PS5 Powers PlayStation to Record Breaking Financial Results

Spider-Man 2 this holiday season is going to do gangbusters!

Really hope they do a big showcase soon - but the pending activision deal might prevent them from doing that

I wish we could see how much of a part Modern Warfare 2 played in these numbers.

@jrt87
These seem like incredibly minor quibbles. I’d rather them start by sorting out the terrible marketing and PR department, then move on to going back to the old superior regional structure, then they can play around with stats and folders to their hearts’ content.

Personally I’m just thankful that he is focusing on next generation gaming in the form of VR, and not being sucked in to the race to the bottom that is subsidised subscriptions.

Huge results, especially considering Covid and the challenging stock situation since its launch.

@themightyant note that while the number is for profit, it says it was a record in operating income, which is a different number

Sony could finde a cure for cancer

Push square community would still find something to bitch about lmao

Good results, well done. We need all 3 platforms to be doing well. Let's see how their apparent live service focus unfolds over the coming years, as I think this year will be when we start to see the games come out.

@PlayStationGamer3919 I couldn't disagree more, the two systems could not be further apart in terms of the quality released during the same time period. Apart from Bloodborne, the first two years of the PS4 were dismal. PS5 on the other hand had Demon Souls, Miles Morales, Returnal, Rift Apart, GT7, Horizon Forbidden West and GOW Ragnarok. It's not even close.

@themightyant I see, the article shouldn't have said "profit" then

No wonder they call him Jim Crying Ryan.

Crying tears of joy of the overwhelming success he's bringing playstation 😂

Well-deserved success!

@get2sammyb I think people forget that Sony didn't really get into their stride until the likes of Uncharted 4 in the PS4 days. Whilst not many are exclusive to next gen, the PS5 already has a stellar lineup of games and with PSVR2 just a few weeks away

With all the success PS is currently having, i wonder if this will be brought up with the impending MS/AB buyout?

@carlos82 what? I’m not sure what you mean by “into their stride”, but Uncharted 2 is still the highlight of the series, and TLOU 1 on the PS3 was the moment the Sony brand became basically synonymous with Cinematic Experiences.

Now if Sony would stop remastering PS4 games that we already can play and would work on remastering the top tier PS3 games…

I just want more souls… give me moooorrrrre sooouuuuls.. and Gran Turismo obvs.. oh and a bloody NG+ for Valkyrie Elysium!!!

Poor, poor Sony. Without government protection from competition they could never hope to succeed in business?! Won't someone please think of the shareholders? Thank they've started nickel and diming us for everything, or they'd be bankrupt!

A few points though. PS is selling itself, "Jim Ryan" may well be a business man, but I don't think it matters if you stick Reggie or Don Matrick at the head of PS right now these numbers wouldn't be so different because the brand isn't being driven by the visionary planning of a genius CEO, it sells itself, even without marketing, and the CEO gets the credit. Kind of like how US presidents get the credit for booms, the blame for busts, and in reality have almost no effect whatsoever. It's easy to "lead" a successful company in good times. Let's see how he does if things turn bad to see how great a leader he is. His legacy isn't the start of PS5, his legacy is the end of PS6. And I don't think fans ever accused him of being bad at making money, fans accuse him of being bad for customers which is a long arc from boom to bust if he loses the script too much.

Second, the numbers look big, but, to play devil's advocate for them and against my opening paragraph, Sony (even before PS) has always been an export focused company, and operates in inverse of most Japanese companies, they have their highest profits when the yen is weak, and their worst years when the yen is strong. The yen is very, very weak right now, and a lot of currency exchange rate magic is inflating the numbers.

All this having been said, this swayed me back to cheer-leading for ABK/MS. Bring on the strong competition, even if it has to buy it's way to power, otherwise we're DEFINITELY going to lose.

Not surprised, It is all about the games.

Sony knows how to make them and builds hardware that gets amazing 3rd party support. I been swimming in games.

Every generation I always buy a PlayStation first, build from there. It always works out.

@NEStalgia Jim Ryan has worked at Playstation since the mid 90's across various levels of the organisation, I am sure the system is not just selling itself!

@NEStalgia “ It's easy to "lead" a successful company in good times.”

A global pandemic, war in Eastern Europe, and rampant inflation. Let the good times roll.

