Sony FY2024 Q2 Earnings Announcement | OT

[SuperPotato]

I'm at the point where I think they genuinely got their feelings hurt over multiplatform decisions and are now throwing a child tantrum Sony for it. Then you have PC dudes drinking their tears and egging it on even more. This so called death PS is purely an emotional thing, because this data doesn't spell that out whatsoever.

This should be pinned to the main page.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Ratchet and Clank is just under 5 million sales and Astro Bot had a bigger launch so I think it's safe to say Astro Bot will be over 5 million sales in under 3 years.

lol, wake me up when we get there.

 

[ethomaz]

Well it was MS he should be saying it will hit over 10 million next year…

That is how he twist facts with bias.

 

[Bryank75]

Man they increase in profit are crazy…

+ Increase in hardware profitability (it got cheaper to produce).
+ Increase in 3rd-party game sales.
+ Increase in sales of network services.

Combined… +184% yoy.

Increase in profits at the expense of long-term hardware sales and growth of their platform.

 

[ethomaz]

Increase in profits at the expense of long-term hardware sales and growth of their platform.

What longer term expense exactly? PS5 will easily sell over 100 million… it is now like 2% behind PS4 even facing massive shortages for more than 3 years.

PE5 hardware sales are being absolutely amazing… I really can’t see how people can twist over 64m PS5 shipboard in near 4 years as bad.

 

[Cool hand luke]

lol, wake me up when we get there.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Increase in profits at the expense of long-term hardware sales and growth of their platform.

If the PS5 Digital eventually drops to 300 dollars, it's going to be the easiest and cheapest way to play GTA6 for YEARS to come, not to mention annual sports titles.

The PS5 is going to have a long life cycle. Significantly longer than the PS4 which was cut short due to COVID.

In theory we should have a PS4 on the market being sold for 200 dollars right now and the PS4 Pro for 300.

At some time in 2026 most likely the PS5 Pro will drop to 600 dollars and the PS5 will drop to 400 dollars and the digital will drop to 350.

When the PS6 hits the market we're probably looking at additional price drops to 500 dollars for the Pro, 350 for the disc model, and 300 for digital...

The reality is that Sony could have a record year with GTA6 and the fall off of previous generation game franchises becoming current gen only. All this without reducing price. Could be the biggest sales year in PlayStation history as well as the most profitable.

 

[DarkLordOtaku]

I'm at the point where I think they genuinely got their feelings hurt over multiplatform decisions and are now throwing a child tantrum at Sony for it. Then you have PC dudes drinking their tears and egging it on even more. This so called death PS is purely an emotional thing, because this data doesn't spell that out whatsoever.

What do the tears taste like, I wonder?

 

[Yurinka]

I'm watching the webcast now, I saw these slides:

PSN users (who played games or used services) MAU up 8% YoY

14% increase in monthly gameplay hours vs previous year

PS Plus revenue up 18% vs previous year

Astro Bot sold 1.5M copies as of November 3rd, 37% of "new" (people who didn't buy a first party game in at least the past 2 years) users for first party games

Live services games update (notice GT7 here listed as GaaS), mention Helldivers 2 being a huge hit and Concord a failure, and that will learn from both

Totoki in the QA when asked about what caused the Concord failure and lessons learnt: "In terms of what didn't work, we need to have more detailed confirmation and validation. We should have done those more. We needed to have more detailed gates to make sure that we check the user tests. We need to repeat these gates more, so that we could have caught and could have determined if it would have been accepted by the users or not. We need to have more information that would enable us to make more informed decisions.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

They think people are leaving in droves for PC rather than Xbox, but the MAUs suggest otherwise.

I immediately noticed an uptick in shifting from ps5 is doomed to wait and see how this impacts the ps6 sales. They're forever moving the goalposts.

Who was saying PS5 was doomed this gen due to the PC & multiplat strategy? AFAIK, it's always been 10th-gen that'd see more of the fallout which was the consensus among us speculating.

Granted PS5 sales could continue falling behind PS4 launch-aligned with the way things are going, or fall further behind if prices remain high the rest of the gen. If SIE push Day 1 for their big games on Steam, you'll start to see services revenue drop and maybe some 3P software sales.

