Sony Interactive Entertainment is currently witnessing an “unprecedented demand” for PlayStation 5 consoles that surpasses all previous generations in its nearly three-decade history.
In a PlayStation game and network presentation (via @Zuby_Tech) earlier today, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan stated that there is a 55 percent purchase interest for PlayStation 5 in North America one year after launch. PlayStation 4, in comparison, recorded a 28 percent interest for the same post-launch period in North America.
PS5 Unprecedented Demand: pic.twitter.com/uYBxfMt6bZ
— @Zuby_Tech (@Zuby_Tech) May 25, 2022
Furthermore, North American retailers are selling out 80,000 PlayStation 5 consoles in just over an hour—82 minutes to be exact. That comes to be nearly 1,000 consoles selling out every minute.
During the same stage in its product lifecycle, PlayStation 4 was taking nine whole days to sell out 80,000 consoles in North America.
PlayStation 5 was launched worldwide in November 2020. Two weeks later, the console was confirmed by Sony to be the largest launch in PlayStation history with over 2.1 million units sold.
By July 2021, over 10 million units were sold to make PlayStation 5 the fastest-selling console to date. By February 2022, the figure had reached 17.3 million.
As of May 2022, the total number of PlayStation 5 consoles sold has surpassed 19.3 million units worldwide, which is still 3.3 million units short of what Sony had projected.
Sony made it clear last year that global supply chain issues will continue to be a challenge in 2022, something which has been impacting PlayStation 5 since its launch in 2020. The global chip shortages following the COVID-19 pandemic have made it difficult to manufacture enough consoles to meet the growing demand.
In response, Sony is reportedly continuing production of PlayStation 4 to help alleviate PlayStation 5 shortages in 2022 and potentially beyond. The PlayStation maker was previously planning to cease PlayStation 4 productions in 2022 and focus all resources on pumping the new PlayStation successor.
