The PlayStation 5 may still release this year.
During their latest financial earnings presentation, Sony states that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will not affect their plans to release the PlayStation 5 during the holiday season this year. The report does state that though there was a slight impact on production of PlayStation 4 consoles, sales of game software, as well as PS Plus and PlayStation Now subscriber numbers have significantly increased. It is also stated that no problems have arisen in game development for Sony's first-party studios.
"Regarding the launch of PlayStation 5, although factors such as employees working from home and restrictions on international travel have presented some challenges in regards to part of the testing process and the qualification of production lines, development is progressing with the launch of the console scheduled for the 2020 holiday season," the report reads.
"At this point in time major problems have not arisen in the game software development pipeline for Sony's own first-party studios or its partners' studios."
On Twitter, Daniel Ahmed, a senior analyst at Niko Partners, compiled much of the data that was to be found in the sales report. His findings show that the lifetime sales for the PlayStation 4 now stand at 110.4 million consoles. Sony shipped 13.6 million PS4's in the financial year of 2019/20, which is down from 17.8 million units in the prior year. Though Sony has not given a forecast for the financial year of 2020/21, it is expected to be lower. 1.5 million units were shipped during the quarter of January through March 2020, which is down from 2.6 million units sold in the same period last year. The current April through June quarter will likely be better than expected due to a demand in consoles during the lockdown.
Ahmed goes on to show that 245 million units of software were sold in the financial year of 2019/20, which is slightly down from 257.6 million units last year. It should be noted that 51% of all game sales were digital during the 2019/20 year, compared to 37% in 2018/19. In January through March 2020, digital units accounted for 66% in overall sales.
Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are looking to release during this year's holiday season.
