PS5 finally has more players than PS4, almost five years after launch

The current console generation has been a bit different than those that came before. While previous generations have seen releases for older consoles gradually discontinued, the current generation still sees a lot of high-profile games get PS4 versions, despite PS5 being far more powerful.

We finally have a sense of why that is, as in a new business report from Sony, it has been revealed that the PS5 has more monthly players for the first time since the console’s launch in November 2020, as reported by VGC. This is a step up from last year, where a similar report showed that the PS5 to PS4 monthly player ratio was an almost perfect 50/50 split at 49 million players each.

There are a lot of possible reasons behind this. Some critics say that Sony’s lineup of PS5 exclusive titles has been weaker than previous generations, with plenty of PS4 versions of games, meaning older players don’t feel the need to make the upgrade. Price is also a potential issue, as both games and consoles are getting more expensive as time goes on, with Sony most recently releasing the PS5 Pro at an eye-watering price point of $699.99, and prices are only expected to go up as we approach the PS6 in the next few years.

Either way, Sony is viewing a multi-generational player base as a positive, as CEO and SIE president Hideaki Nishino explained during the presentation, “We now have a large ecosystem of highly engaged players across both the PlayStation 5 and the PlayStation 4 generations, so naturally, therfore, there’s a huge interest in our next generation console strategy.”

This gives the impression that even when the PS6 does get revealed, Sony still has every intention of continuing to invest in the PS5, and possibly even the PS4 as well.