PS5 vs PS3 Sales Comparison - January 2025 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 March 2025 / 10,414 Views
The VGChartz sales comparison series of articles are updated monthly and each one focuses on a different sales comparison using our estimated video game hardware figures. The charts include comparisons between the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch, as well as with older platforms. There are articles based on our worldwide estimates, as well as the US, Europe, and Japan.
This monthly series compares the aligned worldwide sales of the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 3.
The PlayStation 5 launched in November 2020, while the PlayStation 3 launched in November 2006 in North America and Japan and in March 2007 in Europe. This does mean the holiday periods for the two consoles do lineup.
PS5 Vs. PS3 Worldwide:
Gap change in latest month: 105,143 - PS3
Gap change over last 12 months: 5,446,356 - PS5
Total Lead: 25,122,245 - PS5
PlayStation 5 Total Sales: 72,971,396
PlayStation 3 Total Sales: 47,849,151
January 2025 is the 51st month the PlayStation 5 has been available for. In the latest month, the gap grew in favor of the PlayStation 3 when compared to the aligned launch of the PlayStation 5 by 0.11 million units.
In the last 12 months, the PS5 has grown its lead over the PS3 by 5.45 million units. The PlayStation 5 is currently ahead by 25.12 million units.
The PlayStation 5 has sold 72.97 million units in 51 months, while the PlayStation 3 sold 47.85 million units. Month 51 for the PlayStation 5 is January 2025 and for the PlayStation 3 is January 2011.
The PlayStation 3 did not reach current PlayStation 5 sales until month 74 when it had sold 73.46 million units.
The PlayStation 3 crossed 50 million in month 54, 60 million in month 62, and 70 million in month 73. The PlayStation 3 sold 87.4 million units lifetime. The PS5 is 14.43 million units behind lifetime PS3 sales.
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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where would the PS3 have been at a cheaper price and aligned with X360 release? where would X360 be if PS3 was same price and same release date?
dropping my typical sarcasm on this comparison…PS3 had some shockingly strong sales figures after month 34. Keeping up very well with PS5.
Was week 34 the PS3 Slim launch and whole rebrand?
(typo in OP: I meant to say “month 34”.) From what I can tell: Yes! September 2009.
lol Thank you! Of course it was month 34!
shockingly strong I wouldn't say. It was stronger than before that yes, but it did 12 to 14M from 2009 to 2012, so it wasn't something big, it was decent. For example PS4 in it's peak period had year sales between 17 and 20M. So, far from shockingly strong. Just decent.
3DS did have 3 years above 12M.
2011 - 12.5M
2012 - 13.4M
2013 - 13.6M
I don't know what info you look at.
PS3 had similar years in 2009 to 2012, it just had slightly better years outside of that period than the 3DS ones outside it's first three years.
oops you’re right. My bad. Misremembered…though i see yiur point. I guess i’ve never really studied the sales figures for a system that goes on to move 70-80mil LTD. I just kinda assumed they sell “lukewarm” their entire run.
So if the PS5 matches the PS3 sales for the rest of its lifetime it would land on 112.5m sales.
If the PS6 releases in 2028, which is a possibility, then that would be an extra year for the PS5.
It will be interesting to see how sales match up for the rest of this year, and what impact GTAVI has on it. PS5 also has a price-cut up it’s sleeve potentially, and a proper “Slim” model hopefully.
I don't think Sony would do a new Slim model, but hopefully a price cut at some point. In years past, Slim models were tied to process node improvements, and those improvements came with HUGE benefits: smaller die, less power needed, and lower costs. Process nodes are still improving, but in two of those things, the gains are MUCH smaller, and now each process node ends up more expensive than the last. PS5 Slim already shrunk the chip a little down to TSMC's N6 (6-nm) and it isn't worth it to do it again. Sony could maybe fit nearly twice as many chips to a wafer on TSMC's latest N3 node, but wafers cost nearly twice as much as what Sony is using now, so it ends up being a wash for cost savings (and a loss because you still gotta invest 10s of millions into the process node development to shrink the chip).
Instead, it makes sense to keep the PS5 family as is, do a price drop on all models at some point (PS5 Digital, Base and Pro), and look forward to PS6. If PS6 releases in 2028, it should absolutely be using TSMC's N2 nodes, which will start initial mass production in 2H 2025. It sounds like even Apple might skip the very initial launch of this one due to high costs, and keep their own silicon on 3-nm one more year. Regardless, by 2028, the costs will have come down and it will be a full two years into mass production, working out all the kinks, while TSMC will then be just introducing or very close to releasing the next one, 1.4-nm.
My guess for PS6 is Zen 6 cores, 16 of them, and AMD's upcoming UDNA architecture (a melding of CDNA from the datacenter and RDNA from graphics). And lots of ML parts. Another doubling of memory to 32GB of unified memory, using GDDR7. It should also see a doubling of the memory interface, to 512-bit, as just going from 256-bit GDDR6 to GDDR7 wouldn't be enough of a bandwidth increase for the hugely bigger GPU and double CPU cores. ALL of that, in the year 2028, built on TSMC N2, would result in a chip about the same size and using close to the same power as the current PS5 built on 7/6-nm. And all those parts would still allow Sony to do easy backwards-compatibility with PS4 and PS5 titles.
