Sony aims to sell 25m PS5 units by April 2024
Platform holder says this will set a new record for PlayStation console sales within a financial year
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Sony plans to sell 25 million units of PlayStation 5 into retail in the current fiscal year.
The company's chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki revealed the target during an earnings call (transcribed by Seeking Alpha) following its solid results published this morning, saying it would be "the highest ever for any PS console in history."
Last financial year, ending March 31, 2023, Sony initially aimed to ship 18 million PS5 units but as it overcame supply issues and ramped up production, it managed to reach 19 million.
In terms of what will drive PlayStation's business in the year ahead, Totoki highlighted Marvel's Spider-Man 2 as a major release, and said the platform holder will continue to create new IP and roll out catalogue titles for PC.
During the later Q&A session, one analyst asked for more detail on how Sony hopes to reach this 25 million target.
"The reason why we believe that this is possible [is] PS4 customers exist now and the PS4 usage use them and they switch to PS5," Totoki replied. "We looked at how much would be switching. And there are also new customers, and we've been looking that.
"Based on the data… we believe that 25 million units within this fiscal year is something that we would believe that we can achieve."
When asked about the future of games consoles, Totoki said that "having some kind of hardware at hand is necessary," although noted that some of the computing power "could be in the cloud" in future.
"In any case, some kind of a client would be necessary to enjoy different games. So with the evolution of technologies and the hardware that matches the times, providing that [type] of hardware will create value."
Finally, he was asked why PlayStation's revenues are rising but its profits are in decline.
"One is the game development costs are going up," Totoki explained. "And also from a technical standpoint, the acquisition-related costs are increasing this term. The game development cost is going up because of the following reasons the first-party software development is going to be strengthened, and the live services will be launched. And intentionally, we are enhancing this part. So that is why the expenses are increasing. That's all."