Disappointing 2022 Numbers Hurt Sony’s Massive PlayStation Ambitions For the Year

As experts proclaimed earlier, the gaming industry is now reportedly slowing down as the pandemic eased, allowing people to step outside without restrictions. The dip in sales and enthusiasm was inevitable, which was further bound to affect PlayStation and Xbox’s plans. In fact, Sony has announced a cut in their projected profit for the ongoing financial year.

With educational institutes and offices reopening, many gamers no longer have unrestricted time to spend on their consoles or PC. Sony narrated this reason in an investor call regarding this quarter’s sales decline. While new reports suggest an increase in PlayStation console sales, Sony’s software sales have noticeably dipped, causing major concerns.

While Sony has kept its yearly sales projection for PlayStation 5 consoles intact, they’ll have to buckle up their strategy to meet the number, which, at this time, seems difficult to reach.

PlayStation sales fail to impress in the first quarter of 2022

According to a report from Sony, the company has managed to sell 2.4 million PlayStation 5 units in the first quarter of 2022 (April-June). The number is 4% more than last year’s first quarter. But, the growth is quite mere, as far as Sony’s expectations are concerned. Moreover, PlayStation software sales are down by a concerning 26% percent!

READ MORE: PlayStation Fans Rejoice as Sony Officially Closes Long-Awaited Bungie Deal

On the other hand, while PlayStation Plus subscriptions are up by 2%, monthly active PSN users are down by 3%! The decrease in monthly active PSN users only proves the effect of the fading pandemic. Moreover, Sony has also blamed the lack of big in-house video game experiences, unlike 2021.

As a result, experts expect things to take a turn for the better once titles like The Last of Us Part 1 remake and God of War Ragnarok release.

As of now, Sony has cut down its projected profits for the gaming division by 16%. According to a report from Reuters, Sony is anticipating another fall in sales for the next quarter and decided to reduce their goals as a result. Moreover, the recent Bungie acquisition has had its impact too!

Although the company knows of what’s coming, they didn’t reduce their goals for PlayStation console sales. Selling 18 million PlayStation 5 consoles by the end of the ongoing fiscal year sounds incredibly hard, considering the current and projected situations. With the first quarter selling only 2.4 million units, there are still 15.6 million units to go!

As of now, all eyes are on how Sony performs in the next quarter!

WATCH THIS STORY: Ranking the highest-selling PlayStation consoles of all time