PlayStation reports another record quarter with 13.4m PS5s sold

Sony’s gaming business has reported another record quarter in terms of revenue, as the PlayStation business continues its run as the corporation’s most fruitful division.

On Thursday Sony reported that its games and network division generated $5.86B in revenue and $0.751B in profit between July and Sept 2021.

As shown in the data below collated by Resetera, this represents PlayStation’s strongest ever Q2 period in terms of sales and revenue and the second biggest revenue quarter ever outside of a holiday window (Q3). Operating profit was down 21% YoY.

During the three-month period, Sony reported that it sold some 3.3 million PS5 consoles – which represents an increase of 1 million over Q1 – bringing the total number sold to 13.4 million.

In comparison, around just 200,000 PS4s were sold during the same period, compared to 1.5 million a year before.

Sony sold 76.4 million PS4 and PS5 games during the three-month period (down from 81.8m last year), it said, 7.6 million of which were first-party titles (down from 12.8m YoY).

The company’s best-selling first-party PS5 games so far are Spider-Man: Miles Morales (6.5m – also available on PS4), Demon’s Souls (1.4m) and Ratch & Clank: Rift Apart (1.1m).

PlayStation Plus subscribers increased by around one million since Q1 to 47.2m users, which represents an increase of 2.2 million YoY.

However, PlayStation Network monthly active users declined for the third quarter in a row to 104m (down from 105m, 109m and 114m in previous quarters).

Overall, Sony enjoyed its biggest revenue and operating profit ever for a Q2 window, driven mostly by PlayStation, music and electronic products.

As with most electronic companies, Sony’s PlayStation 5 sales have been hampered by the ongoing component shortages caused by the pandemic.

Speaking during Sony’s previous financial call in August, CFO Hiroki Totoki claimed that Sony had secured enough semiconductors – which have been in short supply during the pandemic – to achieve its fiscal year target of selling 14.8 million PS5s.

“The shortage of semiconductors has impacts in various areas and through various measures, we have been taking some action,” he said.

“For PS5, the target has been set for the number of units to be sold this year, and we have secured the number of chips that is necessary to achieve that. Regarding the supply of semiconductors, we are not concerned.”