Sony
has
releases
its
financial
results
for
the
past
year,
giving
us
12
months
of
data
to
sift
through
and
a
forecast
of
what
it
expects
for
the
coming
year.
It
preceded
its
financial
date
with
the
announcement
that
Herman
Hulst
and
Hideaki
Nishino
would
be
taking
over
from
Jim
Ryan
as
co-CEOs
of
PlayStation.

Let’s
kick
off
with
the
hardware:
Sony
had
originally
forecast
25m
PS5
sales
for
the
financial
year
but
dropped
that
target
to
21m
at
the
beginning
of
the
last
quarter.
In
the
last
three
months,
4.5m
consoles
were
shipped,
bringing
the
total
to
20.8m
and
thus
slightly
missing
the
revised
target.
It
is,
however,
still
an
improvement
on
the
19.1m
PS5s
sold
the
year
prior,
and
overall
hardware
revenue
saw
a
9%
boost.

According
to
Sony,
this
would
mean
the
PS5
isn’t
doing
quite
as
well
as
the
PS4.
At
this
point
its
lifespan
the
PS4
had
sold
60.2m
units,
whereas
the
PS5
currently
sits
at
59.3m.
Of
course,
its
pretty
hard
to
draw
direct
comparisons
because
there
are
about
a
million
and
one
different
factors
at
play,
from
the
initial
console
shortages
during
the
pandemic
to
the
games
being
released
to
the
world
economy.

Sony
does
expect
a
drop
in
hardware
sales
in
the
coming
year,
which
is
hardly
surprising.
In
fact,
it’s
forecasting
a
dip
of
1.5%
for
the
Game
&
Network
Services
segment,
while
the
operating
income
will
rise
6.8%.

Comparing
to
the
other
brands,
the
Nintendo
Switch
sold
an
impressive
15.7m
units
in
its
last
fiscal
year.
That’s
not
bad
for
a
machine
which
launched
in
2017.
Xbox
is
harder
to
judge
as
Microsoft
tends
to
dance
around
the
numbers.

According
to
data
from
the
Financial
Times,
the
Series
S
and
Series
X
sold
a
combined
7.6m
in
2023.

Moving
on
to
software,
I’ve
already
covered
the
fact
that

Sony
is
extremely
pleased
with
the
12m
copies
of
Helldivers
2
that
have
been
sold.
Apart
from
that
huge
success,
the
company
reported
that
sales
of
software
($14.1
billion)
were
up
24%
year
on
year.
Sony
said
“This
significant
increase
in
sales
was
mainly
due
to
an
increase
in
sales
of
non-first-party
titles,
including
add-on
content,
and
the
impact
of
foreign
exchange
rates.”

In
total,
Sony
reports
286.4m
games
were
sold
for
the
PS5,
of
which
just
under
40m
were
first-party
titles.
Last
year
saw
slightly
fewer
game
sales
overall
(264.2m)
but
that
was
offset
by
more
first-party
sales
(43.5m).

Looking
ahead,
Sony
is
expecting
a
bump
in
2nd
and
3rd
party
sales
and
a
drop
in
first-party,
which
is
probably
due
to
its
prior
revelation
that
there
will
be
no
new
entries
in
any
of
PlayStation’s
blockbuster
franchises
until
the
next
fiscal
year
which
will
be
in
April
2025.

Finally,
let’s
address
the
PlayStation
Network.
Sony
reports
that
there
118m
PSN
users
by
the
end
of
Q4,
down
from
the
previous
quarter’s
123m
but
up
from
last
years
108m
during
the
same
time
frame.
Once
again
though,
Sony
has
declined
to
share
PSN
subscriber
numbers,
something
they
haven’t
done
2022
when
subscribers
numbers
started
to
drop.

Helldivers
2
likely
contributed
a
good
chunk
to
the
PSN
numbers
as
Arrowhead
CEO
Johan
Pilestedt
claimed
that
a
“significant”
amount
of
people
did
link
their
Steam
and
PSN
accounts.
The
mandatory
PSN
account
linking
debacle
was
most
likely
because
Sony
really
wants
to
add
PC
players
to
its
PSN
numbers.

Overally,
the
data
is
looking
good
for
PlayStation.
While
the
would
undoubtedly
love
the
console
sales
to
be
far
surpassing
the
PS4,
they
are
still
likely
very
pleased
with
how
well
it
is
doing.
The
next
year
could
potentially
be
rougher
for
PlayStation
without
any
major
releases
in
its
“blockbuster”
franchises,
but
there
are
still
games
like
Concorde
to
come,
which
the
company
reiterated
is
launching
this
year.