As expected, Sony has released its financial report for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2024 (April 1 to June 30, 2024), which revealed a fairly flat picture, with 2.4 million PS5 units shipped, for a grand total of 61.7 million units.
This is a sharp decline from the 3.3 million PS5 units sold in the same period last year. That said, the results were positive for Sony’s video game division, with sales in the “Games and Network Services” segment up 12% year-on-year and operating income up 32% (from 49.2 billion yen / approximately €336 million to 65.2 billion yen / approximately €444 million).
Are PS5 sales a problem?
In short, Sony sold fewer consoles, but did better than the previous year thanks to the impact of exchange rates, the increase in first-party software sales and the increase in service sales, mainly PlayStation Plus, which did not give up ground despite the price increases of the subscription tiers that occurred last year.
Helldivers 2 is among Sony’s games of the quarter
However, the report also acknowledges a “decrease in hardware sales,” which undeniably represents a problem for the company to solve.
Additionally, despite an overall increase in software revenue, Sony also reports a decline in game sales year-over-year, with 53.6 million units sold in the first quarter of 2024. Sales in the same period last year were 56.5 million units.
It is also specified that digital sales represented 80% of the total, against 70% in 2023. Therefore, physical sales fell to 20%, becoming even more marginal.
Given the results achieved, Sony has revised its video game division guidance upwards for the full fiscal year 2024, which will end on March 31, 2024, with sales and operating income forecasts increased by 3%.
