During Sony’s financial conference call for media, investors, and analysts, Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki talked about the PlayStation Business and PS5.
Totoki-san was asked by an analyst to comment on the current promotion of PS5 since some people believe that the showcase of games is lagging behind in comparison to Microsoft, whether he believes that Sony can get a passing grade on this, and what will be the theme for PS5’s advertising toward the upcoming launch.
While he couldn’t promising specific information for now, he responded that Sony is thinking strategically, mentioning that that he believes that “results will be everything” and things will become clear after launch.
“Right now we have to think strategically, therefore, I cannot really make a comment. Is it a passing grade or not? On that point, I think results will be everything, so after the launch, it will become clear. So, we’re going to make our utmost effort.”
Totoki-san also reiterated that Sony believes it’ll be able to release PS5 “without problems” toward the end of the year.
On the other hand, he admitted that while there have been no major problems so far for the development of games, there are many restrictions in place due to COVID-19 and efficiency may be lower, so there could be “delays in scheduling.” According to Totoki-san, this is a risk that Sony needs to monitor very carefully.
He also added that PS4 sales are going smoothly. They went pretty much as expected during the the latest quarter, and recently demand has been strong.
Interestingly, during the prepared remarks we also hear that gameplay hours on the PlayStation Network have recently reached 1.5 times the amount recorded during the Christmas season.
Incidentally, we also hear that Sony plans to provide its outlook (which should include PS4 and PS5 shipments) for the current fiscal year up to March 2021 in early August with the presentation of the Q1 2020 financial results.
If you’re interested in learning more of Sony’s recent financial performance alongside an update of PS4’s shipment numbers, you can check out our dedicated article.
