Sony has sold 20 million PS5s and promises better availability

Sony’s PlayStation 5 has sold 20 million copies worldwide. Sony reports that number to GamesIndustry.biz. The company also promises a “significant acceleration” in console production to ensure that more PS5s become available.

GI.biz writes further that “global chip shortages prevented Sony from reaching this sales milestone earlier.” It’s unclear whether that’s the reading from GI.biz itself or from Sony, but judging by the fact that the PS5 sells out quickly unless stores sell it well above the suggested retail price, it seems that the production capacity is indeed still functioning as a bottleneck. Sony previously expressed expectations regarding the acceleration of production, but this time it is more firm and is actually aimed at the consumer.

Sony reported also last month that the PS5 reached the 80,000 mark in 82 minutes, at the time of its release in November of 2020. That compares with the PS4, which took nine days to reach the same number.

Reporting PS5 sales immediately calls for a comparison with the major competitor: the Xbox Series. The difficult thing about this is that Microsoft has not shared the sales figures of its console for years. In January of this year, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer did announce that the Xbox Series had shipped more than the Xbox 360 in the same period. At the time, that meant ‘more than 12 million times’. The Xbox Series is also unable to keep up with demand due to persistent chip shortages.

AMD frontwoman Lisa Su reported in September of last year that she expects chip shortages to continue until “the second half of 2022.” Then the expectation is that production capacity will increase, not that demand will decrease. Sony’s statements to GI.biz therefore seem to be in line with that.

The two PlayStation 5 variants