Long live the king! PlayStation!

@Tharsman in terms of PS4 games, sure Uncharted 2 and The Last of Us were great on PS3 but it was a while before PS4 had the likes of Uncharted 4, Horizon, Spider-Man, God of War etc

Nestalgia

yes, yes and still you cant do NOTHING about Sony success. Hahaha delicious.

Gratz to Sony, very well done! Agree with some comments above: how can one reasonably say their competitive position is threatened by MS+ABK.

Some interesting other info: the number of PS+ subscribers increased by about 0.7mln to 46+, and the revenue from subscription services is more or less flat. This might indicate that they did not manage to move many people from “old” PS+ (now Essentials) to higher tiers.
The number of monthly players seems to be at all-time high - 112m. 1m higher than Q3’21, and much higher than Q1-Q2’22, which were slightly over 100m. Again, good news that Sony broke the trend of declining user numbers. But to me it seems that majority of all those PS5’s are people upgrading from PS4, not new gamers.
Some alternative takes, maybe?

Not a single PushSquare article without „incredible“ or „breathtaking“.

@Darylb88 PS truly sells itself, though. It has tremendous inertia from the prior generation, and has major brands that sell in terms of software, as well as being the default platform due to said inertia for that huge, huge mtx pot, which even this report acknowledges is where the main profits come in. Jim has done little that has specifically altered PS's trajectory that has actually hit the market at this point beyond greenlighting projects that were already successful before he was the one making decisions. He is making decisions, but those decisions have yet to hit the market as is the nature of gaming.

I said it in 2020, I still say it now, PS5 and it's results were never in danger, that's built on the legacy of prior leadership and the market inertia they generated. We won't truly feel Jim's presence until PS6.

@themightyant I despise everything this man represents in gaming. I know corporate likes him, because corporate is making money and investors know too little to understand they're making money in spite of him not because of him. Which is exactly how we're in an endless boom-bust cycle to begin with...

@Amnesiac And selling video games, a drug to help forget all that....yep, good times indeed. And was Russia ever a huge sales channel for PS? Russia's always been PC-focused, consoles always struggled there. The recession will affect them, somewhat surprised it hasn't hit them harder for Q3, but those exhange rates probably offset that somewhat. (Acknowledging the exchange rates is my one tip of the cap toward Jim's favor, keep in mind, as the success isn't as raw as the numbers appear, so it's not quite the runaway profits story it looks like, though investors never notice that as long as it works for them today.)

PlayStation has prioritized building a relational ecosystem of developers, like a family, who support each other in consistently developing titles of the highest quality. They value their I.P., believe in the creative process and understand the benefits of collaboration. I believe this is the unsung bread and butter of their success. As Stadia has proven, you can’t buy your way into games.

@NEStalgia Jesus christ, give it a rest. You're one of the most broken records on here. The last couple of years have been extremely turbulent for tech manufacturing, and despite that the man has helped lead Sony to record breaking profits.

You and the rest of the vocal minority can continue trying to diminish his contributions, but spending almost 30 years at the same successful company, not to mention working your way to the very top of it, speaks a lot louder then you ever will.

It will be interesting to see how Sony’s profit margins evolve as the grand plan of GaaS roll out. There’s a high risk : reward gamble and if a lot of these profits are built upon PSN sales and microtransactions, it could be going up from here when the service games arrive.

@get2sammyb @themightyant @Intr1n5ic i want to mostly agree that Jim has been good at his job, cause again the numbers are great. But PlayStation is an easier console to get good numbers from, as the brand largely sells itself at this point, unless you just do something really crazy to it. I would like to add he or his advisors have given a lot of money to things like Ghostwire, Babylon, now forspoken and paid to lock these games down and they have all been sales duds. Is this a lack of them not playing games and being able to see a great game, cause something with their choices doesn’t resonate with gamers, or is it just coincidental that it’s now 3-4 timed exclusives that weren’t much worth locking down with cash? Cause that would be the one glaring hole i see in all this. Can they spot a great game and if so will they throw the right money towards it to keep it on PS, or will they start to look at what they’ve paid for , what has been low meta scored games. Your thoughts? Overall good to see PS thriving and growing, and this is a good early sign of PS5 being a huge success.

