After a turbulent time due to the multiple crises stemming from the coronavirus and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it seems that sony is willing to rebuild its relationship with consumers to make playstation 5 shine brighter than ever. For this, it is preparing the addition of new features to the console, expects an increase in sales (or at least shipments) and boasts good numbers in the last quarter, which contrasts with the situation of the PC.
Starting in order, the new beta of the PlayStation 5 operating system has incorporated some interesting features for the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany and France, among which are the voice chats and screen sharing feature of Discord, the introduction of Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) for 1440p resolution, the ability to transfer data from a PlayStation 5 to another console unit, and new features related to accessibility and ease of use. We remember that all this has reached the beta branch of the system, so we still have to wait until all the news is generally available and through the stable branch.
The second consists of sales expectations. As we said on a previous occasion, Jim Ryan, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, officially declared at a press conference at CES 2023 the official end of the PlayStation 5 supply problems, so the next-generation console should start to have a better availability from the present year 2023. The giant of Japanese origin expects to sell 6.2 million consoles during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022, which officially ends on March 31 of the “common” calendar. That means double the peak of PlayStation 4 during the same quarter of previous years.
Despite Microsoft’s attempts to slow down Sony by buying companies, the reality is that demand for the PlayStation 5 remains seemingly high as they shipped 7.1 million units of the console during the quarter ended December 31, 2022, representing an increase of 83% compared to the same quarter of the previous year and the best record within the same period. In total and to date, a total of 32 million units of PlayStation 5 have been shipped, a number less than the 38 million units that PlayStation 4 registered when it had been on the market for the same time.
During the third fiscal quarter of 2022, a total of 86.5 million software units, which is an increase compared to the 62.5 million of the previous quarter, but a decrease compared to the 92.7 million registered in the same quarter of the previous year. The digital distribution of software accumulated 62% of the sales and here the titles stand out first partywhose sales increased by 6.6 million to reach 20.8 million and with God of War Ragnarok selling 11 million copies in its first three months on the market.
In terms of PlayStation Plus subscribers and PlayStation Network monthly active users, the services have seen increased activity in the third quarter of fiscal 2022 after subscriber numbers declined in the previous two quarters. That contrasts with the fact that Sony’s Network and Gaming Services division reported second-quarter revenue of $8,790, with year-on-year profit of about $820 million. Those numbers represent increases of 53 and 25 percent respectively.
Despite declining subscriber numbers in some quarters last year, Sony’s network services revenue, which includes PS Plus and advertising revenue, increased for the second consecutive quarter to reach approximately $950 million ( 122 billion yen). For its part, the number of monthly active users on PlayStation Network increased by 10 million to reach a total of 112 million.
As we can see, and according to the data provided by Sony, it seems that the Japanese video game giant has reasons to be optimistic regarding the commercial operation of PlayStation 5 during the current year 2023. This contracts with the situation of the PCa platform on which component sales are set to fall sharply and with 2023 already apparently given up as lost by the big three (NVIDIA, AMD and Intel). We will see if the PC goes back to 2024 or if what is happening now is the beginning of the end of the platform.
