Sony wants PS5 to exceed PS4’s 14.8 million second-year sales – but parts shortages may stop

Sony plans to sell more than 14.8 million PlayStation 5 units during its second financial year, April 2021 to March 2022. This is more than the hugely successful PS4 shipped in its own second financial year – but it could be affected by a worldwide shortage of semiconductors. In a briefing following Sony’s Q3 FY2020 earnings (transcribed by The Motley Fool), a Sony spokesman noted the company’s hopes of selling the PS4’s second-year sales figures. “For [the] the next financial year we believe that there will be a strong demand to continue. The second year of the PS4 launch [hit] “14.8 million, we want to exceed the PS4 level when it comes to PS5,” the spokesman said.

The statement comes in response to a question about the lower stock of the PS5 due to a worldwide shortage of semiconductors, which hampers the amount of consoles that can be manufactured – and it can continue. “However, we need to look at the global shortage of semiconductors,” the spokesman continued. “When we try to increase our capacity, we have problems because of this global situation.” As we reported in late January, AMD expects a shortage of chips during the first half of 2021, caused in part by the lack of semiconductors entering the market. AMD’s chips help power the PS5, which means Sony could have an impact and produce more PlayStation 5 units.

In the short term, Sony has said it is on track to reach its current sales target of 7.6 million units by 31 March 2020, but notes that it is unable to meet the ‘high level of demand’ of customers, which he expects to continue in the next financial year. Sony’s earnings also revealed that the company has sold 4.5 million PS5s as of December 2020, which is in line with the launch of PS4.

In other PlayStation 5 news, a recent system update fixed the PS4 disk installation error affecting users. If you’ve been lucky enough to get your hands on a PS5, check out our list of the best PS5 games, and if you need help, check out all of our PS5 manuals.

Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.