The Playstation 5 sold 4.5 million units in just two months

Despite the ongoing supply shortages of the console, Sony shipped 4.5 million Playsation 5 units in 2020, following its launch in November.

Predictably, demand for the Playstation 4 dropped quite significantly, shipping 1.4 million units in the October-December quarter, a 77 per cent drop from the previous year.

This comes from Sony’s latest earnings report for the October-December quarter, showing revenues for Sony’s Game and Network Services at 883.2 billion yen – a 40 per cent increase YoY. Operating income for the quarter meanwhile was 80.2 billion yen, a 50 per cent increase YoY.

As industry analyst Daniel Ahmad noted on Twitter, this quarter was the best in Sony’s history for gaming, and this fiscal year will be its best yet too.

Worth noting that this was Sony's best quarter ever for its games division.

This fiscal year will also be Sony's best ever for gaming in terms of revenue and profit.

Their forecast was also increased for the full fiscal year, mostly due to strong software / network sales. https://t.co/yaRRqhiww1

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) February 3, 2021

However, Sony also notes that its operating income was offset by the production costs of the Playstation 5, pointing out that the cost of the console is less than what it costs to produce. Sony says that a loss occurred due to “strategic price points for PS5 hardware that were set lower than the manufacturing costs.”

The majority of the company’s revenue for the quarter came from software, earning 433 billion yen from digital software. This was an increase of 42 per cent over the previous year. Of that revenue, 51 billion came from physical game sales, 176 billion came from digital downloads, and an additional 256 billion came from add-on content.

Playstation Plus meanwhile hit 47.4 million subscribers during the quarter, an increase on the 38.3 million in the same period in the previous year.