@Agramonte outside of PS3, the Cell wasn’t so kind to 3rd party. Most games ran really bad on it. But since then, i agree they have focused on dev tools and understandable tech so the console performs its best. PS5 is one of their best built hardware all the way around. I am impressed by it.

All of this is without a live service game currently in the collection. I hope they don't ruin their single player games in favor of it

@themightyant I largely agree with everything you said and i fully appreciate your wisdom of the video game industry. I certainly don’t mean to come off as a catch all saying it largely sells itself, but PlayStation is the global most recognizable name in gaming, followed by the word Nintendo. Now where the real talent comes is in how you want to sell it and what you want your business to look like in the short and long term, here i largely agree with the job Jim has done. Like yourself i agree it’s not all great for me personally, but at large it’s been good for the brand and even myself. Bloodbourne wasn’t brought in from Jim, hence my point Shawn was a gamer and had a vision for games , Jim not so much, his track record vs Shawn’s is not a good one at the moment and Final Fantasy is a proven franchise with loads of sales expectation. More like shooting fish in a barrel with the FF timed deals. I am not sure filling up their 3rd party offerings with a game like forspoken is a path they want to continue on. That game hasn’t even released on PC, so when those reviews come out the game will be in the 50’s on Meta. I want to close with a positive, cause there is so many in the early years of PS5. I wasn’t a huge PS3 or PS4 fan, i owed them, played the exclusives and went back to buying and playing everything on the better controller and online experience xbox. But PS5 has brought me back to the glory days of the PS1 and PS2. Solid controller, great Ui, well built hardware albeit ugly and a tad to big. But i am really happy with the PS5 purchase and the future of them trying a variety of games this gen. The sales numbers speak for themselves and i am happy they are turning out well, cause it would be a shame to see good planning of the hardware not doing well. I never thought Jim Ryan to be a bad leader and i hope others get off his back a little and let him continue his vision for the platform, that is after he’s done crying about COD coming to GP. But I appreciate your approach to my comment and found it spot on friend.

@Intr1n5ic Are you a shareholder? If so, cheer the profits! Are you a customer and not a shareholder? Then lament them.

A business leader that takes your custom for granted, nickel and dimes you, pivots their product to focus on a customer that is not you, and then boasts of outsize profits is not your friend, they are your enemy. They did not gain record profits by being beneficial to you, they gained record profits by defeating you. That's the basic relationship between business and consumer.

In the short term screw the customer, quarterly gains are all that matters, investors celebrate. And Jim has succeeded in that.

In the longer term, screw the customer enough, and they get tired of dealing with said business. They may grumble and endure it for a period of time, but eventually they head for the exits the moment the next best thing comes around and by the time they do they're already so dissatisfied t here's no talking them off the edge. It doesn't happen instantly and with a product that has a 7-10 year life cycle and 3-8 year turnarounds with software, any damage done isn't apparent until a decade later when it's hard to reverse it. PS absolutely sells itself. PS is top because PS is top, no real question there. Unless Jim did something catastrophic to sabotage it all at once, that's not going to change overnight. It's the kind of product that can only be diminished over a slow erosion of customer satisfaction over time. Even among us, here on a PS dedicated site who spend way too much money on the platform, we already grumble and aren't thrilled with how we're treated.

Am I part of the problem? I bought an Edge and have my VR2 on preorder. You bet I am! But I'm an addict in too deep over decades and need my fix. The fact that we're on Push at all means were not even remotely close to being on the same wavelength as the average PS consumer.

10 years from now we'll be here talking about PS6, and we'll either know it as the expensive platform losing market share to cheaper, more nimble competitors thanks to Jim's strategies starting now, or mobile 2.0 for the kids and their phone friends with open wallets, and no longer for us. At that point it doesn't matter if they're posting higher profits than Apple and Disney combined. We're not investors buying yachts from it, we're the customers that will have been left behind to seek alternatives by then.

The hive mind changes fast. Today PS is tops. When the day comes that people get dissatisfied and look for alternatives, it's at the point where it's already MySpace.

Will that be today? No. Will it be tomorrow? No. Will it happen someday? We believe that.

