The fiscal year 2022 is over for Sony, and now the company has shared its recent financial reports with the world. Experts note that Sony sold fewer games for PS4 and PS5 than in fiscal year 2021.
What does Sony’s financial report say? Economic expert Derek Strickland took a deeper look into 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. In fiscal year 2021, Sony recorded $5.252 billion in revenue from hardware sales, while in fiscal year 2022 it was $8.297 billion (via TweakTown.com).
However, sales figures for games sold through the PlayStation Store have decreased by nearly 13% – from 303.2 million units sold to 264.2. Nevertheless, Sony was able to increase revenue from game sales from $6.211 billion to $6.367 billion.
Are the high prices to blame? Strickland concluded that Sony’s changed pricing policy might be responsible for the decline in game sales – Sony has raised the price of PS-exclusives from €69.99 to €79.99, causing other games like CoD MW2 to follow suit.
The availability of PS5 consoles should not have affected the declining game sales, as more consoles were sold.
Moreover, Strickland 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 will include a Twitter thread from Strickland on this topic here:
Strickland believes that the change in the PS Plus system probably also had no impact on players’ buying behavior, as the annual revenue from network services like PS Plus has also declined.
Players buy fewer games for PS4 and PS5, but for higher prices
Strickland’s conclusion is that players are buying fewer games for more money and the data indicates that the increased purchase price is negatively impacting sales figures, while revenues remain high.
If you have a PlayStation Plus subscription and can forgo purchasing a game, you have the opportunity to grab three games for PS4 and PS5 starting from May 02.
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