Sony’s PS5 sales plummet amid price rises and a memory crisis

Sony sold just 1.5 million PS5 consoles in its most recent fiscal fourth quarter, down 46% year-over-year. The drop in PS5 sales comes after Sony raised the price of its PS5 consoles twice in the past year, increasing the price of the standard PS5 from $499.99 to $649.99.

Sony blamed March’s price rise on “continued pressures in the global economic landscape” amid a continuing memory crisis and pressure from the war in Iran. Sony now expects annual gaming revenue to fall 6%, but that forecast could be affected by current memory costs. “We plan to base our PS5 hardware sales in FY26 on the amount of memory we can source at reasonable prices and expect hardware profitability to be essentially the same as in FY25,” Sony says.

Sony previously revealed in February that it had secured “the minimum amount necessary” of memory to handle the year-end shopping season and was working “with various suppliers to ensure sufficient supply to meet our customer demand.” Over the entire 2025 financial year, Sony sold 16 million PS5 consoles, compared to 18.5 million the previous financial year.

It’s a tough market right now for hardware in general. Microsoft recently revealed that its Xbox hardware revenue fell 33% year over year. Along with the decline in Xbox hardware revenue, Microsoft also reported a 5% decline in Xbox content and services. Nintendo is also raising prices for its Switch 2 by $50 on September 1 and expects sales to decline over the next year.