PS5 sells 50 million, but hasn’t caught up with the PS4 yet

The PlayStation 5 has surpassed another sales milestone, hitting 50 million units sold as Sony recently revealed on its blog.

It’s now been three years since Sony launched the PlayStation 5 (or PS5 as it’s known to its friends), as the console hit shelves back in November 2020.

“Achieving this PS5 sales milestone is a testament to the unwavering support of the global PlayStation community and their passion for the incredible experiences created by the talented developers from PlayStation Studios and our partners”, said Sony president Jim Ryan.

The PS5 is now amongst the top-selling consoles to date, number 15 of all game consoles according to figures on Wikipedia, just behind Microsoft’s Xbox One console (sales of which were about 58 million), a console it’s likely soon to surpass in sales.

What’s most interesting, though, is that Sony has sold almost as many PS5s as it did PS4s at the same point in the console’s lifecycle. Actually, the PS5 has hit 50 million sales in 161 weeks, while it took the PS4 160 weeks to achieve that same milestone according to Forbes.

And it is shocking that the PS5 has been selling almost as well as the PS4 (a trend that has been going for a while now), taking into account that the PS5 was launched in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and there were supply issues for years. This is something that Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan has even apologized for.

Actually, Ryan, who’s retiring from his post in March 2024, highlighted that this is the first season Sony has had a “full supply of PS5 consoles”.

“We’re grateful for all of our players who have joined the PS5 journey so far, and we’re thrilled that this is the first holiday season since launch that we have a full supply of PS5 consoles – so anyone who wants to get one can get one”, said Sony’s boss.

Sony is pleased with PS5 sales so far.

It remains to be seen, though, whether the PS5 will end up selling more units than the PS4 did. The latter is at the end of its life cycle, so its sales total of about 117 million units is unlikely to increase much now. Also, this November was PlayStation’s best ever, pointing out to increasing sales momentum for the PS5 now that supply shortages are a thing of the past.

So it is very likely that the PS5 will at least equal the PS4 when it comes to sales sometime in the future, but Sony still has a while to go to achieve that goal. The thing is, will the Japanese company ever top its sales record for a console, which stands at 155 million units sold? The old PS2 remains the best-selling ever console to date, but maybe Sony has a shot at surpassing this record if the PS5 becomes really popular.

This might just be the case taking into account that the PS5 is technically the best console Sony has ever produced, with full backwards compatibility for PS4 games, plus there’s a new PS5 Slim version in the market now. A more powerful, PS5 Pro model is rumored to be in the works now too.

Plus, a plethora of games such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart have graced the console, even if it faces fierce competition from Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service… So time will tell whether the PS5 ends up surpassing the PS4 in sales, and even becomes Sony’s best-selling console of all time.

Read more: 5 differences between the PS5 Slim and the original console