So weirdly enough in a year where the PS5 aims to ship a ludicrous amount, the Switch which has 10M less in forecasted sales surpasses it in shipment during the 1st quarter ... Bruh, this isn't a good look for the PS5 early on. Not saying they won't catch up in Q2 and Q3 but the fact they necessited price cuts and promotions in non-holiday times to sell through stocks while there's a rumored new slim SKU coming at a reduced price tells me, they changed their hardware profitability strategy they had early on.

Kinda makes the following fiscal results even more exciting to see now because nothing seem to be set in stone now.

Welp, appart from the XSeries just steadily declining

Sometimes, I can't help but wonder how much more the PS5 would have sold had it not been for the chip shortages

Meh results all around, but expected. Sony's first party support for this year and probably 2024 is not looking good. Let's see how they're going to handle the revision.

The "next gen only" lineup on both Xbox and Playstation has been pisspoor, likely the worst ever as far as relevant consoles. This combined with standard price (which got a hike around a year ago) will limit PS5 success potential. If GTA6 doesn't come out next year, they're going to need a $50 pricedrop and push more of the new "digital edition" (the revision without the detachable disc drive) if they want to continue outlegging the PS4 long term.

Those hardware shipment numbers aren't necessarily weak though. The gap between shipped and sell through was huge as of the previous quarterly report. It's possible that the difference is much smaller this time.

It seems that Sony are still struggling to make profit from hardware which is somewhat concerning when you consider PS5's age and the price hike.

Sony aiming for 25 million... That sounds extremely unrealistic. The only way they can reach that number would be through price cuts, but that would demolish profits even further. It's also not a good decision imo to go through a heavy price cut this early in its life cycle. Tho they did raise the prices so maybe this was their plan all along.

Sony has a pretty good track record when it comes to meeting their sales forecast. 

The fact that they didn't revise their initial shipment goal of 25 million for the fiscal year makes me believe that they will meet their target.

Very difficult is hyperbolic. 

The PlayStation 5 is only 0.2 behind PS4's Q1 at its peak year. This is with the PlayStation 5 being sold at higher price tag than the PlayStation 4, and having a price hike on top of that. Even the temporary price cut, which saw massive gains for the PS5 in many markets, was only for $50. A new PS5 model with a $399 price tag is going to smash all sorts of records.

Even if Sony doesn't meet their 25M projection, I still expect this current FY for the PS5 to be comfortably above the PS4's peak (1M - 2M+), and it may slightly beat the PS2's peak. 

I think Sony will be more aggressive with price cuts this generation if this year is any indication.

The PlayStation 4 left a ton of sales on the table when Sony didn't cut the price back in 2019. However, I think Sony is willing to lessen their margins on hardware profitability, and make it up via software sales, subscriptions, GaaS, accessories, etc.

At the very least, if that PS5 Pro really does happen, that price cut is a guarantee.

The ps4s peak year was 20% lower then the 25 million the ps5 is aiming for and the ps5 is already behind the ps4s peak year so it has a lot to make up to reach that figure. Where I'm from the ps5 has an €80 price cut and has never been easier to find. I'm not saying it's impossible or anything but that is a very difficult figure to reach for almost any console.

PS5 have been closing the gap and also the lag between the 10M milestones so I don't see how PS5 is behind.