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PlayStation (Games) Sony Entertainment Games

Sony PS5 Is 'Currently the Fastest Selling Hardware Platform' In US History, NPD Says (cnet.com) 47

Posted by BeauHD from the despite-supply-constraints dept.
On Friday, NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella tweeted that the PS5 is currently the fastest selling hardware platform" in U.S. history, in terms of total dollar sales. CNET reports: Piscatella didn't share an exact dollar amount for the PS5 but noted that consumer spending across video game hardware, software and accessories has already totaled $9.3 billion this year. Sony didn't include specific sales figures in its earnings report last month, but the company did indicate it shipped 4.5 million PS5 consoles in 2020 alone. Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said at a February news conference that Sony is aiming to sell upward of 14.8 million units in the coming fiscal year, which begins this month.

The PS5 did fall to second place for the month of February, according to NPD. It was superseded only by the Nintendo Switch, which may have seen a sales boost on the heels of Super Mario 3D World -- Bowser's Fury, the latest Switch title, released last month.
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Sony PS5 Is 'Currently the Fastest Selling Hardware Platform' In US History, NPD Says More

Sony PS5 Is 'Currently the Fastest Selling Hardware Platform' In US History, NPD Says

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  • Maybe but is it only scalpers? (Score:3)

    by Raisey-raison ( 850922 ) on Friday March 12, 2021 @06:12PM (#61152516)

    I canâ(TM)t find it for sale anywhere at any time, although I donâ(TM)t spend 24/7 checking inventory. Maybe bots are buying it online. Iâ(TM)m beginning to give up.

    So I really wonder if all these sales are really to end users.

    • So I really wonder if all these sales are really to end users.

      There are Twitter accounts that help give alerts when PS5's come into stock, or better yet when they are about to come into stock... I just recently had a PS5 in my cart at Walmart, but decided to hold off a few more months.

      So you can beat out bots, if you keep a watchful eye out for large scale releases of new consoles at the major retailers, if you make use of other tools to see which retailers have a PS5 in stock.

      For sure a lot of sale

      • For sure a lot of sales are going to scalpers

        If people had a modicum of self control, they'd ignore the scalpers and wait until something was available in a store for a reasonable price. Instead, the "me first!" attitude is why scalpers are able to make money buying up these things and having people pay through the nose to get one.

        It's only a gaming system, folks.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by godrik ( 1287354 )

        Yeah, my son got a PS5 in December from walmart (I think). He was a bit obsessive for 2 weeks about it. But I am surprised to hear that people who really want them can't find them.

        I think it is more a case of "it would be nice, let me check this week? Ah, still out"

        • I would say, at this point they are easy to get if you are willing to wait for a larger drop - I think those happen a few times a month, spread out across various retailers.

          Also a bit easier to find if you are willing to buy bundles from GameStop... I find those usually have a few things I don't want though.

      • I had a ps5 in my walmart cart on 20 different days. But actually checking out was glitch/crash city. Dont assume because its in your cart its a done deal. I finally got one from an alert about amazon. They listed the digital shortly before the full console, so I lucked out refreshing the console link. Still it took months even using the announcements.

    • I suppose I'm a scalper then as I've been fortunate enough to get four of them with only one of them being sold on eBay for slightly more than I paid as none of my family members wanted the digital one and it didn't seem fair to sell it for $700 to those who can afford to flash, so it went to a guy who had almost gave up looking. But now that I've taken care of my family, I'm not taking up slots others are still fighting for. I will say that all four consoles came from four different retailers. Walmart, Bes

  • Impressively popular (Score:3)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday March 12, 2021 @06:17PM (#61152540)

    I've been keeping a close eye on eBay prices since launch, since about a month or so after launch the disc version has held around $800... just recently I've seen them selling around $750, but I think that's because a large number just recently dropped at a few different retailers. That is an impressive price premium they've been able to command.

