Sony FY2024 Q2 Earnings Announcement | OT

[arvfab]

Japan studios was bleeding money for over a decade and rightly closed.

Watch out what you say, at any time ChatGPT alpha might enter the thread and lecture you how Japan Studio wasn't closed, but restructured into Team Asobi.

Let's end the discussion around Japan Studio here, there are other threads regarding the topic. If you want, we can continue there.

 

[Neversummer]

So should Sony stop making these kind of games because they don't sell much?

They should double down & bring back Ape escape, Sly Cooper & Jak & Daxter in a perfect world all of these franchise + Ratchet & clank would be annualized games that are AA at best smaller game that fill in the extreme poor output from PS studios & act as smaller budget game w low risk & reviews highly bringing PS prestige up & diversity the platform as a platform consumers & developers can rely on for these fun smaller scope platformers. Just ensure you don’t bloat by unnecessary things like multiple writers, mo cap, heavy voice acting maybe explore making games where characters are more Mario/Megaman/Metal Slug sound effect driven or minimal voice acting/text base depending on the type of game. PS should be more aggressive w $40 & $50 games w the smaller scope to drive that family-universal easy pick up by anyone game you can easily enjoy

 

[Puff]

Playstation:

Hardware - ~U$1.43B
Content & Services - ~U$5.59B
Total - ~U$7.02B

Xbox:

Hardware - ~U$0.52B
Content & Services - ~U$5.10B
Total - ~U$5.62B

Nintendo:

Total - ~U$1.80B

Sony Q2 FY3/2025 Financial Results (Jul-Sep 2024) | G&NS sales up by 12% YoY, OI up by 184%; PS5 HW at 3,8m (-22%), SW at 77,7m (+15%)

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/ Q2 sales Hardware - 3,8M (-22% YoY) Software - 77,7M (+15% YoY) Q1 sales Hardware - 2,4M (-27% YoY) Software - 53,6M (-5% YoY) Forecasts for the G&NS segment (in Bn Yen): Sales: 4.490(+170) Operating Income: 355 (+35) Changes are...

www.installbaseforum.com

 

[SuperPotato]

So, it's ok to trash on the past and close studios, because everything needs to make big money, otherwise it's useless. Well let's hope you enjoy the next trend Sony is going to follow to make big bucks.

Who says it's ok to trash on the past? I would like to see more games like Astrobot but i also understand why they closed Japan Studio.

 

[Neversummer]

So the approach is to 'go back to basics', lmao.

They need to go to the basic w there whole business post 2020 & look at Valve & Nintendo that continue to dominate silently w big growth & profit achieved.

It’s almost embarrassing that they even have to say that. It’s like those people that say “what do you know that a multi billion dollar company doesn’t” or “they pay people millions to do all that data” well clearly the did shit wrong & didn’t have a single clue regarding such a pathetic failure that smelled like shit miles away & somehow got pass, released & promoted w cross media

 

[Boswollox]

The normies who play COD and Fifa for a month. Always been that way. Most people don't actually use their consoles all the time like we do.

Agree. Which market will Sony tap into to gain these sales if the normies already have one?
Xbox fans? Pc gamers? Nintendo fans? A new market out of nowhere?

 

[ethomaz]

Playstation:


Xbox:


Nintendo:

Sony Q2 FY3/2025 Financial Results (Jul-Sep 2024) | G&NS sales up by 12% YoY, OI up by 184%; PS5 HW at 3,8m (-22%), SW at 77,7m (+15%)

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/ Q2 sales Hardware - 3,8M (-22% YoY) Software - 77,7M (+15% YoY) Q1 sales Hardware - 2,4M (-27% YoY) Software - 53,6M (-5% YoY) Forecasts for the G&NS segment (in Bn Yen): Sales: 4.490(+170) Operating Income: 355 (+35) Changes are...

www.installbaseforum.com

These Xbox numbers are incorrect.
They used non-revised data from MS to reach that and some quarters had big revisions.

