made based on the number of parts and semiconductors that the company can reliably procure during the current fiscal year.

Totoki also stated that 18 million units might not be enough to meet the demand, although by a small margin. They need to have more inventory in order to deliver enough units in a timely manner, but they’re slightly short on this matter as well. In summary, the console is expected to be easier to come by but may still be in short supply.

As for the PlayStation Plus subscription, Totoki denied the possibility of providing PlayStation Studios’ titles for the service on day one. Totoki commented that if they were to provide the studios’ AAA titles on day one for PS Plus subscribers, they would need to reduce the value of those games, which may result in titles with lower quality. And Sony doesn’t want to go in that direction.

According to the group’s financial statement, “Operating income was 346.1 billion yen, essentially flat year-on-year. This result was primarily due to a decrease in loss resulting from strategic price points for PlayStation 5 hardware that were set lower than manufacturing costs, substantially offset by the impact of a decrease in sales of non-first-party titles including add-on content.”

As for the current fiscal year ending March 2023, “Sales are expected to significantly increase year-on-year mainly due to an expected increase in sales of hardware and peripheral devices, an expected increase in sales of non-first-party titles including add-on content and the impact of foreign exchange rates.” On the other hand, the group expects an increase in costs for game development and the expenses associated with acquisitions, including Bungie.