Sony prepared to take 'necessary measures' to sell 25 million PS5s, including more discounts

Sony executive management explains the rationale behind the recent steep PlayStation 5 discounts.

A bit ago, Sony and multiple retailers decided to reduce the PlayStation 5's price tag by at least $50. This led to some pretty surprising deals with both consoles and accessories, with the base disc-based PlayStation 5 model selling for as low as $420.

Now in its latest Q1 Fiscal Year 2023 earnings report, Sony outlines the reasons for the sales. Apart from unconfirmed reports that a new PS5 model is believed to launch sometime this year, Sony Corp. essentially says that it hasn't sold as many PS5 consoles as it would have liked and the company is willing to take "necessary measures" to hit its lofty sales target of 25 million PS5s sold throughout the fiscal year.

Here's what Sony said in its latest Q1 report:

"PS5 hardware sales were 3.3 million units, a significant increase of 38% year-on-year.

"This amount is somewhat less than the expected progress toward our fiscal year sales target of 25 million units, but, due to promotions begun in July, we are seeing an improvement in the momentum of sales.

"We have positioned the accelerated penetration of PS5 hardware as one of the highest priorities in this fiscal year, and we will try to work steadily to implement necessary measures to achieve our hardware sales target of 25 million units."

These measures of course include price reductions. The development is also particularly interesting given that Sony raised the prices of the PS5 in practically all worldwide regions last year except for the United States, and a lot of these deals are nevertheless prevalent in the U.S. as well as other regions.

Furthermore, just a few months ago Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said that the division was "constantly looking at the prices of our products and services," and will change prices when it's "justified and necessary."

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