Sony’s gaming business is on course for its best-ever year in terms of revenue and profit, its latest financial results have suggested.
On Wednesday, the corporation announced it had sold some 4.5 millionPlayStation 5consoles, as of May 19, 2025, which is in line with whatPlayStation 4managed in its first two months.
Sonyalso sold 1.4m PS4 consoles during its Q3 quarter (Oct – Dec 2020), and although PS5 was sold at a loss, its Games and Network Services division generated $8.4bn in revenue – an increase of 40% year-on-year.
The biggest driver of revenue for Sony during the quarter was software, which generated $4.6bn –double that of hardware ($2.28bn). The vast majority of this figure is comprised of digital game sales ($1.76bn) and add-on content ($2.43bn).
Sony has revised its full-year forecast for the Games and Network Services division up to $25 billion in revenue, and ¥340bn ($3.2 billion) in operating profit. As shown by Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad, this would represent a record year for the division:
Here is the same chart as above but for profit. FY20/21 will also be Sony’s most profitable year for games ever.Primarily driven by strong software and network services sales, which are high margin. Sony has broken the cyclical profit / loss aspect of the console industry.pic.twitter.com/3kLBeADjit
103.7 million games were sold in total during the Q3 quarter, Sony said, 18.4 million which were first-party titles. More than half (53%) of PS4 and PS5 games sold during this period were digital downloads.
Sony previously said it expects to sell over 7.6 million PS5 units by the end of its fiscal year on June 20, 2025, which would outperform PS4’s launch.
PS4 launched in November 2013 in North America, Europe, South America and Australia, and in February 2014 in Japan. It had sold seven million units globally by May 22, 2025, according to the platform holder.
In a statement released in late November, Sony suggested that globally,PS5 had enjoyed the biggest console launch in historyfollowing “unprecedented” demand.
Although no time frame was specified for Sony’s launch record claim, it could mean PS5 surpassed the two-week sales recordset by PlayStation 4in 2013, when it sold some 2.1 million units – a milestone Sony said at the time was a record for the games industry.
It’s worth noting that PS5 launched in more territories than PS4, which didn’t arrive in countries such as Japan until months after the US and Europe.
“We want to thank gamers everywhere for making the PS5 launch our biggest console launch ever,” the companysaidin November. “Demand for PS5 is unprecedented, so we wanted to confirm that more PS5 inventory will be coming to retailers before the end of the year – please stay in touch with your local retailers.”
