PlayStation 5 sale will fall short of Sony’s ambitious goals, according to the official results for the last quarter of 2023 published by the Japanese firm. He also announced that the first part of 2024 will be “lukewarm” in terms of game releases, as there won’t be “continuing or updating its core existing franchises”.

Sony’s gaming division generated a record amount of revenue last quarter, which is usually the best quarter of the year because it coincides with the holiday season and Black Friday campaigns. But it wasn’t due to hardware sales of its flagship console, as “only” 8.2 million PS5s were sold in the period, bringing the console’s total since launch to 54.7 million units. The PS5 is now 15th on the list of best-selling consoles of all time, between the SNES (49.1 million) and the Xbox One (58 million).

With those numbers, Sony will fail to meet the target original target to sell 25 million units during the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024. In fact, the company lowered the annual target to 21 million units. It also revised down its revenue forecast for its gaming division, which it attributed in part to falling sales as well as lower profits from recent discount sales.

Better data comes from the service PlayStation Network, which reached a new record of 123 million monthly active users. General software sales for PS5 and PS4 also increased, and in line with this trend, sales of digital editions of games increased again and now account for more than two-thirds of games sold on the platform, at 66%.

Other announcements are related to the development of the game itself: “In terms of our own software, our goal is to continue to focus on producing high-quality productions and online services. But while major projects are currently in development, we don’t plan to release any major updates to existing franchises in the next fiscal year.”. This doesn’t mean they won’t launch new games, but that they will be new IPs and not versions of existing ones.

Finally, the Japanese company also confirmed it The original PlayStation 5 model has been discontinued and will not be sold after the current stock is exhausted. Launched in November, the Slim model will be the only PS5 on sale.

Having said all of the above and thinking about lowering expectations for PlayStation 5 sales, it’s worth asking: Is Sony planning to launch new consoles in 2024? This is where the long-awaited PS5 Pro comes into play, as well as a laptop that would mark the company’s return to the portable console market.