Despite the release of the Playstation 5 Slim at the end of 2023, Naomi Matsuoka, manager of Sony’s gaming division, had to announce surprisingly weak sales figures in a current annual report. Only around 8.2 million Sony consoles were sold in the quarter from October to December 2023. The Japanese hardware manufacturer Sony had expected one million more consoles to be sold.
PS5 is “entering the final phase of its life cycle”
The current fiscal year runs until the end of March 2024. However, due to poor console sales, Sony has to lower its forecast from 25 million to just 21 million devices. Together with the new slim version of the PS5, the Japanese console and game manufacturer was able to sell a total of 54.8 million devices.
Due to the weak sales figures, the “balance between profitability and sales” must be realigned, said Sony manager Naomi Matsuoka in an interview with analysts. Matsuoka also spoke of the fact that “the Playstation 5 is entering the final phase of its life cycle.” It is possible that there will be less advertising for the PS5, and according to manager Matsuoka, cost reductions in PS5 production are probably much more difficult than with the Playstation 4. The PS5 Slim is therefore not offered cheaper than the original version of the Playstation 5.
[PLUS] Technology comparison PC, PS5, Xbox Series S | But a remedy is in sight with the Xbox Series X|S and the Playstation 5. The article comes from PC Games Hardware 01/2021.
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No first-party games in the next financial year
To make matters worse, it was also revealed in the analyst meeting that Sony is not planning any new releases of its own first-party game series for the coming financial year, which runs from April 2024 to the end of March 2025. This is likely to be a bitter disappointment for Playstation fans, who were only presented with Marvel’s Spiderman 2 as the only really new title from Sony last year, alongside a God of War Ragnarök DLC and the PS5 remaster of The Last of Us Part II .
Quelle: Sony Earnings Announcement (FY2023 Q3), Golem