"This better work"

Sony’s doubling down on the PlayStation 4, as it tries desperately to return to profitability. The manufacturer revealed as part of its Investors Day that it will be cutting its television and mobile lines, while focusing on its next-gen platform to pick up the slack. The company also has high hopes for its secretly successful image sensor business.

In truth, this sounds like a move that it should have made eons ago. To be clear, the company’s not ditching TVs and smartphones entirely, it’s just planning to produce fewer products, which makes sense considering that it drops a dizzying number of devices every year. With this new strategy, it actually expects to turn a profit – despite anticipating a decline in sales.

We reported yesterday how the PlayStation division aims to eclipse ¥1,600 billion ($13.5 billion) in sales by the end of March 2017 by increasing the average revenue per paying user. For those that missed the story, it intends to do this by enriching its entire ecosystem with the addition of new services such as PlayStation Now and PlayStation Vue.

The market seems to agree with the Japanese giant’s approach, as its shares were up six per cent by the end of Tuesday. To be honest, this is also good news for us as gamers, as it means that the entire company is putting a portion of its eggs into PlayStation’s basket. In other words: it has to keep us happy at this point, as the firm’s future depends on it.

[source reuters.com, via eurogamer.net]