Higher Prices, Decreasing Sales: The Future of PS5 Depends on GTA 6

Sony has published the financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter and the entire fiscal year 2025 of the PlayStation division, highlighting a significant slowdown in PS5 sales despite the console reaching a total of 93.7 million units shipped worldwide.

In the quarter between January and March 2026, Sony shipped 1.5 million PlayStation 5 units, recording a 46% decrease compared to the same period the previous year. In absolute terms, this is about 900,000 fewer units compared to the first fiscal quarter of 2025. According to financial documents, this figure does not yet fully incorporate the effect of the recent price increase of the console, which came into effect from April.

The slowdown in hardware sales occurs within a broader context characterized by rising production costs and ongoing difficulties in obtaining memory at sustainable prices. Sony explained that the projected PS5 volumes for fiscal year 2026 will directly depend on the amount of memory the company can acquire at deemed acceptable costs. Nevertheless, the company stated that it has already secured the minimum quantity necessary to meet demand during this year's holiday season.

Over the past twelve months, Sony has raised the price of PS5 twice. This trend comes at an advanced stage of the platform's life cycle, now approaching six years since its commercial debut.

On the economic front, the gaming division nonetheless closed the fiscal year with revenues that were essentially stable: 4.69 trillion yen compared to 4.67 trillion in the previous financial year. Operating profit, on the other hand, increased by 12% to 463.3 billion yen, primarily thanks to the growth in revenues generated by the PlayStation Network and digital sales.

Software has also shown signs of slowing down. In the quarter, 74.6 million copies of games were sold between first and third party, down by 1.5 million compared to the same period last year. First-party titles reached 5.8 million copies, also slightly lower than previous data.

Meanwhile, the weight of digital continues to grow: 85% of software sales occurred via download, with an increase of five percentage points compared to the previous year. Concurrently, active monthly users of the PlayStation Network also increased to 125 million, one million more on an annual basis.

Among the factors that impacted the results of the last fiscal year were also the impairments related to Bungie and the underperformance of Destiny 2. However, Sony believes that the absence of these extraordinary components in the new fiscal year, combined with the anticipated launch of Grand Theft Auto VI, could significantly improve the profitability of the gaming division.

Despite this, forecasts for fiscal year 2026 remain cautious. Sony expects revenues to be largely stable or slightly declining, with a hardware market that seems to be in physiological slowdown and growth driven mainly by digital services, subscriptions, and third-party software. Additionally, the increasing competitive pressure exerted by Nintendo Switch 2 (also recently subject to a price increase) remains in the background.