PlayStation 5 to sell an absurd 200 million consoles, analyst predicts

Rakuten Securities analyst Norio Imanaka makes bold forecasts on PS5's sales that border on the absurd, saying Sony's next-gen console will be the best-selling system in history.

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Rakuten analyst Norio Imanaka predicts the PS5 could sell 200-300 million units in just 5-6 years' time. This figure is pretty outlandish for a few reasons. First, a bit of perspective: The PS5 would have to sell 40 million consoles every year for 5 years to hit 200 million. The PS4 has never broken more than 21 million sales a year, and in FY2016 the PS4 hit peak sales of 20.3 million.

Secondly, these figures would easily dethrone the industry's best-selling console of all time. The PS2 has sold-in 155 million units worldwide after 13 years on the market, as per Sony's official figures. These predictions see the PS5 eclipsing the PS2 by 45 million units in less than half the available market time.

The PS5 is also harder to manufacture than the PS4 thanks to the complex 7nm+ SoC used in the next-gen system. This could lead to less production volume over time, however Sony says they plan to ship and push more PS5 sales in the first year than the PS4 did at launch.

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Other analysts are more conservative with their forecasts. Ampere Analysis predicts the PS5 could sell 67.3 million units by 2024, and says the console could move 5 million sales in 2020 alone.

Anonymous sources tell DigiTimes that Sony expects to sell anywhere from 120 million - 170 million PlayStation 5 consoles from now until 2025, which is admittedly an extremely high number.