A slide from a recent PlayStation investors presentation has gone viral, as it effectively confirms that the PS5 has made more profit than all of Sony’s previous consoles combined.
The manufacturer pegs PS5’s operating income at $13 billion so far, while the PS1 era netted $3 billion, the PS2 era made $2 billion, the PS3 lost $4 billion, and the PS4 rebounded with $9 billion. Add the numbers up and you get $10 billion for PS1 through PS4.
There’s some context we’re eager to add here, however: the company’s categorising generations by chunks of time, so some of the revenue earned throughout the PS5 generation will have been generated by continued use of the PS4. We know, of course, there are a significant number of players still on Sony’s last-gen console.
The chart is also not adjusted for inflation, which is obviously also working in the PS5’s favour – especially when it comes to the amount of revenue generated.
And to be honest, it’s hard to compare the console business today to what it once was. The increase of digital sales means Sony is making more money off software than it ever has, while services like PS Plus are fuelling substantial revenue too.
But the big difference with the PS5 generation has been the monumental growth in live service games and microtransactions. Sony scrapes 30% of revenue off every purchase made through the PS Store, which means it’s making unfathomable sums of cash off evergreen titles like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Genshin Impact.
In fact, later in the presentation it confirms that over 50% of all PS Store revenue is being generated by sales within a handful of titles, like EA Sports FC 25, NBA 2K25, and GTA 5.
This is, of course, why the company has been so eager to have a live service success story of its own. The company is seeing its bottom line increasingly dominated by microtransactions, and it wants 100% of the revenue.