Fiscal year 2022 is over for Sony and now the company has shared the latest financial reports with the world. Experts recognize that Sony sold fewer games for PS4 and PS5 than in fiscal year 2021.
What does Sony’s financial report say? Economist Derek Strickland took a deeper look at Sony’s financial report and analyzed the findings of the 37-page document.
According to Strickland, Sony sold more PlayStation consoles in fiscal year 2022 than in previous years. Sony reported $5.252 billion in hardware sales in fiscal 2021, and $8.297 billion in fiscal 2022 (via TweakTown.com).
Despite this, sales of games sold via the PlayStation Store fell by almost 13% – from 303.2 million units sold to 264.2. Still, Sony was able to increase its game sales revenue from $6.211 billion to $6.367 billion.
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Are the high prices to blame? Strickland concluded that Sony’s changed pricing policy could be to blame for the drop in player sales – Sony raised the price of PS Exclusives from €69.99 to €79.99, after which other games like CoD MW2 followed suit.
The availability of PS5 consoles shouldn’t have an impact on the declining game sales as more consoles were sold.
Strickland also points out that PC ports of PlayStation games like Returnal or the much-criticized PC version of The Last of Us are not included in the figures.
We include a Twitter thread by Strickland on the subject here:
The change in the PS Plus system is also unlikely to have had an impact on player purchasing behavior, Strickland believes, since annual revenue from network services such as PS Plus has also declined.
Players are buying fewer PS4 and PS5 games, but for higher prices
Strickland’s bottom line is that players are buying fewer games for more money, and the data suggests that the increased purchase price is hurting sales while revenue remains strong.
If you have a PlayStation Plus subscription and don’t want to buy a game, you have the opportunity to get hold of three games for PS4 and PS5 from May 2nd.
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