PS5 to outsell PS4's 7.6 million launch sales, Sony predicts

Sony has confirmed its PlayStation 5 sales predictions for FY2020, and forecasts the PS5 to outsell the PS4's 7.6 million unit sales throughout the year.

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In its recent earnings report, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki outlined PS5 launch year sales forecasts. The company expects the PS5 to beat the PS4's strong 7.6 million launch-year sales surge, numbers that would be even higher if supply permitted. Sony plans to ship as many consoles as it can and reports say up to 8.25 million PS5s could be shipped across the Q3 (holiday) and Q4 (Jan - March) periods.

"As for the unit sales of the PS5 this fiscal year, we are aiming to exceed the 7.6 million units we sold in the fiscal year of launch of the PlayStation®4, which achieved substantial market share and was a major success," Mr. Totoki said in the report.

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The PS4's debut sales helped spark massive sales that ultimately peaked in in holiday 2016 during Sony's Q3'16 period. As of now the PS4 has sold-in 113.8 million units, but sales are starting to dip dramatically as gamers eye the PS5.

"As for software for the PS5, we expect to have more titles than at any launch in our history, thanks to our high-quality, first-party software that is exclusive to the PlayStation, and to collaboration with our publisher partners.

"We expect to launch the PS5 in great shape due to this appealing software lineup, the strength of the PlayStation brand, our pre-eminent game ecosystem and our cohesive gamer community.

"Our strategy is to grow sales and profit through increased user engagement driven by great game experiences on the PS5, and we aim to accelerate the growth of recurring sales and profit by expanding the reach of our community through further strengthening of network services going forward."

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Sony expects the PlayStation 5 to significantly contribute to its FY2020 earnings. They're so confident in the PS5's performance that they raised total-year earnings forecasts by $945 million. Sony now projects gaming to earn 2.6 trillion yen ($24.57 billion) in FY2020, a rather sizable 35% increase over FY2019's performance.

The PS5 will release November 12, 2020 for $499 (physical disc version) and $399 (digital-only version).

Check below for a side-by-side spec comparison of the 9th generation of console hardware:

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