For example More Personal Computer from Q1 of last year was revised $2b down… with the revised number you can reach as low as $3.xx billion instead $5.6b.

So any weird math to reach Xbox revenue after 2019 is fake.

 

[ethomaz]

Revised down from 21 million
On target for 18 million?

I would like to see the split of the MAU by platform

Target was 18m.

21m was the revised forecast of last year that ended in March 2024.

They need 11.2m in Q3 + Q4 to reach the target… probably will do it.

 

[SuperPotato]

Agree. Which market will Sony tap into to gain these sales if the normies already have one?
Xbox fans? Pc gamers? Nintendo fans? A new market out of nowhere?

Most likely Xbox fans, once Microsoft starts brining more and more games to the platform.

 

[Yurinka]

So:

• SIE improved both revenue and profit of Q2 and H1 compared to the previous fiscal year
• SIE increased their revenue and profit forecast for the current fiscal year again (new record high for profitfor this segment)
• PS 116M MAU, 8% YoY increase vs same month of previous year, 8th consecutive
  quarter of growth compared to the same period of the previous year
• Total play time also increased 14% compared to the same month last
  year and 11% on a cumulative basis since the beginning of the current
  fiscal year compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year
• PS Plus revenue increased 18% year-on-year
• 3rd party sales significantly grew due to "solid franchise titles as well as hit new IP, including a new sports title and an action RPG title from China"
• Astro Bot sold 1.5M in 9 weeks, 37% of Astro Bot purchases hadn't bought a first party game in 2 years, with a much higher percent of kid & families users than usual
• Mentioned to learn lessons from the big hit Helldivers and and big failure Concord
• In first party they sold the same this H1 than in the previous year (this Q2 was up YoY despite Concord) but expect a YoY decline for the upcoming H2 because in the previous year they had the record breaking Spider-Man 2 and Helldivers 2, so obviously don't expect to beat this
• As Hermen said months ago, they plan to continue releasing major single player games every year

• As expected because it's what happens to all consoles once they passed their peak year, hardware is down YoY.
• PS5 is now at 65.5M
• Game software revenue is up thanks to digigal sales and addons. Psysical sales and Other software are almost flat/slightly down YoY
• Accesories continue growing YoY

interesting, do you have the total numbers of sales for these games on PC?

The most similar metric they share every quarter is the 'other software' (first party game revenue ouside PS, meaning PC+rival consoles). This Q2 they made in 'other software' 19014M yen ($124.6M), almost the same than the 20705M yen ($135.7M) of previous year.

This H1 'other software' did 52117M yen ($341.5M), more than the previous H1, where they did 37178M yen ($243.6M).

In the last year (the 4 most recent quarters) they made as 'other software' 120297M yen ($788.3M), also an improvement over the previous one.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I was ridiculed for saying Astro Bot would be lucky to sell 3 million copies.

1.5m copies in its first 9 weeks shows I am a prophet. Where are my doubters now? Hiding in the tall grass where they belong...

 

[Muddasar]

I was ridiculed for saying Astro Bot would be lucky to sell 3 million copies.

1.5m copies in its first 9 weeks shows I am a prophet. Where are my doubters now? Hiding in the tall grass where they belong...

Sold 1.475 million more than Concord.

 

[Yurinka]

It sucks that it closed but you often hear that Japan Studios was a mess internally and that the studio heads couldn't focus on one thing, often starting and cancelling projects etc. Even Layden said he wasn't surprised by its closure.

Just look at The Last Guardian. The game was announced in 2008/2009 for the PS3 and released in 2016 for the PS4. It ended up being decent but nothing more.

Team Asobi on the other hand seem well organized and have released 2 GOTY contenders in Astrobot and Rescue Mission.

Japan Studio didn't close, it got restructured, rebranded and separated their internal development part (merged these different teams into Team Asobi) and second party publishing and support (XDEV Japan, now also handles 2nd party games developed in non-Japan Asian countries).

