Sony’s $499 PS5 is no longer selling at a loss - The Verge

Sony’s $499 PlayStation 5 console is no longer selling at a loss. Bloomberg reports that Sony chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki shared the news just a week after the company announced it had sold 10 million PS5 consoles.

While the PS5 with a disc drive is no longer selling for less than the cost to produce it, the less expensive and disc-less $399 PS5 Digital Edition is reportedly on track to have Sony’s related losses offset by other hardware sales like accessories and the PS4. Sony sold 500,000 PS4 consoles in the most recent quarter, bringing lifetime sales up to an impressive 116.4 million.

It took Sony years to stop losing money on PS3 sales, but the company stopped selling the PS4 at a loss around six months after its debut in 2013. The PS5 has taken ever so slightly longer, but it’s clearly not repeating the costly exercise of the PS3 despite early reports suggesting Sony was struggling with PS5 pricing due to expensive parts.

Microsoft revealed earlier this year that it sells its Xbox consoles at a loss and doesn’t turn a profit on pure hardware alone. Microsoft has not been reporting hardware sales since early on in the Xbox One lifetime, but an Xbox executive revealed during the Epic v. Apple trial that Microsoft turns a profit from game sales and online service subscriptions.

Sony also reported (PDF) its biggest Q1 revenue ever for PlayStation today, and its second biggest revenue for PlayStation during a non-holiday quarter. There are also 104 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, spending an average of $37.09 each during Q1 2021 across digital software, add-ons, and services.

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