After a turbulent time due to multiple crises stemming from the coronavirus and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it appears that Sony is willing to rebuild its relationship with consumers playstation 5 shine brighter than ever. To do this, it is preparing to add new features to the console, expects an increase in sales (or at least shipments) and boasts good numbers in the last quarter, which contrasts with the PC situation.

Starting in order, the new PlayStation 5 OS beta includes some interesting features for the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany, and France, which include e.g. voice chats and Discord’s screen sharing features, the introduction of Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) for 1440p resolution, the ability to transfer data from PlayStation 5 to another console unit, and new features related to accessibility and ease of use. We remember that all this went into the beta branch of the system, so we still have to wait for all the news to be generally available and through the stable branch.

The second consists of sales expectations. As we said on the previous occasion, Jim Ryan, the president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, officially declared at the press conference at CES 2023 the official end of the supply problems of the PlayStation 5, so the next-generation console should start to have better availability from the current year 2023. The giant of Japanese origin expects to sell 6.2 million consoles during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, which officially ends on March 31 of the “common” calendar. That’s double the PlayStation 4’s peak in the same quarter of previous years.

Despite Microsoft’s attempts to slow down Sony by buying companies, the reality is that demand for the PlayStation 5 remains seemingly high as they have been shipped. 7.1 million console units during the quarter ending December 31, 2022, an increase of 83% compared to the same quarter of the previous year and the best record in the same period. In total, a total of 32 million units of the PlayStation 5 have been shipped to date, which is less than the 38 million units that the PlayStation 4 registered when it was on the market for the same period.

During the third fiscal quarter of 2022, the total was 86.5 million software units, up from 62.5 million in the previous quarter, but down from 92.7 million recorded in the same quarter a year earlier. Digital software distribution amassed 62% of sales, and titles stand out here first partywhose sales rose by 6.6 million to 20.8 million, and God of War Ragnarok sold 11 million copies in its first three months on the market.

In terms of PlayStation Plus subscribers and PlayStation Network monthly active users, the services saw increased activity in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 after subscriber numbers declined in the previous two quarters. That contrasts with Sony’s Network and Gaming Services division reporting second-quarter revenue of $8,790 on a year-over-year profit of about $820 million. These figures represent an increase of 53 and 25 percent.

Despite declining subscribers in some quarters last year, Sony’s network service revenue, which includes PS Plus and advertising revenue, rose for the second straight quarter to about $950 million (¥122 billion). The number of monthly active users on PlayStation Network increased by 10 million to a total of 112 million.

As we can see and according to the data provided by Sony, it seems that the Japanese video game giant has reasons to be optimistic about the commercial operation of the PlayStation 5 during the current year of 2023. This matches the PC situationa platform on which component sales are set to plummet and with 2023 already apparently given up as lost the big three (NVIDIA, AMD and Intel). We’ll see if PC makes a comeback by 2024 or if what’s happening now is the beginning of the end for the platform.