In a recent financial update, Sony reported on the performance of its PlayStation brand through Q3 of its FY2023. It was revealed that 8.2 million PlayStation consoles were shipped in three months, and more than 89 million games were sold across PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, but those stunning figures were shielding some less than fortunate news: projections for Q4 FY2023 were slashed.
Originally, Sony intended to sell 25 million PS5 consoles in FY2023, which ends next month. However, that forecast was recently cut down to 21 million units. Not only that but the firm’s operating margin in the business came under scrutiny, all of which led to a whopping $10 billion being wiped from Sony’s stock value.
‘Extremely Disappointing’
In a report published by CNBC, the state of PlayStation was discussed by an equity analyst, Atul Goyal. In his breakdown of the situation, Goyal stressed that things are ‘extremely disappointing’, addressing Sony’s flailing operating margin in the games business. In a drastic drop on the board, Sony has gone from a value of around 13% in March 2022 to just under 6% in December 2023.
Goyal explained the gravity of this:
The shipment forecast cut for PS5 … is not what is disappointing … What is disappointing is the low level of (operating margin) … Their revenue on digital sales, add-on-content, digital-downloads are at all time highs… And yet their margins are at decade-lows. This is just not acceptable.
In CNBC’s report, it was claimed that Sony’s gaming margins are ‘almost near decade lows’. It seems that increasingly expensive production budgets are one contributor to this drop, which is a theory put forward by Kantan Games’ Serkan Toto.
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Sony needs to sell off something either PlayStation or Sony Pictures
They should get out of gaming the management has been awful and unless you have endless money gaming isn’t fruitful. Nintendo does well because their business model is so different.
Sony looks like more studios will shut down and they really should sell off their share in EVO they don’t make first party fighting games it’s just a drain on them to fund the competition and worse Activision gutted their E-Sports division so maybe they finally do something there. Endeavor has been in trouble too so maybe they find a buyer or just shut EVO down.
Yeah Evo is costing money and brings nothing back
Sony needs to dump Crunchyroll/Aniplex, Sony Music, Sony Pictures and focus on 1 thing!
Yeah focus on those aspects of entertainment not gaming or focus on gaming/tech over traditional entertainment it will result in a better product either way/
They should stop all the bad decisions! Giving Kojima more money to make games, buying studios who make nothing, making bad movies, and stop wasting money in general. They should try writing off Kojima’s games like DS2 and the PS6 title.
Maybe now these stupid console wars can go away? Sony and Microsoft should both go third party no more first party exclusives just release games on all platforms.
Sell Bungie off! Offer it to Microsoft