Even if Microsoft was able to grow in some areas, many experts believe that Sony will offer a more successful console with the next generation of PS5. The company also wants to outdo the massive success of the PS4.
The success of the two consoles of PS5 and Xbox Series X in the coming months will largely depend on the availability of the new hardware – i.e. the production capacities. Because the demand exceeds the supply, which has already led to the fact that after the rather bumpy start of pre-orders and the rapid sell-out of the consoles, no further copies can be pre-ordered for the time being. An exception is still the Xbox Series S, which apparently can hardly mobilize buyers.
The open question is how many copies of their console the platform owners can actually produce. After all, the COVID-19 pandemic could shake things up in the past few months. However, in a recent interview with Jim Ryan, Sony is confident that the success of the PS5 in the first fiscal year can trump sales of the PS4 in the same period. The current fiscal year ends on March 31, 2021.
“We think the PS5 will sell more in its first fiscal year than it sold in the first fiscal year at the time of PS4 launch,” Ryan told a Korean publication. We remember that PS4 had more than 7 million buyers worldwide by April 6, 2014. By mid-April 2014, 20.5 million PS4 games had been sold.
The fact that the PS5 can actually sell more than 7 million copies in the first fiscal year shows that Sony has much larger production plans. The company is assuming an initial run of 15 million consoles, which should be produced by the end of March 2021.
Subsequent rumors, which spoke of production problems and a resulting reduction in the production volume to 11 million consoles, were denied by Sony. Recent surveys suggest that Microsoft, despite massive marketing efforts and billions in investments, failed to get large groups to switch to the Xbox Series X. The idea of establishing an affordable entry-level device with the Xbox Series S does not seem to be bearing fruit at the moment.
Should the Redmond-based company stick to its strategy of hiding the sales figures for its own consoles, it will be difficult to compare the success of the coming consoles over the next few months. At least one thing is certain: the next-gen consoles will be released this November. November 12, 2020, was selected for the launch of the PS5.
