According to a senior gaming executive, SONY is witnessing excellent momentum for its PlayStation 5 platform. The device has sold over 50 million units in its history, and the business recorded its best-ever Black Friday period sales for it.
In order to meet its sales target of a record 25 million units in the current financial year ending March 31, the entertainment behemoth is counting on the fourth-generation PlayStation 5 to have a robust holiday shopping season.
“We’re feeling very good about PlayStation 5 sales overall, given the momentum we had in November and a lot of what we’re seeing in December,” stated Eric Lempel, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, sales, and business operations at Sony Interactive Entertainment.
In the most recent fiscal year, Sony’s gaming division accounted for the majority of its sales and was the second-largest source of operating profit, after music.
Investors became uneasy when management revealed in August that PlayStation 5 sales had fallen short of expectations.
Sony is trying to find a healthy balance between sales volumes and profitability, and the corporation has stated that their aim of 25 million units is a “high target and not within easy reach.”
This year, we’ve made several excellent promotions. In an interview, Lempel stated, “I will say that at this point in the lifecycle, we’ve done fewer promotions than we ever have in the history of the company.”
Early in the PlayStation 5’s lifetime, supply chain bottlenecks hurt sales. They’ve subsided, and it’s now picking up steam thanks to the release of the highly anticipated video game Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which hits stores on October 20.
The Japanese firm, well-known for its single-player games, is attempting to enter the live-service market by producing games that allow for continuous online play.
The Last of Us franchise developer Naughty Dog of Sony announced last week that it had canceled an online game because its release would have hampered the creation of single-player games.
The company’s sales effort coincides with industry discussions over consoles’ future as cloud computing advancements offer gaming without the need for large, cumbersome hardware.
For the time being, consoles are still popular with players; this year, the release of games like Zelda’s most recent installment helped Nintendo’s aging Switch gain traction.
Future PlayStation games include the limited-edition Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in February and The Last of Us Part II Remastered, which releases in January.
No matter where we end up, Lempel stated, “we are still pushing really hard and I think we will have a record-breaking year.” Reuters