Despite having a shaky start upon release, Sony's PlayStation 5 is on track to outsell the PlayStation 4, which moved 117 million units globally.
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According to Mat Picatella, executive director and video game industry analyst at Circana (formerly NPD Group), since the release of the PlayStation 5, the US sales of Sony's latest console is outpacing the PlayStation 4 by 7% when aligned for launch, which seems to indicate that Sony has made up for all of the lost sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic when the PS5 released. 4 years after the launch of the PS5, Sony is selling the new console like hotcakes across the US, while the same can't be said for Microsoft's Xbox Series console, which is reportedly falling behind the sales trajectory of the Xbox One.
"Through each console's first 50 months in the US market (life to date ending Dec 2024 for both XBS and PS5), PS5 lifetime unit sales are 7% ahead of PS4's pace, while Xbox Series trails Xbox One by 18%," wrote Piscatella. On a smaller timeline, "Through 38 months in the US (through Dec 2023), PS5 led PS4 by 6% while XBS [Xbox Series] trailed XBO [Xbox One] by 13%."
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It was only in August last year Sony reported the PS5 had sold 61 million units, and while Microsoft doesn't reveal the hardware unit sales for their consoles, the Wall Street Journal estimates the company has sold half of PS5 sales. Piscatella points to the Nintendo Switch coming to the end of its lifecycle for the overall declining revenue in video game hardware sales, as the industry analyst writes that PS5 hardware fell 18% when compared to December 2023, and the Xbox Series and the Switch each declined by 38%. Ultimately, annual spending on video game hardware wrapped up 25% lower than in 2023 at $4.9 billion.