PS5 unit sales drop during holiday period, Q3 hardware revenue down 15% to $3.9bn

Sony has reported its financial results for the nine months ended December 31, 2025, experiencing a 21% increase in operating income overall.

Its Game & Network Services segment also saw a significant increase in operating income, rising 27% to ¥409.1 billion ($2.6 billion).

However, the platform holder experienced a decline in hardware revenue, with unit sales of PlayStation 5 dropping 15.7%.

Here’s what you need to know:

The numbers

For the nine months ended December 31, 2025

• Sales: ¥9.4 trillion ($59.8 billion, up 2.3%)
• Operating income: ¥1.3 trillion ($8.2 billion, up 21%)

Games & network services

• Sales: ¥3.66 trillion ($23.2 billion, up 1.3%)
• Operating income: ¥409.1 billion ($2.6 billion, up 27%)

The highlights

Sony shipped 8 million PS5 units during the holiday period, a 15.7% drop compared to the 9.5 million units shifted by the end of its third quarter in December 2024.

When taking the nine months into account, PS5 shipped 14.4 million units compared to 15.7 million moved during the same period last year. Across this period, hardware sales amounted to ¥1.18 trillion ($7.5 billion) – a decrease of 8.5% year-on-year.

Full game sales were 97.2 million units during the three months ended December 31, 2025, with 13.2 million being first-party titles. Full game sales increased from 95.9 million sold in the same period last year, as did first-party software which rose from 11.6 million.

The biggest first-party release during this period was Sucker Punch Productions’ Ghost of Yōtei, which has sold 3.3 million copies since its launch on October 2, 2025.

As for monthly active users, by the end of the third quarter MAU grew to 132 million compared to 129 million in December 2024. This was a “record number of accounts” according to Sony, with “total gameplay hours increasing year-on-year.”

Overall, Games & Network Services sales decreased by 4.1% during the third quarter to ¥1.61 trillion ($10.2 billion).

Digital game and add-on content sales rose 6% to ¥761.5 billion ($4.8 billion), which Sony credited to the impact of increased first-party game revenue.

Hardware sales were down 15.1% to ¥614.8 billion ($3.9 billion), due to a “decrease in unit sales,” while network services revenue increased by 12.6% YoY to ¥199.2 billion ($1.2 billion) during Q3.

Looking ahead, Sony has raised its full-year outlook and expects G&NS revenue to reach ¥4.6 trillion ($29.2 billion) – up 4% from previous guidance of ¥4.4 trillion ($27.9 million).