The PC version of Last of Us Part 1 didn’t fare well, to say the least.eyebrow joel (opens in new tab) It was fun for a while, but it’s been a month and Naughty Dog is still struggling with things going wrong (opens in new tab)Meanwhile, Sony’s overall strategy of bringing first-party games to PC seems to be working quite well.
Signs of Sony’s healthy PC strategy emerged in the company’s 2022 financial report, particularly under the ‘Other’ category in its gaming and network services segment. Supplementary information (opens in new tab) section.
For the purposes of this document, “other” is defined as “revenue from peripherals, including PlayStationVR, and revenue from sales of first-party titles on platforms other than PlayStation consoles.” Also, the numbers for the last two fiscal years are very noteworthy.
Fiscal 2021 was fairly flat (all figures are in millions of yen and converted to US dollars at the current yen-to-dollar ratio):
- Q1 FY2021 – ¥47,161 ($385.8 million)
- Q2 FY2021 – ¥41,356 ($303.2 million)
- FY2021 Q3 – ¥47,351 ($347.2 million)
- Q4 FY2021 – ¥51,702 ($379.1 million)
But 2022 is a different story, and we ended up with nearly double our 2021 sales.
- Q1 FY2022 – ¥60,478 ($443.6 million)
- Q2 FY2022 – ¥54,508 ($399.8 million)
- FY2022 Q3 – ¥82,031 ($601.7 million)
- Q4 FY2022 – ¥142,900 ($1,048 million)
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It is impossible to say exactly how much of an increase can be directly attributed to PC game sales. “Peripherals” covers many areas including devices such as controllers, and his PSVR2 released on February 22, right in the middle of Sony’s fourth quarter: success in sales is a question. It seems that. some discussion (opens in new tab)but even at the lower end of the estimate, it accounted for some of the bigger changes.
But while we can’t specifically distill PC game releases from that category, it was definitely a very important year for Sony on PC.Sony’s FY2022 Release On Steam Will Include Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered (opens in new tab)Sackboy: Great Adventure (opens in new tab)Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (opens in new tab)returns (opens in new tab)and The Last of Us Part 1 (opens in new tab)Anyway, it’s a full lineup. (By the way, I haven’t forgotten God of War. (opens in new tab)— Coming to PC in January 2022, with a fiscal 2021 release. )
Sony’s fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31, which explains the surge in earnings in the third quarter. This is the holiday quarter (October 1 through December 31), sometimes called the “Golden Quarter”, when consumer spending inevitably increases. What’s interesting, though, is that over the last two years, the increase in revenue spilled over into Q4 (January 1 through March 31). FY21’s rise wasn’t as steep as his FY22, but he also didn’t have a PSVR2 release that year. Did the PC version of God of War boost quarterly sales that much? I’m no analyst, but it seems to have played a huge role.
It’s a relatively small part of Sony’s overall gaming pie. By comparison, the PlayStation 4 and 5 topped $1.12. Trillion ¥8.2 billion, while game software (including additional content such as in-game currency and DLC) exceeded ¥1.7 trillion ($12.6 billion). But the bottom line is that Sony’s gaming division is doing very well in the “everything but the actual PlayStation” category. speech transcript (opens in new tab) We will continue to aim to create new IP, develop catalog titles for PCs, and strengthen the development of live services.”
