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PS5 Is Sony's Most Profitable Console Generation to Date
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
- Business
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Consoles are dead. Exclusives are dead. PS will be porting all its games to Xbox.
"PlayStation is a dead-man walking."
ToadMan
Member
Well with Xbox consoles disappearing this trend should continue into next gen.
It's up to Sony to keep the console relevant though. Nintendo have managed it, so a model is there for Sony to follow in the "high performance" console space. Equally the xbox model is an example of what not to do.
So really this should be easy for Sony but, well "many a slip 'twixt cup and lip".
It's up to Sony to keep the console relevant though. Nintendo have managed it, so a model is there for Sony to follow in the "high performance" console space. Equally the xbox model is an example of what not to do.
So really this should be easy for Sony but, well "many a slip 'twixt cup and lip".
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Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
PS5 is doing much better than I expected whoa.
The artful mincer
Member
PS3 gen bringing that batting average down!
All these doom and gloom posts about the PS5 are hilarious considering how bad the PS3 gen got and Sony still survived
1: is this adjusted for inflation?
2: console prices are higher an no longer need to get subsidized, actually they are sold on profit
3: game prices are higher
4: micro transactions and Sony gets its shares also of games that are not from them, just on their platform
5: most sales are digital now and Sony gets around 30% of each sold item
6: PSN+ fees for multiplayer
All in all, everyone is spending more money. But I guess if those numbers get adjusted for inflation, they won't look that great anymore. But that's a thing in the whole gaming industry.
With 3billion in PS1 times, you could do anything. With 10b in current times, the industry closes studios because of too tiny profits....
Btw funny that now the PS3 never got profitable according to this chart. Over years we could read how much profitable PS3 was....
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The artful mincer
Member
Why has profit dropped so much despite revenue being an all time high?
Acquisitions, development costs going up?
RoboFu
One of the green rats
And you are not reading in between the lines. They didn't say best selling they said most profitable. Higher prices , wider margins, and more mtx could also give you more profitability. Covid caused a big surge but now it's coming back down.
PhillMeCream
Member
Our most profitable console to date
We're sadly will have to do layoffs
We're sadly will have to do layoffs
Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Yep. Acquisition related costs (e.g. Bungie) and higher dev cost in general on their 1st party side.
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jm89
Member
Uhm ok?
All those would contribute to a healthy console ecosystem without it needing to be best selling.
Mownoc
Member
Sony give two reasons, lower first party sales and worse hardware losses. They lost more money on hardware last fiscal years than the year before due to promotions. "Increase in losses from hardware mainly due to promotions". Makes the people screaming for a price drop on this forum look pretty silly.
Actually ps5 hardware still loses money every fiscal year and the current fiscal year is also forecast for hardware to lose money, not profit. They are forecasting a "decrease in hardware losses" not an end to them.
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Felessan
Member
Most people just not aware/ignorant to the fact that transistors no longer getting cheaper over time. Shrink can improve power efficiency, but not the cost. So BoM cant really go cheaper on main chips, only on secondary parts, it massively affects room for price drops
Most of the cost go down for memory and the SSD (chips). The doc is actually quite cheap nowadays
The artful mincer
Member
Thanks for this.Sony give two reasons, lower first party sales and worse hardware losses. They lost more money on hardware last fiscal years than the year before due to promotions. "Increase in losses from hardware mainly due to promotions". Makes the people screaming for a price drop on this forum look pretty silly.
Actually ps5 hardware still loses money every fiscal year and the current fiscal year is also forecast for hardware to lose money, not profit. They are forecasting a "decrease in hardware losses" not an end to them.
Presumably Helldivers 2 will help this quarter.
Was this generation unique in that the PS5 was initially profitable but is now being sold at a loss. Usually its the opposite
KungFucius
King Snowflake
This doesn't preclude that from happening. Number of sales are still declining and this is worse because their competitor is selling much less, so they are not even capturing people who leave xbox faster than they are losing people themselves. Since Sony is making more money on less people, it's not hard to argue that their customers are getting less value for their money. More might see this as a reason to jump ship.
jm89
Member
They aren't declining for playstation like for xbox.
What is happening is a lot of playstation players are sticking to ps4 due to alot of games still being available on there.
They may have already captured alot of xbox users during the tail end of the ps4 gen hence why we are seeing a massive decline in sales for xbox.
Sony also did say 30% of ps5 users never had a ps4.
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The_Observer
Member
Quite sad that the most profitable is the worst from a gamer standpoint. But good for them, I guess. Time for some layoffs then as another poster said, as it’s never enough.
Well, behind that statement.
-It does not say that PS5 is being their most profitable console, they say that the generation where PS5 is being the most profitable. Come on, it is the persistent PS4 business that is giving rise to that. Subscriptions, microtransactions and Gass. In other generations this crossgeneration situation did not exist.
