Written by Samah Labib
Saturday, April 29, 2023 03:00 AM
Shipments soared Play Station 5 to 6.3 million consoles in the three months ended March 31, 2022, bringing total console sales to 38.4 million, the maker said in its latest earnings release. That’s more than triple what the company shipped in the same quarter a year earlier (2 million), meaning the Japanese electronics giant shipped 19.1 million PS5s during fiscal 2022, exceeding its previous forecast of 18 million, according to theverge report.
And Bloomberg notes that things were more mixed with regard to the program, as revenue from game software increased in general, but units shipped decreased from 70.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 68 million in the same quarter of 2022, and the number of monthly active users for the PlayStation Network increased. Slightly from 106 million to 108 million, but the number of users PlayStation Plus subscribers were steady at 47.4 million.
The disparity partly reflects the lack of major first-party game releases this quarter, but there are also concerns that past PS5 hardware supply issues are having a significant impact on software and subscription sales, which is important if the company wants to build a “virtuous cycle” of console and game sales. that reinforce each other.
CNBC notes that the company’s financials were generally strong, reporting a record operating profit of 1.21 trillion yen (about $8.9 billion) for the year. Revenue in the third quarter rose 35% to 3.06 trillion yen (about $22.5 billion). Sony breaks sales of its PlayStation VR2 headset launched in the quarter.
Bloomberg describes Sony’s earnings forecast for the current fiscal year as “conservative,” noting that it may be a hedge against lower consumer spending and expectations that it will sell fewer games than its own PlayStation Studios this year, and the company expects operating profit to reach 1.17 trillion yen (approx. $8.6 billion), which is down nearly 3% year-over-year.
