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PlayStation (Games) Sony Games

Sony's PS5 Enters 'Latter Stage of Its Life Cycle' (theverge.com) 38

Posted by BeauHD from the time-flies dept.
After missing its sales target in the last quarter, Sony says it plans to emphasize the PlayStation 5's profitability over unit sales as the console approaches its fourth birthday. "Looking ahead, PS5 will enter the latter stage of its life cycle," said Sony senior vice president Naomi Matsuoka. "As such, we will put more emphasis on the balance between profitability and sales. For this reason, we expect the annual sales pace of PS5 hardware will start falling from the next fiscal year." Sony also said it has no plans to release "any new major existing franchise titles" in its next fiscal year. The Verge reports: Sony now expects to sell 4 million fewer PS5 consoles in its 2023 fiscal year ending March 31st compared to previous projections, Bloomberg reports. The revision came as part of today's third-quarter earnings release which saw Sony lower the PS5 sales forecast from the 25 million consoles it expected to sell down to 21 million.

While PS5 sales were up in Sony's third quarter, increasing to 8.2 million units from 6.3 million in the same quarter the previous year, Bloomberg notes that this was roughly a million units lower than it had previously projected. That's despite the release of the big first-party title Spider-Man 2, strong sales of third-party titles, and the launch of a new slimmer PS5 in November.

In its third quarter, Sony's gaming revenue was up 16 percent versus the same period the previous year, sitting at 1.4 trillion yen (around $9.3 billion), but operating income was down 26 percent to 86.1 billion yen (around $572 million) due to promotions in the third quarter ending on December 31st.
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Sony's PS5 Enters 'Latter Stage of Its Life Cycle' More

Sony's PS5 Enters 'Latter Stage of Its Life Cycle'

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  • While PC gamers may think the price of a PS5 is cheap, it just feels a lot more expensive than previous console generations. A second hand PS4 can be had for less than half the price. And will still play most games.

    • I also saw an article today about Sony saying they're not going to be able to drop the price of the PS5 [ign.com] as it ages... This is turning out to be a hard generation for Sony. They can't reasonably return to their old formula either, since chip development is so much more expensive now.

      • I got fed up with all the stupidities and swore that the PS4 would be the last console I ever got. It turned out to be easy to keep that oath because Steam.

    • Plus Sony's operating system and UI are unspeakably awful crap. Get a standard PC, put Linux on it, run Steam. Result: all the gaming you can handle, and it doesn't suck. As a bonus, you have a PC with an OS worthy of the name.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DuncanE ( 35734 )

        Steam is great, but I think the draw of the PS5 is its exclusives, but most of them have been available for the PS4 as well. Only recently are we seeing PS5 exclusives and so far, they have been sequels (Spiderman 2) or remasters (Last of Us). Wolverine may get me to upgrade.

    • I'm still on the PS3. I'm not looking for a serious console nor am I wanting anything other than casual game playing. I donâ(TM)t care about some new move. IMO, the old games are still fun to play. I had a PS4 which died because of a lightning strike. I never replaced it because I only played one game regularly that I could also play on the PS3 and one sports game stopped working when the new version came out. Meanwhile, nearly 20 years later, everything still works on the PS3.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      And will still play most games.

      People don't buy consoles to play the past, they do so to play the future. Quite a few games do not come out for the PS4. Quite a few games which do come out on the PS4 are either a disaster or are capped at horrendous quality frame rates. For many people simply having the game run is not enough.

      You're skimping on the cost of literally a couple of AAA games to get a significantly worse product, one with a very diminished future game compatibility. Go on, tell your kids how clever you are with money that the

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • False. Console games are ahead. There are many console exclusives that are released on PC only significantly later. Can you understand what I'm talking about yet? No one here is talking about hardware capability. When I say "the future" I'm talking about actual game releases on the shelf. No one cares what your hardware is, the question is can it play the game above a minimum requirement, and for most people the minimum requirement is being able to crank out 48-60fps, not to have an raytracing 4K wonder PC.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Who said anything about innovative gameplay? Most people don't give a shit. For example: Assassins Creed Valhalla sold more than any other Assassins Creed game, netted the company $1bn in revenue all the while literally bringing NOTHING NEW to the table over the previous 10 titles.