But it'll be PS6 seeing the fuller ramifications. Just like how Xbox Series saw the full ramifications for mistakes made during Xbox One (or as an even more extreme example, Dreamcast for the mistakes of 32X and Saturn).

Also a lot of you are overestimating GTA6's sales impact on PS5; everyone knows the game is coming. A large chunk of would-be GTA6 buyers anticipating the game have already bought PS5s ahead of time, and some of them will be buying PS5 Pros ahead of the game's launch.

Requesting a doomer response.

Can one of you explain to me how selling about 2% below PS4 in hardware sales, at a 20-30% higher price tag, being one year late to drop a Pro revision, and covid shortages is a flop? The data is suggesting to me that PS5 is easily going to outsell PS4 in the long run. The way you guys speak makes it seem like people are leaving in droves ala Xbox with multple YoY declines... but the data doesn't suggest that. They are making more revenue and profit than they ever have.

You're requesting data for a long-term trend from a short-term fiscal quarter report?

You should be aware, I've never personally said PS5 would "flop". But in terms of install base, it is tracking behind PS4 launch-aligned, despite Switch sales finally tapering down and Xbox sales collapsing, so the expected influx to PS5 isn't happening the way we'd expect. PS5 should have no issue matching or exceeding PS4 numbers launch-aligned even at current prices, unless it were losing those folks to other platforms like PC/Steam.

Meanwhile MAU is likely only remaining high or seeing small gains because more people are still sticking to their PS4s and probably playing more GAAS and F2P titles through it vs. upgrading to a PS5. Some of you left that reasoning out of the cheerleading parade.

 

[Muddasar]

But it'll be PS6 seeing the fuller ramifications. Just like how Xbox Series saw the full ramifications for mistakes made during Xbox One (or as an even more extreme example, Dreamcast for the mistakes of 32X and Saturn).

The PS5 is selling well.

Your point would make sense if the Xbox One sold well.

It sold peanuts and so are the Xbox Series consoles.

Same goes for the Saturn, 32X and Dreamcast. All sold peanuts.

Going by your logic the PS4 should have sold peanuts cause of the ramifications of the PS3.

Or the Switch sold peanuts cause of the ramifications of the Wii U.

Talk sense man. No one knows the future.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Who was saying PS5 was doomed this gen due to the PC & multiplat strategy? AFAIK, it's always been 10th-gen that'd see more of the fallout which was the consensus among us speculating.

Granted PS5 sales could continue falling behind PS4 launch-aligned with the way things are going, or fall further behind if prices remain high the rest of the gen. If SIE push Day 1 for their big games on Steam, you'll start to see services revenue drop and maybe some 3P software sales.

But it'll be PS6 seeing the fuller ramifications. Just like how Xbox Series saw the full ramifications for mistakes made during Xbox One (or as an even more extreme example, Dreamcast for the mistakes of 32X and Saturn).

Also a lot of you are overestimating GTA6's sales impact on PS5; everyone knows the game is coming. A large chunk of would-be GTA6 buyers anticipating the game have already bought PS5s ahead of time, and some of them will be buying PS5 Pros ahead of the game's launch.

See as I said, the goalposts are moving because they realize they are wrong. I could find several posts from you suggesting PS5 was going to undersell the PS4.

You're currently underplaying GTA6 in hopes that there is some sliver of an argument left to crawl back into, but the reality is a lot of people on PS4 and many on PC will jump into a PS5 or Pro next year and the following year to fight back the FOMO. Will a lot of existing PS5 owners buy it too? Obviously, but this isn't the point you think it is.

You're requesting data for a long-term trend from a short-term fiscal quarter report?

We're asking for any evidence suggesting a decline.

You should be aware, I've never personally said PS5 would "flop". But in terms of install base, it is tracking behind PS4 launch-aligned, despite Switch sales finally tapering down and Xbox sales collapsing, so the expected influx to PS5 isn't happening the way we'd expect. PS5 should have no issue matching or exceeding PS4 numbers launch-aligned even at current prices, unless it were losing those folks to other platforms like PC/Steam.

LOL Clownish... you definitely have.

