PlayStation makes history with 91 million games sold in Q1'20

Sony just sold more games in Q1 than any other company in the 48-year history of console gaming.

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Sony's PlayStation division set new records in Q1'20. Not only did PlayStation make $1 billion in profit in Q1, more revenue than any other platform in the history of gaming, but Sony also sold 91 million games during the period, smashing every competitor and pushing total PlayStation 4 game sales to nearly 1.4 billion. In comparison, Nintendo sold 50.4 million games in Q1.

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Out of the 91 million PS4 games sold in Q1, 18.5 million of them, or 20%, were first-party PlayStation exclusives. Hardware, conversely, was down 40% year-over-year to 1.9 million sales. Sony has shipped a total 112.3 million PS4 consoles to date.

This titanic sales surge was driven primarily by digital software.

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Sony sold 63.7 million digital PS4 games during the three-month period ended June 30, up nearly 200% from last year's 22.7 million. Digital made up 74% of all unit sales during the period and raked in a massive $3.67 billion in revenues. Digital also made up 65% of the PlayStation segment's total Q1 sales earnings.

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Physical game sales were also up year-over-year, but represent a lot less of the earnings pie. Boxed software generated $352 million revenue in Q1, making up just 6% of PlayStation quarterly revenues.

Physical software unit sales were up 17.3% to 23.7 million, and accounted for 26% of the total game sales volume in the period.

Combined digital and physical revenues hit $4.022 billion on the back of 91 million total unit sales.

• Digital sales - 67.3 million, up 196% YoY
• Physical sales - 23.7 million, up 17.3% YoY
• Total - 91 million, up 112% YoY

For the rest of Fiscal Year 2020, Sony expects the PlayStation 5 to significantly raise games division revenues to $23 billion, up 26% from the substantial $18.19 billion it earned in FY2019.

Total game and hardware sales are expected to spike as the PS5 releases. Sources say Sony has doubled its PS5 production order to 9-10 million units, and plans to sell 120 million consoles by 2025.

"Sales are expected to increase significantly year-on-year mainly due to an expected significant increase in sales of game software and hardware as a result of the launch of PS5," Sony said in its recent Q1'20 earnings report.