92 million PS5 sent to stores. The console sales race is something that matters more to shareholders than to users, but it is still a good thermometer of the state of the video game industry. Nintendo was the first to reveal its cards: 155.37 million Switches marketed until December 2025. It is only below the historic PS2. And, since we’re talking about Sony, in its latest report They have reported those 92 million PS5 units shipped. It’s quite an achievement.
Especially because of how they have reached that figure which, to contextualize, makes the PS5 the eighth best-selling console in history.
First crisis. Things didn’t start well for Sony’s home console. Not for Xbox either, but here Microsoft has been extremely opaque with its units sold for two generations. The two consoles arrived in December 2020, with COVID looming at the doors, games at 80 euros and a historic semiconductor crisis. Not like the current one, with components at stratospheric prices due to the rise of AI: In 2020 and 2021, there were no chips.
The PS5 reached 499.99 euros in its version with reader and 399.99 in its digital version at an extremely delicate moment because stock ran out as soon as it went on sale. This caused a boom in the sale of consoles. second hand at exorbitant pricesand the situation remained for much of 2022. When the situation began to ease, the company itself pointed out that had been able to produce fewer consoles than I had planned.
Second crisis. In the end, by mid-to-late 2022, things went smoothly. The chip crisis is over, the price rise(s) crisis began. Until this generation, we were used to the fact that, as the life cycle progressed, the consoles were dropping in price and improving performance. They became smaller, quieter and cheaper because the components could be miniaturized and the costs had been amortized. It was a win-win: it was cheaper for the company to produce it, they lowered the price and could get a better margin and market presence.
But in August 2025, PS5 went up in price. The version with reader went from 499.99 euros to 549.99 euros and the digital version from 399.99 euros to 449.99 euros. They sold it as the fruit of “the lofty global inflation rates“and the “adverse monetary trends”. It was not the only time: in mid-2025, they rose again. In this case, only the digital one, another 50 euros to reach 499.99 euros. Xbox has not been immune to this and it is the first time that lConsoles are cheaper when they come out than when they have been on the market for five years.
Competence. Now, whether the PS5 has been rising in price and has continued to sell depends on several factors. A very important one is that it has no competition at the table. At least, not as it was in the seventh generation – that of PS3 and Xbox 360-. The disastrous presentation of Xbox One at E3 2013 It caused Sony to win, on the street, the eighth generation with its PS4, and that trend has continued over the years. Xbox has been launching everything on PC for years, now also on PS5 and, although Sony is also in that boat, it does not launch. That is, a ‘The Last of Us 2‘doesn’t come out on the same day on PS5 and PC.
Now, the PC. Different reputable voices within the industry suggest that the PC, increasingly, it is the platform of the future. It is no longer just the price advantage of digital stores like GOG or Steam, but the catalog itself, the result of Sony and Microsoft launching their console games on PC. If “everything” is going to be on PC, the PC becomes the most interesting platform. Well, that’s the theory, since There is the market for RAM and SSDs to build a PC. But you can always buy the game and play at the highest quality with services like GeForce Now.
Time. Mobile phones are also competition, with games that are increasingly cutting edge visually and with mechanics that hijack our time. And there is another key in the competition: PS5 does not compete only against Xbox, Switch 2 or the PC: compete against YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or Netflix. Different voices in the entertainment industry have pointed out that they are no longer competing against their rivals in the same segment, but against anything that consumes our time.
Have a limited capacity for leisure, and everyone wants to get our attention those daily minutes that we are not working, eating, sleeping or, hopefully, socializing.
lazy generation. It may be one of the most complicated generations in history for console manufacturers, and added to all this, there is another factor that makes those 92 million PS5 sold even more notable: the catalog. video games They are increasingly expensive to produce and they are taking longer and longer to hit the market. These very long development cycles mean that big releases take years to come out, and that causes a lack of big titles that justify the purchase of a console.
‘GTA VI’ is an example. It has been in development for almost a decade and we will find out how much it has cost, but it is not the only one. The parents of ‘uncharted‘ either ‘The Last of Us‘They have not released any exclusive games for PS5 this generation and, speaking of exclusives, because the PS4 continued to have a brutal implementation in the market, Sony has continued to release games on both PS5 and PS4. For a handful of exclusives, a user might not see the point in making the leap to the new generation when Sony was still releasing games for its 2013 PS4.
Shielding yourself before GTA VI. Taking all this into account, and as we say, it is an achievement that Sony has managed to place 92 million consoles on the market up to this point. In the report, other data is noted, such as 132 million monthly active users in PlayStation Network as of September 30, 2025 and an increasing weight of the sale of digital games. We will see how Sony closes 2026, but it has something that will be a clear boost to PS5 sales in the final stretch of the year: the most anticipated game of the last 10 years: the new ‘Grand Theft Auto’ (and the ghost of games at 100 euros).
It is estimated that, if not delayed, it will arrive sometime this year and will do so, in principle, only for Xbox and PS5. It will provide a boost to the sale of consoles and, in full RAM crisis and the SSDthat raises a question: Will PS5 increase in price again before ‘GTA VI’? The answer, according to Sony, is that they are shielding themselves.
As we read in 3DGamesit has been the financial director of the division, Lin Tao, who has assured that they have undertaken necessary conversations to ensure a minimum amount of memory to maintain both production and estimated sales until the end of 2025. We will see, but it is reasonable that, given what has been seen, that doubt exists. What no one can deny is that, against all odds, the PS5 is impressive.
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