- Then, you just have to look at the profit bars of the last two years vs the first two, layoffs and closure of Studios. I think these also say things behind it.
This current year and the next are going to be more defining of what PS5 is going to be for them vs what was PS4 for the PS business.
-It does not say that PS5 is being their most profitable console, they say that the generation where PS5 is being the most profitable. Come on, it is the persistent PS4 business that is giving rise to that. Subscriptions, microtransactions and Gass. In other generations this crossgeneration situation did not exist.
- Then, you just have to look at the profit bars of the last two years vs the first two, layoffs and closure of Studios. I think these also say things behind it.
This current year and the next are going to be more defining of what PS5 is going to be for them vs what was PS4 for the PS business.
ArcaneNLSC
Member
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StereoVsn
Gold Member
Nah, console gaming is clearly dying. Sony too.
That aside, console market size in number of people isn’t really growing, but profit per user certainly is with higher console prices, game prices, and MTX.
Also, the narrative that games aren’t expensive enough is clearly shown to be complete BS.
Duchess
Member
drganon
Member
Destin's whole sham of a career relies on xbox. If that's gone he's got nothing.
mayham2199
Member
Strange because I'm a gamer and from my standpoint they are the best. Xbox doesn't have the games I want, Nintendo doesn't have the games I want. Sony does it's that simple. How are they the worst when I'm getting the games I want?
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
solidus12
Member
The_Observer
Member
Your console jihad is blinding you, I wasn‘t even talking about the others, I just meant that it’s the worst generation for Playstation (and for all the others too). If you are okay with what they do then good for you too. I think they were insanely better between 2009 and 2020.
rm082e
Member
What makes you feel it's the worst generation for Playstation, and how were they better between 2009 and 2020?
To me, the PS5 just feels like a continuation of the PS4. I don't really see any significant changes in strategy, quality, etc. What really seems to have changed for everyone is the tastes and choices of the players. The top ten biggest games being huge evergreen titles isn't something any of the console makers had a hand in, since they aren't titles that belonged to them.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
That’s a shame. I think it’s the worst generation. PS2 and PS4 generations were 20x better.
FIREKNIGHT2029
Member
The_Observer
Member
No innovation at all, yes it’s a continuation of ps4, we are still playing ps4 games in higher res/fps. There is only one “nextgen” game from 2021 (R&C) and that’s it. Price increases with nothing of value added (game prices + ps plus). Woke bullshit stuffed everywhere, no real interaction with the fans. If you wrere there you must know how different it was. Every Sony event was awesome, nowadays there is like no marketing and if there is anything it’s just disappointment. GaaS and fortnite like shit everywhere. It’s not just Sony, but this is a Sony thread and my point is that the quality is going downhill ever since this current management team took over after the huge success that the ps4 dreamteam achieved. They are just riding on that success with nothing of value added.
FunkMiller
Member
Hmmmm.
Seems like it's the perfect time to tell everyone your games are coming to PC!
Seems like it's the perfect time to tell everyone your games are coming to PC!
mayham2199
Member
No way it's the worst generation. There wasn't shit to play when I bought my PS3. I took it back and got a 360. Their online was garbage at the time also. PS4 was great but I'm having just a good of time on my PS5 also. I can't even think of much that's changed between PS4 and PS5 that could be considered "insanely better". I could see someone liking the games more but to the point it's "insanely better"? I just don't see it.
Ok I see what the issue is now. You're just looking for something different in a console than I am. I just want to come home and play games.
- I used to be a PC gamer so nextgen doesn't really mean shit to me. I just want good games and Sony is giving me that.
- Price increases really aren't something I care about honestly but I understand people struggling to make it these days might not like that. I'm in a very fortunate position financially.
- Woke stuff I don't care about and don't really see it but to each his own.
- I could care less about Sony's marketing, interactions with me or their events. None of that helps me have more fun with games.
It's actually not possible for PS4 generation to be better than PS5 .
You can play the best games of PS4 generation on PS5.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
PS4 did a lot better than expected after the PS5 launched. Look at how the profit starts off super high and then drops. The shortages and cross-gen extended the PS4 life significantly meaning that it contributed substantial profits to the 'PS5 generation'.
The_Observer
Member
But it doesn’t matter where you played, because consoles dictated the AAA space ever since around the ps2 days. You saw the jump on pc when developers took advantage of a new gen. Compare GTA San Andreas to GTA 4 just to point out one obvious example. But I could say compare R&C ps4 to Rift Apart on ps5 and you can see the jump. But anywhere else? There’s nothing and we are in the fourth year of this gen. Anyway, it’s good for you if you feel like that but it’s objectively the worst generation from many sense. And it’s not like my opinion is so out of touch, many think the same way, just take a look around in the threads. It‘s definitely not just a Sony thing, but an industry thing, but like I said this is a Sony thread so I am talking about them specifically here.