Gabriel Stanford-ReisingerSony has something to — kind of — celebrate, as the PS5 has surpassed 40 million units sold as of earlier this week. Unfortunately, though, it still is overshadowed by its precursor, which managed to reach the milestone two months sooner. That said, we can’t deny that part of its sluggish delay was due to chip shortages in the industry and COVID-related woes.
As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, the milestone news follows a massive uptick in console sales back in June, with Europe seeing a whopping 116% increase compared to the same period a year ago. It wasn’t that long ago, though, that PlayStation announced that the shortage was in the past and that it’s now able to accommodate demand.
Its previous 30 million milestone was reached in January, and we can only assume another milestone will happen when Spider-Man 2 releases in October. With pent-up demand met, the console being well stocked, and games like Spidey’s new adventure, Wolverine, Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake, and more, Sony has a lot of chances to catch up with its previous generation and the expected 108 million lifetime unit sales Jim Ryan expects from the console.
PS5 Sales Statement
“Despite the unprecedented challenges of COVID, our teams and our partners worked diligently to deliver PS5 on time. We continued to face headwinds with the pandemic, and it took months for supply chains to normalize so we could have the inventory to keep up with demand. For more months than I care to remember, we kept thanking our community for their patience while working through these issues. But now PS5 supply is well-stocked and we are seeing that pent-up demand finally being met.”