- The PS5 sold 8 million units in FY25 Q3, outselling the Nintendo Switch 2 by 1 million
- The console has also surpassed 92.2 million global units sold and officially outsold the PS3
- Sony says Ghost of Yotei among other live service games, contributed to the PS5’s sales in Q3
Despite launching over five years ago, the PlayStation 5 managed to outsell the Nintendo Switch 2 in the latter half of 2025 by 1 million units.
According to Sony’s latest financial results, during FY25 Q3, which begins October 1 and ends on December 31, the PS5 sold 8 million units compared to the Switch 2’s 7 million, and has officially surpassed 92.2 million global units sold.
This comes after Nintendo informed investors that Western hardware sales for the Nintendo Switch 2 were not as strong as they expected by the end of 2025.
The 8 million achievement is a decline from the 9.5 million Sony managed to sell during the same period in 2024, and the PS5 is still lagging in lifetime sales compared to the PS4‘s 94.4 million. However, the PS5 has now officially outsold the PS3, the latter of which sold 87.4 million lifetime sales as of March 31, 2027.
During the webcast (via IGN), Sony’s chief financial officer Lin Tao attributed Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei, as well as other live-service titles like Helldivers 2 and MLB The Show, to the rise in PS5 sales during Q3.
“In the studio business, Ghost of Yotei, a tentpole title we released in October, exceeded the sales of the previous title in the same period of time and significantly contributed to the financial results of the quarter,” Tao said.
“Our established live service titles like Helldivers 2 and MLB The Show also contributed stable recurring revenue.”
Tao continued saying, FY25 Q3 sales decreased 4% year-on-year, “primarily due to lower hardware unit sales,” but operating income increased by 19% year-on-year, which Tao explained was “due to the positive impact of foreign exchange rates and the impact of increased sales and network services and first-party software, setting a record for the third quarter in this segment.”
“We upwardly revised our FY25 sales forecast 4% from the previous forecast to 4,630 billion yen, and our operating income forecast 2% to 510 billion yen,” the CFO added. “User engagement trended well during the quarter with the number of monthly active users across all of the PlayStation in December increasing 2% compared to the last December to a record high of 132 million accounts. And total play time for the quarter increased 0.4% year-on-year.
“Although conditions in the console hardware market during year-end selling season were more challenging than expected, we were able to steadily expand our PS5 install base in line with our original plan and exceeded 92 million units on a cumulative selling basis.”
The PS5 launched in November 2020, and Tao explained that although PS5 hardware unit sales decreased moderately in the latter half of the console life cycle, games across PSN, third-party titles, and PS Plus contributed heavily to software revenue overall.
“While PS5 hardware unit sales have decreased moderately in the latter half of the console cycle, software revenue from the PlayStation Store reached a record high during the quarter, primarily driven by the contribution of major third-party franchise titles and new hit releases,” Tao said. “PlayStation Plus significantly contributed to the results of the quarter as the shift to higher tiers of the service continued.”
In terms of future software, Tao mentioned Bungie Marathon, which launches next month, and is expected to be “enjoyed by many users thanks to Bungie having strengthened the gaming experience”, as well as first-party titles Saros and Marvel’s Wolverine.
Tao said they’re both planned for release “next fiscal year” and Sony intends to “enhance our effort to increase the revenue of our studio business.”
It appears that the PS5 is performing well and may even be able to beat the PS4 in lifetime sales before the end of its life cycle if it keeps on. 8 million units in just three months is impressive, especially considering the price hike that was introduced in August last year.
However, it seems that Sony has no intention of increasing the console’s price anytime soon, even amidst the generative AI wave and increased tariffs, with Tao confirming that the company intends to negotiate with various suppliers to secure enough supply to meet customer demand.
“Given the stage of our console cycle, our hardware sales strategy can be adjusted flexibly and we intend to minimize the impact of the increased memory cost on this segment going forward by prioritizing monetization of the install base to date and striving to further expand our software and network service revenue,” Tao said.
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