Holiday sales of Sony’s PS5 dropped by 16% compared to the previous year.

Sony has now delivered a total of 92.2 million PlayStation 5 consoles worldwide, but sales took a noticeable hit during the holiday season compared to the previous year. The latest earnings report revealed that the company shipped eight million PS5 units in its crucial third quarter, marking a 16 percent drop from the same period in the prior year. Despite this decline, the gaming division managed to generate higher profits, thanks to a surge in software sales and the favorable exchange rate of the yen.

Interestingly, Sony experienced an uptick in PS5 sales during the first two quarters of the fiscal year, making the holiday season downturn somewhat unexpected. However, it’s worth noting that sales during the corresponding period in the previous year were unusually high at 9.5 million units, making it the best-selling period since the console’s launch in November 2020.

On the bright side, software sales boomed in Q3 of this year. Sony sold 97.2 million games, an increase from 95.9 million in the prior year, and saw digital sales rise to 76 percent, up by 2 percent year-over-year. Additionally, the company reported a record-breaking 132 million monthly active users on the PlayStation Network. Exciting new titles slated for release on the PS5 include “Resident Evil Requiem” (February 27), “Avowed” (February 17), and Bungie’s “Marathon” (March 5).

With a slight dip in PS5 sales, speculation has arisen regarding the timeline for Sony’s next console release. While the PS4 had a seven-year run before being succeeded, current strong sales figures, elevated RAM prices, and recent hardware advancements suggest that the PS5 might have an extended lifecycle. Analysts predict that when the PS6 eventually hits the market, it could offer triple the performance of its predecessor.