Sony Discusses Strong First & Third-Party PS4 Game Sales, Investment in Epic Games, & More

Sony is hosting its financial conference call for investors and analysts, and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki talked about the trends of sales of first and third-party games and more.

Totoki-san mentioned that during the first quarter (from April to June) of the fiscal year the stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19 had a significant impact on the sales of both first-party and third-party games (18.5 units of first-party games and 91 million units of third-party games for PS4 were sold during the quarter, with a massive improvement year-on-year). Due to that, results in April were very strong while in May they partly normalized, but they were still very high compared to last year.

On the other hand, Sony expects demand to settle down to an extent during the second quarter and onward. The company then predicts to incur a certain level of marketing expenses for the launch of PS5.

Unsurprisingly, Totoki-san declined to mention any specific details on expected volumes and price for the new console, only providing a but of vague color.

With regards to the volume and price, right now I can’t talk about that. We have upside and risks, both sides. But at this point in time, we feel that this balance is good and we’ve shown a plan based on that.

Incidentally, Totoki-san also had a prepared remark explaining the investment in Epic Games and Bilibili. Interestingly, we hear that Sony is interested in proactively pursuing similar investment opportunities in the future.

“At a time when digitization of the entertainment industry is accelerating, we plan to leverage these investments to expand the customer touch points for our diverse array of content as well as create new digital content and ways of enjoying that content that go beyond our business segments in partnership with these companies.

Going forward, we intend to proactively pursue strategic investment opportunities to explore future growth.”

If you’re interested in Sony’s quarterly financial performance and in an update on PS4 shipments, you can read our dedicated article.

About the author

Giuseppe Nelva

Proud weeb hailing from sunny (not as much as people think) Italy and long-standing gamer since the age of Mattel Intellivision and Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Definitely a multi-platform gamer, he still holds the old dear PC nearest to his heart, while not disregarding any console on the market. RPGs (of any nationality), MMORPGs, and visual novels are his daily bread, but he enjoys almost every other genre, prominently racing simulators, action and sandbox games. He is also one of the few surviving fans on Earth of the flight simulator genre.

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