Sony has released its most up-to-date financial results report and there are some pretty interesting findings from the three months to the end of June. The bottom line is that the company will be kicking things up a notch in terms of PS5 hardware production and consumer engagement, to try and rectify a bit of a recent downturn.
The first quarter financial results show that according to Sony, both total gameplay time and sales of software decreased year on year, which Sony puts down to a decline in the rapid growth of the gaming market that was previously brought on during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that people are re-engaging with the outside world a lot more, Sony believes that this has led to a slowdown in gameplay engagement and in turn, sales.
To remedy things, Sony is planning to make a bit push on the production of the PS5 console ahead of this year’s holiday season, as well as prioritising its recently launched PlayStation Plus subscription model to customers.
Taking this situation into account, we intend to take action to increase user engagement in the second half of the fiscal year, during which major titles including first party software are scheduled to be released, primarily by increasing the supply of PlayStation®5 (“PS5™”) hardware and promoting the new PlayStation Plus service.
Sony
Improving production is clearly a priority for Sony, which will have undoubtedly been limited somewhat on the console output front due to previous lockdowns in Shanghai, where many of the necessary parts for the PS5 are produced. However with these now lifted, the company is planning to boost its output of units significantly, meaning more buyers will be able to actually get their hands on the at-times elusive PS5 hardware. Sony is still confident of an upswing in hardware sales, reiterating its forecast for 18 million unit sales of the PS5 during this financial year. We’ll just have to wait and see if its production capabilities can match up with its predictions.
You can read the company’s latest financial results report in full to get a broader view of how things are currently ticking over at Sony.