There was a big release from Sony last night as they had their business segment briefings, and Jim Ryan stepped up to talk through all things Playstation, and there is quite a lot. The top priority is, obviously, fulfilling demand for the Playstation 5, which is still massive. As well as the issues in production and distribution caused by, well, everything going on in the world, the demand is still twice that of the PS4 at a similar amount of time post-launch. Ryan also highlighted that it was taking 90 minutes to sell as many PS5s as the PS4 sold in nine days.
Also of note was PC revenue, which is expected to make up around 20% of revenue this financial year, and around a third of total revenue by 2025. Numbers were given for Horizon Zero Dawn (2.3M sales, $60M revenue), Days Gone (852k sales, $22.7M revenue), and God of War (971k sales, $26.2M revenue). They expect this to triple in this financial year, which might suggest some more big releases as well as strong continued sales. Bloodborne PC, anyone?
Finally is a note about IP investment, particularly new IP vs. old. A one third split is expected to go to new IP in this financial year. However, this will be increased to 50% by 2025. Most notably, the actual amount being invested, based on the graphs shown, will be more just for new IP than the entire game budget in 2019. Playstation has been ludicrously successful with new or rebooted IP over the PS4 generation, so it’s hardly surprising. Players also seem more willing to embrace new and interesting properties versus what they’ve seen before.
Plenty more in the full report, if you want a quick read. Big expansions are on the way for Sony VR, and not a single mention of blockchains or NFTs. Makes a change, eh?
Written by Ben Barrett on behalf of GLHF.