    All that without a lot of new exclusives out for the platform... I'm still planning to wait for Horizon Zero Dawn to come out, by then it'll probably be easier to get and I can get a later model with some inevitable production kinks worked out. Ideally it would probably be better to wait at least a year to get a new generation console, but I figure six to eight months is pretty decent.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jmc23 ( 2353706 )
      Maybe it's the same people dropping prices?

      I know here you see the scalpers with outrageous prices, everybody laughs at them and shares were to get info on sales, and then you see more posts from them dropping prices. I dont think it's going as well for the scalpers as they thought it would.

      • I dont think it's going as well for the scalpers as they thought it would.

        I only look at eBay Sold prices, it is has been going pretty well indeed for a long time for the scalpers of PS5... I'd say it will continue to be pretty heavily scalped until it goes under $150 above retail or so (where shipping and eBay fees start to make your margin questionable).

    • I remember when the PS4 was launched, and it also claimed to be the fastest-selling console in history. It still took about 2 years before games started coming out in reasonable volume.

      I'm not sure what it is about consoles having so few games in the early days. It's not like every new machine uses fully custom hardware like in the 80's, and all the popular game engines work one these machines on day one.

  • Didn't the hardware used to be a loss leader to sell the software? I always thought the margins were slim or none on video game consoles.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      They are. Measuring relative console hardware sales by revenue is meaningless. Unit sales are all that matter, and the PS5 is hardly impressive in that category.

  • Figures. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sony censors content that even Nintendo allows, and also listens in on conversations for wrong think. So the perfect platform for the collective conformists that dwell in metropolitan areas.

    • Yep, those rat bastards even banned my PSN ID because it happened to contain the sequence "psp", although relating to that name not at all. IIRC this was after they stopped producing the PSP so I don't know why they got so bitchy about a sequence not even being used in conflation with the expired mark.

  • Who is NPD?

    Nashville Police Department?
    Newtown Police Department?

  • There was a time where a computer 286 cannot keep up with a Sega Master System or NES graphics and sound. Most games of such platforms were far superior than contemporary computers games, 386 (sometimes even a 486) with a few exceptions (Doom) cannot even lick the boots of a Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games. That time has past. Most games today are available for both computers and consoles. Plus, emulated games made a computer a better alternative over consoles most of the time, for me at

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      You can't buy a half decent graphics card for that PC today however. Crypto miners are grabbing everything they can by the container load. "Cheaper if you can get it, but you can't get it" is not a good selling point.

  • Unless you adjust for inflation that kinda screws up comparison for anything more than 20 years ago.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      It's also not relevant. Console hardware isn't profitable early on (if ever), they serve only to drive software and service sales. Unit sales of consoles are far more important. How many people can you sell software and services to. And in that case, the Switch has been outselling the PS5 by around 2:1, despite being a five-year-old console. Sony's lucky that the Switch doesn't compete as directly with the PS5 as Microsoft's console does.

      Look at the 6-month timeframe on this graph, which basically shows tha

  • The PS5 like other defective by design systems before it is not a platform at all. It's a jail to house a piddling selection of sony approved titles which can be used only by players who follow the arbitrary nonsense rules, and pay for the privilege of using their own system.

    One might as well call a movie ticket a platform.

    • Yup, and I'd still rather game on that than risk having DRM skullfuck the computer I also use to be productive and earn a living.

  • Wait. Is this were all the chips are going, causing the global chip shortage?

  • They must be some commentary group too bad they couldnt grasp commenting on global numbers.

  • I just don't get it. Why would you buy an overpriced system with no games when even the previous generation failed to deliver after 8 years?

    Do mindless consumers just buy whatever is marketed at them?

  • Some people may ask that 'Is the PS5 more powerful than Xbox Series X', well, their processing capabilities are very similar, but Microsoft has a slight advantage when it comes to sheer processing power. And I use it to play my favorite game FIFA 21 now. It went smoothly. Oh by the way, I also bought some fifa 21 coins at ssegold.com to make sure everything is fine.

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