PS5 vs PS4 Launch Sales Comparison Through Week 13 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 20 February 2021 / 5,274 Views
This weekly mini-series compares the aligned launch sales of the PlayStation 5 with its predecessor, the PlayStation 4.
The first week for the PlayStation 5 is the week ending November 14, 2020, while for the PlayStation 4 it is the week ending November 16, 2013.
The two consoles had a staggered launch with the PlayStation 5 launching November 12, 2020 in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, and the rest of the world on November 19, 2020. The PlayStation 4 launched in North America on November 15, 2013, in Europe on November 29, 2013, and in Japan on February 22, 2014.
PS5 Vs. PS4 Worldwide:
Gap change in latest week: 20,759 - PS5
Gap change over last month: 7,042 - PS4
Total Lead: 121,214 - PS4
PlayStation 5 Total Sales: 5,182,773
PlayStation 4 Total Sales: 5,303,987
During week 13, the gap grew in favor of the PlayStation 5 when compared to the aligned launch of the PlayStation 4 by 20,759 units. However, in the last month, the PlayStation 4 has grown its lead by 7,042 units. The PlayStation 4 is currently ahead by 121,214 units.
The PlayStation 5 has sold 5.18 million units in 13 weeks, while the PlayStation 4 sold 5.30 million units. Week 13 for the PlayStation 5 is the week ending February 6, 2021 and it is the week ending February 8, 2014 for the PlayStation 4.
The PlayStation 4 sold 136,500 units in its 14th week to bring its lifetime sales to 5,440,487 units. The PlayStation 5 would need to sell 257,714 units in its 14th week to catch up to the PlayStation 4.
The PlayStation 4 crossed six million units sold in week 16, seven million sold units in week 21, and eight million sold in week 28.
Sony managed to ship 4.5 million PlayStation 5 consoles as of December 31, 2020, which is the exact same number of PlayStation 4 consoles in its first quarter in 2013. Sony wants to ship over 14.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles in its next fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2021 to Mar 31, 2022.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Sony knew that the demand would be highter for PS5 than for PS4 but they weren't able to produce more SKUs for the first 3 months. It's a shame.
Just to elaborate:
Microchip production wasn't affected much (production in microchip fabs is done under clean air with not as much as a single particle of dust and everybody in fully isolated suits, so there's almost risk of transmission in those), but due to homeschooling/homeoffice, the demand for chips almost exploded.
Add to this new hardware releases from AMD and NVidia which were massively more powerful than previous generations (Zen 2 Ryzen 3 chips, Zen 2 APUs, RDNA2, Zen 3 and Ampere), so gamers and professionals wanted to upgrade their hardware now, too.
Finally, GPU Mining is a thing again, meaning all the production capacities used up for the production of GPUs won't get free anytime soon, either.
Console gamers can still be happy that they "only" have to deal with limited supply and slightly scalped prices. Meanwhile I look at GPUs for PC and cards with an MSRP of $499 now cost more like $1099 - IF you can get one that is.
The thing is AMD would have bought space on the 7 nm for their MS and Sony contracts before covid and by last report they had obtained all spare capacity totaling around iirc a third of production to be used exclusively for PS5 this most likely was part of the space opened up by apple moving to 5 nm making AMD now tsmc's largest customer on the process.
Yes, and it's still not enough to cover demand. Thankfully TSMC is already expanding capacity by upgrading a fab to 7nm and another is in construction. Fab 18 was supposed to be ready in 2020 but that got delayed with Covid. TSMC is also planning or building 3 more fabs (one building, 2 planned), so hopefully with the extended production capacities this chip crunch would then finally be a thing of the past.
Damn. People are paying more for a digital PS5 than a series X. Demand seems to be extremely high.