              But your kids don't care. They just want to play the latest thing they saw an advert for on TikTok.

      • No, they buy consoles the play the exclusives. Part of the reason nobody gives a damn about the XBox X or PS5 is because there's so few exclusives.

        Meanwhile, the underpowered Switch, based on last-gen mobile technology and drifting joysticks, is killing it in the marketplace. Nerds are clueless as to why... as usual.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        And will still play most games.

        People don't buy consoles to play the past, they do so to play the future. Quite a few games do not come out for the PS4. Quite a few games which do come out on the PS4 are either a disaster or are capped at horrendous quality frame rates. For many people simply having the game run is not enough.

        You're skimping on the cost of literally a couple of AAA games to get a significantly worse product, one with a very diminished future game compatibility. Go on, tell your kids how clever you are with money that they won't be able to play GTA VI on release despite you buying them a "new" games console.

        Which is why they keep remaking games (haven't the original Boob Raiders been remastered) and endless sequels (Call of Battlefied 17: Same as last year). People are playing the future... and you demonstrate this by listing a sequel.

        This is Sony eeking out an extra 5 or so years out of the current console because developing a new one is too expensive given how much they blew on the last one. The cost of new hardware is so expensive at the moment they'll make gaming PCs start to look cheap.

        Right now con

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      A Steam Deck can be had for the price of a PS5 and plays most PC games acceptably in a portable fashion. And there are many options in the lower cost PC gaming market that play all the latest games.

      Bonus is they're all open and can easily play games from all the other PC stores as well (either using helper programs or doing it yourself).

      The Steam Deck is basically why I quit playing my PS5 and Xbox and to a lesser extent my Switch.

  • PS5s were unobtanium for literally years unless you wanted to do the waiting list thing. Blame COVID supply chain issues or whatever, but that had to hurt the corporate bottom line a lot.

    They are lucky PC video cards were also affected - again blame crypto mining or whatever - or they probably would not even still be a thing at all.

    • 'Latter Stage of Its Life Cycle' = Trash
      Sony just told everyone that PS5 is Trash. Yep.

      • I eventually just built a new gaming PC, so it will be somewhat upgradable for a while.

        That said, I know people who still use their PS3s and PS4s today. They will continue to do what they do until the hardware fails. Sony obviously wants to sell more new consoles, but people will likely still be using their trash PS5s for a long time yet as well.

  • When did this become OLDS for nerds....

    • I'm a nerd (writting assembly, ebpf, C, python, running k8s, freebsd, doing rpi projects, 3d printer stuff kind of nerd) I own a PS5 and I play games. Not everyone is like you, don't like it? don't read it.

      • I own a PS5 and I play games..

        PS5 - like *all* console garbage - was aged out before it released vs PC.

        How is this suddenly news?

    • When did this become OLDS for nerds....

      This site regularly runs stories about COBOL.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aitikin ( 909209 )
        Would I to have mod points! +1 funny for sure.

      • I love posts about COBOL.
        File it under the "Everything Old is New Again" heading.

        I also love it when/if/I wish they post:
        The best Linux Distro for your G5 Mac
        Writing an emulator to run Dec Pathworks on Raspberry Pi.
        Rewriting Doom on a Vectrex system.
        Rebuilding a Toshiba Libretto into a portable IBM 3227 Terminal.
        Macquariums,
        Running Turbo Pascal on an ESP32.
        AI powered bumper stickers.
        Upgrade your TRS-80 from Cassette to Iomega Zip Drives.
        Building a cartridge based gaming system on French Minitel.
        Using RC con

  • Really, the PS5 is doing about as well as the PS4 did and is easily outselling the Xbox/Nintendo options. The problem is that Sony expected to sell even more consoles than the previous generation, and so they based their revenue stream around that. Supply issues may have caused an initial slowdown, but overall it hasn't had too much of an impact.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BigZee ( 769371 )
      The switch is further down the cycle and is due to be replaced this year. However, 140 million units sold so far will be tough for anyone to beat.

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