Sony has sold almost as many PS5s as it did PS4s in the same time frame, but expects its sales to worsen, and analysts reckon GTA 6's delay won't help

You might think with the recent tariffs and all the supply issues the PS5 faced during the pandemic that it would be lagging far behind the PS4 sales-wise, but the two consoles are almost neck and neck.

According to Sony's latest earnings report (spotted by VGC), the PS5 has now sold 77.8 million units since it launched in 2020. This puts it just 1.2 million sales behind where the PS4 was four-and-a-half years after it launched.

This is pretty impressive considering all the hurdles the PS5 has faced since launch. We all remember how hard it was to actually buy one of the new consoles when they first came out. There's also the fact new games are taking longer than ever to make, meaning fewer people feel the need to upgrade to the latest consoles.

The hard times aren't over though. Industry analyst Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games, tells VGC: "It's not easy to do business for a console manufacturer these days: there are tariffs, inflation, higher production costs, slower pace of first-party releases, or general political uncertainty about the future to consider."

Sony itself predicts it will sell around 15 million PS5s this current fiscal year, down from 18.5 million last fiscal year, and Toto believes GTA 6 being delayed will have an impact.

"In Sony's case, that one critical system seller GTA 6 slipped out of the fiscal year, too – perhaps the biggest blow of them all," he tells VGC.

This same sentiment was echoed by the CEO of market research and consulting firm DFC Intelligence, David Cole, who tells VGC that GTA 6's delay is "a real blow to the PS5," with it "supposed to be the product" that encouraged a lot of players to upgrade to the current-gen console from their PS4s.

Despite this, Toto says that "Sony's numbers for the past year and their outlook are solid – also thanks to the fact that Microsoft apparently pivots away from hardware to some extent."

Sony says around 50% of its users are on PS5, so check out the best PS5 games you can play today.