PlayStation Brought In £3bn ($4.37bn) For Sony In One Quarter

[Dr. Pezus]

For the third quarter ending 31st December 2014, Sony's Game & Network Services division, of which PlayStation is a part, brought in a whopping 531.5bn yen, or £2.9bn. G&NS generated more revenue than any other Sony division during the quarter.
That made for a "significant" sales increase of 16.8 per cent year on year, primarily due to PlayStation 4 sales boost.

6.4m PS4s were sold during the quarter. The same quarter the previous year, 4.5m were sold. Earlier this month Sony announced the PS4 had sold 20.2m units globally.
But the "favourable" impact of foreign exchange rates and a "significant" increase in network services revenue (that'll be all those PlayStation Plus subscriptions) also helped.
Not everything PlayStation prints money, however. Decreased sales of the ageing PS3 and PS3 games had an impact, as you'd expect.

With such high sales, operating income increased to £153m. There was a £62m write-down of Vita and PS TV components as both of those products continue to struggle sales wise. But Sony benefited from a comparison with the same quarter last year, during which it recorded a £34m write-off of PC games relating to PlanetSide and EverQuest maker Sony Online Entertainment. Sony recently sold the developer.

Sony forecasts 17.5m PS4 and PS3 combines sales for the 2014 financial year, which ends March 2015. That's up from its previous forecast of 17m. Its 3.5m sales prediction for portables (PS TV, Vita and PSP) remains the same. It expects software sales of 420m, up from the previous forecast of 390m.

For Sony as a whole, it was a positive quarter. Sales were up 6.5 per cent and operating income was up 104 per cent. But it still expects to report a net loss - its sixth in seven years - for the current financial year.

The pressure has been on Sony boss Kaz Hirai for some time now to return the iconic Japanese company to something approaching its former glory. Sony recently announced a new business strategy, which it hopes will help the gargantuan company swing to profit over the next few years. PlayStation is central to the plan.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-03-17-playstation-just-brought-in-3bn

[DerNebel]

The revenue that Playstation is bringing in is awesome already, the thing they have to work on increasing now alongside the revenue is their profit margin.

During their Corporate Strategy Meeting they showed that the forecasted Game Division's OI margin for this fiscal year is 2.9%, which is ridiculously low imo, their goal until 2017 is to reach a margin of 5-6%, which I personally think is still a goal that's set too low.

I'm talking about slide 13 on here btw.: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/info/strategy2015/pdf/presenE.pdf)

Things that Sony should imo tackle aside from what they are doing already in order to increase their profit margins:

1. Phase out the Vita/Get production costs on it down as much as possible, sell it as a indie/port machine. Don't invest in it outside of possibly Japan and just try and squeeze some money out of it.

2. Increase uptake on first party and Sony published software, especially invest in marketing and development resources in studios outside of ND to facilitate growth in popularity/sales/profit in all of Sonys first party. Possibly create something like a rewards program for frequent first party buyers as well. Essentially create more of an identity for your first party since for a lot of people Sonys first party is ND and nothing more.

3. Increase digital adoption. Maybe make digital games available a couple days earlier, maybe make them a couple bucks cheaper.

4. Increase adoption on their subscription services. Give gamers reasons to use PS+ by giving out great games with the service, get popular multiplayer titles on the console, maybe make one yourself (though they've tried and failed a couple times already). Increase the PS Now library, same with PS Vue and whatever else they have.

5. Possibly make less investments in dead-on-arrival projects like the Puppeteer (though that would have done a lot better had it come summer 2014 on PS4).

[darkknightkryta]

The revenue that Playstation is bringing in is awesome already, the thing they have to work on increasing now alongside the revenue is their profit margin.

During their Corporate Strategy Meeting they showed that the forecasted Game Division's OI margin for this fiscal year is 2.9%, which is ridiculously low imo, their goal until 2017 is to reach a margin of 5-6%, which I personally think is still a goal that's set too low.

I'm talking about slide 13 on here btw.: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/info/strategy2015/pdf/presenE.pdf)

Things that Sony should imo tackle aside from what they are doing already in order to increase their profit margins:

1. Phase out the Vita/Get production costs on it down as much as possible, sell it as a indie/port machine. Don't invest in it outside of possibly Japan and just try and squeeze some money out of it.

2. Increase uptake on first party and Sony published software, especially invest in marketing and development resources in studios outside of ND to facilitate growth in popularity/sales/profit in all of Sonys first party. Possibly create something like a rewards program for frequent first party buyers as well. Essentially create more of an identity for your first party since for a lot of people Sonys first party is ND and nothing more.

3. Increase digital adoption. Maybe make digital games available a couple days earlier, maybe make them a couple bucks cheaper.

4. Increase adoption on their subscription services. Give gamers reasons to use PS+ by giving out great games with the service, get popular multiplayer titles on the console, maybe make one yourself (though they've tried and failed a couple times already). Increase the PS Now library, same with PS Vue and whatever else they have.

5. Possibly make less investments in dead-on-arrival projects like the Puppeteer (though that would have done a lot better had it come summer 2014 on PS4).

Sony's already doing that :p

[Dr. Pezus]

In dollars this is even more impressive!

[Legend]

In dollars this is even more impressive!

Crazy that the dollar is stronger now.

[Xevross]

Crazy that the dollar is stronger now.

The value of the dollar has gone up quite a lot recently. Can only get $1.47 for a pound now when you could get about $1.70 a year ago

[FLGibsonIII]

1. Phase out the Vita/Get production costs on it down as much as possible, sell it as a indie/port machine. Don't invest in it outside of possibly Japan and just try and squeeze some money out of it.

They are already doing this one sadly.

[darkknightkryta]

They are already doing this one sadly.

They're already doing almost everything he said they should O_O

[DerNebel]

They're already doing almost everything he said they should O_O

The digital adoption and adoption of their subscription services are definitely things they are already working on, they still need to put a lot of work into the reconizability of their 1st party software though.

[Rorono]