PS5 sales are 42% behind PS4 at this point in the generation, and it's got nothing to do with the price increase

Sony has just released its final quarterly results for the year 2025, running from April to April. In it, the brand revealed that it has only sold 1.5 million (Sony) PS5 consoles in its final quarter (January to April 2026), a drop off from the 2.8 million units shipped the previous year. By itself, that's not all too surprising. After all, we're five years deep into this life cycle, and platforms are expected to drop off.

However, Sony is tracking behind its PS4 sales pretty consistently now. At the same point in its life cycle (Q4 2018), the PS4 sold 2.6 million units (via Sony). Not only that, but the lofty PS5 price increases that saw base consoles surge as high as $600 (and the PS5 Pro jumping up to $900) took place just after these dates, so they can't be used to explain the larger drop.

It's Sony's inability to stick to its traditional pricing trajectory that has its sales numbers so low gen-on-gen. With RAM shortages and other supply chain constraints, the PS5 has been unable to hit the kind of discounted prices we'd expect at this point in its life. By 2018, the PS4 was being bundled with Spider-Man for $199.99 over Black Friday. Day to day, you'd find a console available for $299.99 - about $100 off its original launch rate.

By contrast, the cheapest (Digital Edition) PS5 launched at $399.99 and has only risen in its five years on the market, jumping to $449.99 with the introduction of the Slim model and then again to $599.99 in April 2026.

The PS5 isn't cheap enough to be claiming the family-oriented, ultra-casual market in the same way dirt-cheap PS4s used to in 2018. What that means for the next generation (and its rumored three-tier pricing strategy) remains to be seen.

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