Meanwhile MAU is likely only remaining high or seeing small gains because more people are still sticking to their PS4s and probably playing more GAAS and F2P titles through it vs. upgrading to a PS5. Some of you left that reasoning out of the cheerleading parade.

MAUs remain high as PS5's sales increase on pace with PS4. Many are still playing GaaS and F2P games, but they're also playing games like EA FC, Madden, NBA 2K, and CoD... most of which won't get new releases on PS4 next year and the year after. No one has ever ignored that reasoning... in fact we've said specifically that it's a reason why Sony shouldn't drop the price of the PS5 long term just to try and attract people who are just buying the same games. The more profitable PS5 hardware is maybe you can afford to reduce the price or do seasonal discounting to lock casual people in, but we've definitely pointed this out. You're not much of a listener if you think people are "leaving this out"

 

[mibu no ookami]

Lifetime? Not a chance. The way things are going, PS5 will tap out at ~ 105 - 110 million lifetime through EOY 2028, and that's assuming there aren't other price increases to come, that GTA6 is the "industry savior" as analysts want to frame it, and SIE doesn't do Day 1 for the big games to PC (Steam) prior to that.

Otherwise, and especially if all three things happen (in the case of GTA6, it'd mean the game underperforming by a decent margin, say 20%-30%), then lifetime PS5 sales could tap out at just 100-105 million. I mean look at it this way; sales are already tracking behind PS4 launch-aligned, they've been 2 million behind PS4 launch-aligned globally, and they've been pushing aggressive sales promos in Europe because that's one of the territories sales have softened more than expected.

I also don't think markets like China are going to be a massive boon to PS5 as some believe, because as long games like BMW are Day 1 on PC, a market whose gaming audience overwhelmingly favors PC, will just go PC for those games. Plus how many more BMWs are SIE expecting over the next four years?



The thing you're ignoring here, is that PS5 had a much faster start than PS4, so a lot of SIE's early FY projections (before revisions) assumed that momentum would stick around. Now yes, COVID and the pandemic, alongside chip shortages, happened, and those things affected SIE's ability to satisfy demand via supply.

But that's also around the time SIE started to self-sabotage their hardware demand with both aggressive cross-gen support (HFW, GT7, GOW Ragnarok) and an intensification of their Steam porting strategy to PC (Returnal, GOT, DS: Director's Cut etc.). The fact of the matter is this: as Xbox has seen a massive collapse in console sales globally, by all accounts most of those gains should have been going to PS5.

However, it'd appear a majority of the deserting Xbox customer base, have chosen to turn to PC instead, which would explain the increase in Steam growth specifically (and other things like PC"s market share growth in Japan) while PS5 has remained virtually stagnant with PS4 and is now trailing them behind by some 2 million globally. IMO, if SIE didn't go for the easy bait, and didn't self-sabotage vested interests in their console, PS5 would've been able to maintain the pent-up demand it had during lockdowns longer and would be at least slightly ahead of PS4 globally when launch-aligned. Especially, again, considering the fallout that's happened with Xbox this gen.

Also in terms of comparing PS5's LTD to Switch's, you are ignoring that Switch was VERY under-supplied in the first year or so. It had a somewhat similar issue in terms of low supply relative demand, that PS5 had in 2021 and most of 2022. Had Switch satisfied that demand earlier on, I feel LTD amounts would put it decently higher than where it's already at relative PS5, because Nintendo hasn't engaged in the sort of self-sabotaging strategies (or better to say, methods of implementation of the strategies) the way SIE has with PlayStation.

see above

 

[Yurinka]

Increase in profits at the expense of long-term hardware sales and growth of their platform.

Nah, we can see their platform is growing in their active userbase, while their hardware sales are almost performing like PS4. Plus there are different things that lead to think that PS5 will have a stronger 2nd half of its lifetime than PS4:

• PS5 has way more previous gen users who still have to upgrade than PS4 had at this point
• There are several key IPs still with crossgen support
• PS5 didn't have any price cut, even if it's difficult there's more room for future price cuts or at least time limited discounts than PS4 had at this point
• There are more non-gaming (tv shows, movies, theme parks, Lego partnership...) efforts to make new fans outside gaming and bring them to PS
• There are more efforts inside gaming to bring players from other platforms (new fans made in PC and other consoles -plus soonish mobile- after playing some Sony game who end buying a PS), and all metrics show it helps them to get more money while still growing the PS userbase to record levels instead of negatively affecting the PS grow
• PS is eating Xbox market share for lunch, Xbox is getting more and more residual
• From now to the PS6 release (aprox. around November 2027) Nintendo will be in their intergenerational period, which is the lowest sales period of a console lifecycle
• Partnerships with companies from China/Korea/etc is helping them to grow in these huge (or fastest growing) markets

 

[MrAss]

What longer term expense exactly? PS5 will easily sell over 100 million… it is now like 2% behind PS4 even facing massive shortages for more than 3 years.

