During Sony Corporation’s financial conference call for investors and analysts, Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki talked about the performance of the PlayStation business.
Totoki-san mentioned that the major factor in the reported drop in operating income year-over-year in the quarter between April and June was a lower contribution of first-party games. This is because the same quarter last year had God of War and Detroit: Become Human which are defined “major hits.”
He also added that PS4 hardware sales were “slightly below expectations.” The reason mentioned for this was the news about the upcoming next-generation console. Despite the reduction of the sales forecast for the full fiscal year to 15 million units, Totoki-san mentions that this number on the seventh fiscal year since launch “demonstrates that the PS4 platform is still garnering support from many users.”
The downward revision of the forecast for game software sales is mostly due to third-party sales, “especially in free to play games.”
We also hear that development expenses for the next-generation consoles are tracking as expected. Since Sony already provided some information about the next-generation hardware, they don’t intend to force sales expansion of the current generation console. Instead, they’re focusing on achieving profit and a smooth transition to next-gen. That being said, PlayStation will “maintain profitability.”
If you’d like to read more about PlayStation’s financial performance in the past fiscal quarter, you can read our full report.
