Sony is hosting its 2022 Business Segment Briefings and Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan held a presentation related to the PlayStation Business.
This follows Sony’s Corporate Strategy Meeting going into deeper detail about the strategy for the Game & Network Services Segment.
Ryan mentioned that the PlayStation enjoyed a year of record earnings despite the recent transition that is considered “extremely strong.”
Sony is convinced that PS5 will be its “Biggest ever platform.” Purchase interest is almost double compared to the same period in the PS4 life cycle.
China is now the 6th market for PlayStation, while it was the 11th in a comparable time frame during the PS4 cycle.
PS5 also has the highest engagement ever measured over seven different key categories. This engagement is also stronger than what Sony itself expected.
Game monetization on 15% higher on PS5 than it was at the same time in the older console’s lifetime.
Sony is planning to continuously increase the production of PS5, closing the gap with PS4 supply in its third year on the shelves, and then overtaking the older console in its fourth year. The plan is to continue growing production to achieve the highest point ever for the PlayStation brand.
On top of the renewed and tiered PlayStation Plus service, Sony is continuing to grow its Playstation Direct console sales channel, expanding it in Iberia, Italy, and Austria in the early calendar year 2023.
The PlayStation Direct service sold PS5 consoles to 1.3 million customers in the fiscal year 2021 and Sony expects 3.6 million customers in the fiscal year 2022 (between April 2022 and March 2023).
We also hear that Playstation VR2 will have over 20 major first and third-party games at launch.
Sony is planning to increase investment in new IP to 50% by the Fiscal Year 2025 (March 2026), with the remaining 50% invested in existing IP. By comparison, in the current fiscal year, the expected investment is 34% in new IP and 66% in existing IP.
They also plan to increase investment in live services by the same timeframe to 55%, while investment in traditional games will be 45% of the total. By comparison in the current fiscal year the investment in traditional games is expected to be 51%, compared to 49% in live services.
By March 2026 they also expect to be running 12 live service games, including two new and unannounced ones that will be released in the current fiscal year (before March 2023) not including Destiny, three more to be released between April 2023 and March 2024, four new ones between April 2024 and March 2025, and two further titles between April 2025 and March 2026.
Speaking of PC releases, we hear that Horizon Zero Dawn has sold 2.398 million copies, Day Gone has sold 852,000 copies, while God of War has sold 971,000 copies as of March 2022.
Sony also plans to expand on mobile, co-developing top IP with industry leaders, establishing internal development studios and projects, and building a world-class publishing team and tools.
By March 2026, Sony expects that approximately half of its annual first-party release portfolio will be PC and Mobile releases (approximately 30% PC and 20% mobile). By comparison, the expected percentage for the current fiscal year will be approximately 20% PC and 10% mobile.
You can find all the slides of the presentation in the gallery below.