PE5 hardware sales are being absolutely amazing… I really can’t see how people can twist over 64m PS5 shipboard in near 4 years as bad.

And they can still lower the price later. They have used the "price cut" card pretty early in PS4 life cycle

 

[Muddasar]

See as I said, the goalposts are moving because they realize they are wrong. I could find several posts from you suggesting PS5 was going to undersell the PS4.

Exactly.

First it was the PS5 will fail.

Now it is the PS6 that will feel the ramifications.

Even trying to compare it to the Xbox One/Xbox Series and Saturn/Dreamcast.

Comparing the Xbox One and Saturn to the PS5.

Madness.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Nah, we can see their platform is growing in their active userbase, while their hardware sales are almost performing like PS4. Plus there are different things that lead to think that PS5 will have a stronger 2nd half of its lifetime than PS4:

• PS5 has way more previous gen users who still have to upgrade than PS4 had at this point
• There are several key IPs still with crossgen support
• PS5 didn't have any price cut, even if it's difficult there's more room for future price cuts or at least time limited discounts than PS4 had at this point
• There are more non-gaming (tv shows, movies, theme parks, Lego partnership...) efforts to make new fans outside gaming and bring them to PS
• There are more efforts inside gaming to bring players from other platforms (new fans made in PC and other consoles -plus soonish mobile- after playing some Sony game who end buying a PS), and all metrics show it helps them to get more money while still growing the PS userbase to record levels instead of negatively affecting the PS grow
• PS is eating Xbox market share for lunch, Xbox is getting more and more residual
• From now to the PS6 release (aprox. around November 2027) Nintendo will be in their intergenerational period, which is the lowest sales period of a console lifecycle
• Partnerships with companies from China/Korea/etc is helping them to grow in these huge (or fastest growing) markets

I don't think it is far-fetched to believe that the PS5 will sell 130 million units lifetime at this rate and it has the potential to hit even higher marks than that. Depending on the PS6 and its price and how low Sony goes with the PS5 family's price, you could see the PS5 hit the 140s.

PS5 will be the first successful Sony console not to get knee capped at the end of its life cycle by a pandemic since the PS2.

If it gets some strong discounting towards the end of its life and the PS6 doesn't launch until 2028, and it continues to get price reductions rather than simply being discontinued, it will have tremendous success.

PC simply can't compete with a 300-dollar PS5 Digital. It immediately becomes the place to play F2P and annual sports games on. The equivalent PC parts simply get discontinued at these price ranges. I don't even know that we're that far off from that happening if we see a PS5 Digital discounted this holiday season to 375.

 

[Boswollox]

If the financial results weren't bad, why would there be so much cope and correction by paid shills?

 

[mibu no ookami]

If the financial results weren't bad, why would there be so much cope and correction by paid shills?

LOL... Sony's stock was up 9% today. Just stop it. This was a fantastic earnings report, but more importantly it portends well to the future of PlayStation and a maturing GaaS strategy. This is why Concord was brought up so much and why Sony's answers on it were while corpo PR were important and telling.

Games like Fairgames are going to get increased scrutiny in early play testing and that is not only natural but logical.

 

[Boswollox]

LOL... Sony's stock was up 9% today. Just stop it. This was a fantastic earnings report, but more importantly it portends well to the future of PlayStation and a maturing GaaS strategy. This is why Concord was brought up so much and why Sony's answers on it were while corpo PR were important and telling.

Games like Fairgames are going to get increased scrutiny in early play testing and that is not only natural but logical.

I haven't commented on the report. Just the damage control, just like your post-disguised-as-an-advert.