Nearly 60 Million PlayStation 5 Consoles Shipped, Third-Party Games Continue to Drive Sales
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Sony shipped 20.8 million PS5 consoles and sold 286.4 million games last fiscal year, but only 13.9 per cent were first-party titles. Hardware sales are expected to decline this year, but sales of third-party games will continue to grow. The PlayStation division accounts for 33 per cent of the Sony Group Corporation's revenue and 24 per cent of its operating profit.
Sony has released its annual report for FY23, the Japanese company also announced its new management structure. 4.5 million PlayStation 5 units were shipped from 1 January to 31 March 2024, down 1.8 million from the same period the previous year. Sony Interactive Entertainment shipped a total of 20.8 million PS5 consoles in the last fiscal year, up 1.7 million units from the previous year (19.1 million units). The forecast of 21 million units sold was just missed. SIE originally planned to sell up to 25 million units in FY23, but this sales forecast has been revised. Since launch, 59.3 million PS5s have been shipped. This puts the PS5 just 900,000 units behind the PlayStation 4 over the same period. For the current fiscal year, in which Sony is not planning any major games from well-known AAA franchises, sales are forecast to reach 18 million. The division therefore anticipates a decline in sales and operating income compared with the prior year.
In FY23, 286.4 million software units were sold on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 combined, up from 22.2 million in FY22. 39.7 million of these were first-party games, representing 13.9 per cent of total sales. 70 per cent of full game sales on PS4/PS5 were sold digitally, up three per cent year-on-year. At the end of March 2024, there were 118 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, up 10 million from 108 MAUs in the same period of the previous fiscal year. No information was provided on PlayStation Plus subscription types or PlayStation VR2.
One game in particular is highlighted by SIE: Helldivers 2. Arrowhead's co-op shooter has sold over 12 million copies on PC and PlayStation 5 in its first twelve weeks (up to 5 May). It is SIE's fastest selling title to date, beating God of War: Ragnarök, which sold 11 million copies in ten weeks, although Kratos' adventure was only available on console. In any case, the quarterly result would have been significantly worse without Helldivers 2. The majority of first-party games sold for PS consoles from January to March (12.3 million) are likely to be attributable to Helldivers 2.
The Game & Network Services division, which is in charge of the PlayStation business, achieved sales of 4.267 trillion yen (25.3 billion euros), an increase of 17 per cent due to sales of third-party games & DLCs and the impact of foreign exchange rates. Operating income was 290.2 billion yen (1.72 billion euros), an increase of 16 per cent. However, in addition to the positive factors just mentioned, there were negative factors such as lower first-party sales and losses in the hardware business, mainly due to promotions. For the current financial year, revenues are expected to decrease by two per cent, but operating income is expected to increase by seven per cent. The latter is due to an increase in revenue from network services, mainly PlayStation Plus, and fewer hardware losses as sales of the PS5 will decline.
The entire Sony Group Corp. achieved sales of 13.020 trillion yen (77.18 billion euros), an increase of 19 per cent. The PlayStation division accounts for nearly 33 per cent of the group's total revenue. The Game & Network Services division accounts for around 24 per cent of the company's operating income (1.208 trillion yen; 7.16 billion euros; down seven per cent).
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