PS5 hits 59m as Helldivers 2 breaks PlayStation’s launch sales record

Sony says its live service game hit Helldivers 2 is now PlayStation’s fastest-selling game launch ever, with sales “far exceeding expectations” at 12 million copies sold across PC and PS5 in its first 12 weeks.

The sales mean that the title, which was launched earlier this year, beat the 11 million copies in 10 weeks achieved by God of War Ragnarok last year, it said.

In the company’s financial results for the year ended March 31, 2024, Sony’s gaming division reported another record year in terms of revenue, despite PS5 hardware sales falling short of its original 12-month target by over 4 million units.

Sony shipped some 20.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles during the fiscal year, for a life-to-date total of 59.3 million. Its original, lofty, sales target for the year was 25 million units, but this was revised down to 21 million in February.

This means that PlayStation 5 is virtually in line with where PlayStation 4 was during the same period of its lifespan (60 million units shipped).

Sales increased 17% year-on-year to 4.26 trillion yen, which the company attributed to an increase in sales of non-first-party titles, including add-on content, and the impact of foreign exchange rates. During a webcall, the company also specifically highlighted the performance of  Helldivers 2.

Sony reiterated it expects gaming sales to decrease in its current fiscal year, ending March 2025, due to an expected decrease in sales of hardware, now forecast at 18m units. The company previously confirmed it’s planning no “major existing franchise titles” during this 12-month period.

However, the company reiterated its plans to release Concord, the new online shooter IP from UK-based Firesprite, sometime this year.

Sony’s Network services revenue – which encompasses PS Plus and advertising revenue – increased again to its highest level since 2022’s service revamp at ¥545.5 billion (up from ¥464.6 billion last year).

PlayStation Network monthly active users (MAU) are up by 10 million year-on-year at 118 million (versus 108 million), but this represents a decline from last quarter’s 123 million. Sony says its MAU are the estimated total number of unique accounts that played games or used services on the PlayStation Network during the last month of the quarter.

Software sales (PS4 and PS5) increased 22.2 million year-over-year, to 286.4 million units. Digital software accounted for 70% of annual game sales, compared to 67% last year.

Tokyo-based industry consultant Dr Serkan Toto told VGC: “Overall, Sony’s financials look very solid. Looking at its PlayStation segment in particular, the operating profit margin as a critical indicator for the health of that business grew from around 6% to 9.7% quarter-to-quarter.

“On the hardware side, it seems the 20.8 million units PS5 sold last fiscal will mark the overall peak of the device. And Sony should send some champagne to Sweden: Without Helldivers II, the PlayStation numbers would have looked a lot worse last quarter.”

Ahead of the publication of its financial results, Sony Interactive Entertainment named Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino as the new joint CEOs of the PlayStation business, succeeding Jim Ryan from June 1, 2024.

In a webcall following Tuesday’s latest results, interim CEO Hiroki Totoki reiterated plans to ‘aggressively’ improve profit margins, partly with an enhanced focus on bringing its games to PC.

Earlier this year, the gaming division made what it called the “extremely hard decision” to reduce its overall headcount by “about 8% or about 900 people”, which included the closure of its long-running London studio.

PlayStation Studios boss Hulst said at the time that the platform holder was “reevaluating how we operate”, and that the layoffs had resulted in the cancellation of unnamed game projects.