After the restructuring they continued doing the same job in the same building and released Death Stranding Director's Cut, Astro Bot (+ free DLC), Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin. They are working on Lost Soul Aside, Convallaria, Death Stranding 2 and Physint.

I was ridiculed for saying Astro Bot would be lucky to sell 3 million copies.

1.5m copies in its first 9 weeks shows I am a prophet. Where are my doubters now? Hiding in the tall grass where they belong...

It will sell more, particularly in Christmas and when discounted. This kind of kids friendly 3D platformer games sell well in the long term, a couple months of sales are only a portion of the total sales.

Pretty likely will end being the best selling internally developed 'Japan Studio' game ever.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Sold 1.475 million more than Concord.

Imagine Team Asobi going in to talk to PlayStation...

"So you only sold 1.5 million copies of a game since Astro Bot Rescue Mission?

"Yeah but at least we outsold Concord!"

Jason Shreiers "Is Astro Bot the way forward for PlayStation" tweet looks so dumb now.

 

[Say1nMan]

 

[Entropi]

Do we know why that guy is so obsessed with Sony?

 

[ethomaz]

Well let's share at least what he said this quarter... not last quarter.

 

[Entropi]

So:

• SIE improved both revenue and profit of Q2 and H1 compared to the previous fiscal year
• SIE increased their revenue and profit forecast for the current fiscal year again (new record high for profitfor this segment)
• PS 116M MAU, 8% YoY increase vs same month of previous year, 8th consecutive
  quarter of growth compared to the same period of the previous year
• Total play time also increased 14% compared to the same month last
  year and 11% on a cumulative basis since the beginning of the current
  fiscal year compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year
• PS Plus revenue increased 18% year-on-year
• 3rd party sales significantly grew due to "solid franchise titles as well as hit new IP, including a new sports title and an action RPG title from China"
• Astro Bot sold 1.5M in 9 weeks, 37% of Astro Bot purchases hadn't bought a first party game in 2 years, with a much higher percent of kid & families users than usual
• Mentioned to learn lessons from the big hit Helldivers and and big failure Concord
• In first party they sold the same this H1 than in the previous year (this Q2 was up YoY despite Concord) but expect a YoY decline for the upcoming H2 because in the previous year they had the record breaking Spider-Man 2 and Helldivers 2, so obviously don't expect to beat this
• As Hermen said months ago, they plan to continue releasing major single player games every year

• As expected because it's what happens to all consoles once they passed their peak year, hardware is down YoY.
• PS5 is now at 65.5M
• Game software revenue is up thanks to digigal sales and addons. Psysical sales and Other software are almost flat/slightly down YoY
• Accesories continue growing YoY

The most similar metric they share every quarter is the 'other software' (first party game revenue ouside PS, meaning PC+rival consoles). This Q2 they made in 'other software' 19014M yen ($124.6M), almost the same than the 20705M yen ($135.7M) of previous year.

In the last year (the 4 most recent quarters) they made as 'other software' 120297M yen ($788.3M).

Are you telling is Sony is dying? That's what some people told me.

 

[Yurinka]

Are you telling is Sony is dying? That's what some people told me.

The objective numbers say they keep improving and breaking records in most areas, that the percent of game sales continue migrating from physical to digital and that obviously as happens with all consoles after its peak year the hardware sales decline.

Even in first party sales, despite de Concord failure this quarter they increased their first party units sold versus the previous year (5.3M units vs 4.7M) and the H1 remained flat vs the previous year (11.3M vs 11.3M). The game addons increased and this quarter also improved the overall SIE revenue and profit YoY.

The numbers say that the doomers are wrong.

Do we know why that guy is so obsessed with Sony?

Maybe the people who funds Bloomberg also fund Microsoft and not Sony.

 

[arvfab]

Japan Studio didn't close, it got restructured, rebranded and separated their internal development part

@Muddasar

Told you...