Sony reported for the third quarter of fiscal 2023, which ended on December 31. Below are the indicators of the company's gaming division.
- According to the report, the division's revenue amounted to 1.4 trillion rubles ($9.6 billion). This is 16% more than a year ago.
- Operating profit, on the contrary, fell. It decreased by 26% to 86.1 billion rubles ($572 million).
- According to Sony, profits fell due to lower sales of games developed by its studios and increased console marketing costs.
- Revenue from sales of games and game content amounted to ¥733 billion ($4.87 billion), revenue from sales of consoles — ¥474.2 billion ($3.15 billion), revenue from gaming services — ¥137.18 billion ($912 million).
- During the quarter, Sony sold 8.2 million PlayStation 5 consoles. Although this is a record figure, the company expected to sell a million more devices. In total, by December 31, Sony had sold 54.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles.
- Sony now predicts that it will sell 21 million PlayStation 5 consoles for the entire fiscal year, not 25 million. The company also noted that the PlayStation 5 is entering the "last stage of its life cycle" and its sales are starting to slow down.
- Sony sold 89.7 million copies of the games during the quarter. Of these, 16.2 million copies came from games from Sony studios. The share of digital sales of games is 66%.
- The monthly active PlayStation audience has reached 123 million people. Last quarter, it was 107 million people.
- By February 4, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 had sold 10 million copies. As a result, sales of the entire series reached 50 million copies.
Today, we're honored to celebrate an amazing milestone: Marvel's #SpiderMan2PS5 has surpassed 10 million units sold, bringing the game series sales to an astounding 50 million units! 🎉
Thank you for the support and making this spectacular journey possible! #BeGreaterTogether 🕷 pic.twitter.com/zvBrjU8mba
— Insomniac Games (@insomniacgames) February 14, 2024
- The company does not plan to release new games for its existing large franchises in the next fiscal year, i.e., in the period from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025. She cited God of War and Marvel's Spider-Man as examples of such franchises.
In a conversation with investors, the interim CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Hiroki Totoki, who recently replaced Jim Ryan, said that he had discovered a big problem with the division.
"SIE does not always understand what to do for its growth, stable profit and division improvement," Totoki said. He didn't share his thoughts on how to fix it.