During Sony Corporation’s quarterly investor conference call, Chief Financial Officer – and soon to be CEO – Kenichiro Yoshida discussed the current state of the PlayStation Business and how well its doing. According to the report (via DualShockers), the current console cycle has reached its profitability peak, meaning that going forward, Sony will look to stabilize its earnings base in other areas of the gaming world. One of these future business structures is the PlayStation Plus service, which Sony contributes to its profitability thanks to its recurring revenue source. Sony also revealed it expects to continue to expect players to buy add-on content and in-game currency as the years go on, so they will gain revenue from that as well.
As far as sales go, the PlayStation gaming business saw positive sales, profits, and a huge impact in the foreign exchange during the first three quarters (March to December 2017). While fourth quarter sales for PlayStation 4 software will be on par with previous years, sales have been increasing and production costs have been reduced, meaning the PS4 will continue to see its profits climb from last year.
When it comes to PlayStation Plus, Yoshida acknowledged in the call that the service now has a whooping 31.5 million paid subscribers as of December 31, 2017. That number, along with the 41% increase on PlayStation Network sales year-on-year, have helped the company exceed 300 billion yen ($2.73 billion) for the first time in the business’ history. Needless to say, it’s been a great year for Sony, and with a ton of highly anticipated titles on the horizon, they don’t seem to be letting up anytime soon.
[Source: DualShockers]
