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[Physiognomonics]

Totoki is running PlayStation into the ground.


Japan (YoY)





UK (YoY)

(July) PS5 hits 4m UK sales, 31 weeks slower than PS4

Aug PS5 (-57%)



Europe (YoY)

Jul PS5 (-56%)

Aug PS5 (-50%)



Totoki promises his investors outsized returns, but how can he produce these high returns?

Sony Group operating income declined 7% in FY23, while its net cash stands at (-¥589.7 b)

G&NS operating income grew 16% in FY23. It's never enough.

He can’t, without running PlayStation into the ground (selling fewer consoles at higher price, reducing G&NS working capital, winding down R&D spending and acquisition costs)

Record profits & Totoki tax will kill PlayStation in Japan, UK and Europe.



Context

PS4 Slim was ¥29,980 / £259 / €299 / at the time (2017)

PS5 is sold at a loss, but the average PS5 owner is spending $731 on games, services, add-on , and peripherals, while PS4 owners averaged $580



Totoki Tax

PlayStation foots the bill

May ¥8.52 b

Jun ¥35.21 b

Jul ¥53.59 b

Aug ¥60.27 b

Sep ¥36.90 b

I'd say the 3 men in charge are running Playstation to the wall. The biggest problem is they are pushing people to PC ecosystem and it will kill Playstation like it killed the Xbox.

 

[Woopah]

Top PS September downloads and their physical sales.

1	EA SPORTS FC 25 - 13,265
2	Astro Bot - 34,902
3	The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Time -Farewell, O Zemuria - 29,554
4	Hogwarts Legacy
5	Gundam Breaker 4 - 8,091< x <11,319
6	Black Myth: Goku
7	Core Keeper
8	Vampire Survivors
9	NBA 2K25
10	VISIONS of MANA - 7,951 < x <11,178
11	Grand Theft Auto V
12	Street Fighter 6
13	Monster Hunter Rise
14	Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
15	Exit 8
16	Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster
17	Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown
18	ARK: Survival Ascended
19	Persona 3 Reload
20	Castlevania Dominus Collection

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Apart from Rebirth, those other games wouldn't have been that big.

Next year will have the heavy hitters with GTA, MH and Ghost.

Well it's not about them being big hits in and of themselves. Rather, it's that they compound on each other and other games released prior to build up a total value proposition for the platform, in a customer looking to purchase a system.

For the Japanese market specifically I don't know how big GTA6 will be in terms of appeal; Monster Hunter and Ghosts of Yotei will definitely have their appeal though. How much and if it'd be enough to help pull PS5 back on pace with PS4 launch-aligned or ahead in that market, I don't know. Again, it's a question of the compounding effect combined with what amount of content is still unique (exclusive) to the platform to feed that compounding effect.

In theory, it should only be growing and growing as the gen goes on. But since SIE have been focusing so much on PC ports with either Day 1 priority or shorter windows, and there are more 3P games Day 1 on PC vs. last gen, combined with having fewer exclusives in general this gen vs. last, I don't think that compounding element is growing the way it would've in the past. So benefits of games like MH, GoY, and even GTA6 might not be optimal this time 'round, especially with the price increases in the region.

But we'll see if that holds true or not.

And that's just the ps5 console exclusives.

You have third party devs showing up with like a dragon ishin, persona 3, tekken 8, metaphor refantazio and silent hill 2.

This is the year they should be taking advantage by moving people as quickly over to ps5, instead they want to coast.

IKR? It's frustrating to see, too. It's like I can both understand to a degree why they're taking this approach, but also not agree with it when all's said and done. I almost get the feeling Sony Corp want PlayStation to be the cash cow of the company to help bankroll other units/divisions.

They were never beating last year when pent up demand was cleared causing huge sales.

But they could have been much higher if it got discounts like the ps4 did instead of going up.

What are people expecting the Pro to do?

Personally? I think it'll be similar to what jm89 said; strong launch but sales will soften after that. Maybe not a complete drop, but near back half of Q1 2025 I can see the sales slowing down considerably. High price + that time of year being slowest for hardware (unless it's a whole new system launch), not a great combo.

Sales'll probably pick back up again when GoY, DS2 and GTA6 release and sustain decently for a while once GTA6 releases in particular. But if there's no price cut, they'll slow back down again. Assuming no price cuts going forward (or sales promos, which seems to be what companies are preferring these days), I can't see the PS5 Pro doing more than 9-10 million lifetime. But in that case it'd make them more money than PS4 Pro did at ~ 13.5 million ($6.99 billion vs $5.38 billion), and that's just on the hardware itself.

I guess one hope is, if the PS5 Pro proves to be a worthwhile upgrade in the long run, SIE could do more competitive sales promos for the regular PS5 going forward and use profits from the Pro to fill in their margins.