N.i.c.e. when spiderman comes its going to sell so many ps5.word up son

@NEStalgia Absolute hyperbolic drivel. As a customer why would I ever lament their success, that's a ridiculous thing to say. Their financial profits, in part, get passed directly on to us in the form of reinvestment, in to the development of huge first party releases for us to play.

I've been extremely happy with the hardware and software released over the last couple of years so I don't know what your screw the customer talk is about, I'm certainly not experiencing it. Are all of their decisions perfect, absolutely not, but even their perceived missteps are nowhere near as bad as people try to make them out to be.

Again, you don't represent the majority, you're part of the extreme vocal minority who spend their free time criticizing almost everything online. Take today for example, there are several positive articles about how well the company is currently doing, but you felt compelled to chime in and put a negative spin on all of it.

If the doom and gloom that you're always trying to push on here ever comes to fruition, I'll cross that bridge when it happens. In the meantime, I hope they continue to go from strength to strength and I look forward to my PSVR2 arriving in a few weeks.

@themightyant I think the point you're missing is it's business as usual from Nintendo and Sony precisely because both companies are used to being mononopolies with no serious competition in their respective times. We've become accustomed to the behavior of monopolies as "normal" the same way we got accustomed to Bell Telephone and on your side of the pond metered internet use as "normal." That view only holds true if you're comparing the respective monopolies vs the "zany" Microsoft and ignore all the other similar model changes in other media, as well as the entire histories of PC and mobile gaming.

@themightyant @Intr1n5ic LOL what part of early 20th century business school did you guys learn that those profits get passed onto the consumer in the form of reinvestment into new even more expensive products for you to overpay into? I thought I was the old guy yelling at clouds here! This is the 21st century, kids. The profits don't get "reinvested", in successful, industry leading companies. They get get funneled into returns as increased shareholder value, and costs of production are cut to the bone to maximize the return on those gains while spending as little as possible into an already captured market. That's the true "virtuous" cycle of modern business.

The financial windfall of ANY corporation of which you are a customer and not an investor indicates YOUR loss, not a your SUCCESS. Celebrating that is just....bizarre... A company's ideal is to gain unfair balance in profits from customers. A consumer's ideal is to gain unfair balance in value from companies. An ideal symbiosis is an unshifting balance. The more the balance tilts their direction the farther it tilts from your direction.

"WOHOO, The company I buy gasoline from just posted 500% profit growth! HAPPY DAY FOR MEEEE!!! That extra $2.00 at the pump was SOOO worth it! You GO boys! Buy those yachts!!"
-No one ever.

Yet in gaming.....the above is normal.....

@Intr1n5ic And clarifying the above specifically to your point - the "multiple articles about PS's financial wins" is the entire cause for negativity. This isn't Wall Street Journal, or the JP Morgan forums. We're not here to benefit from Sony's investor's windfalls and praise the success of a corproation as an extension of our identity.

We're PS fans and customers. We want a PS that is competitive, both in terms of content and offered value, and is focused on what interests us as the "core" games enthusiast market. Anything that contributes tot that is what we have a reason to celebrate, anything that runs contrary to that is what we have reason to lament. All "#teamWinning" headlines are not things in favor of a PS CUSTOMER. They are things in favor of PS INVESTORS that bode ill for PS customers.

@NEStalgia I completely disagree with almost every point you're making, but it would be a waste of my time to offer any counterpoint to what predominantly reads as anti Sony nonsense.

@Intr1n5ic for clarity it's not anti Sony. It's the same for Ms, Nintendo, Exxon, Amazon, Nestle..... Just modern consumer life.

@NEStalgia EXACTLY!! People who think that all of this money is reinvested into these corporations to make more and better games need look no further than Take Two. The billions upon billions of dollars made from games like GTAV and NBA2K have done exactly what to benefit gamers?

@jrt87 I think the OS is really clean & easy to navigate I don't like the Xbox OS because it just looks like one giant advertisement lol

@IslandLogic That's exactly it! It's not just a Sony thing or a gaming thing, that's just now modern publicly traded corporations work and the modern school of business. You do not spend money you do not NEED to spend. You don't "reinvest to make your product even better" if you feel your market position will remain stable without additional investment. If you feel your market position is sufficiently secure, you cut investment into it. Those gains are expected to be returned to shareholders, and, in Jim's defense, legally obligated to be returned to shareholders and maximized, including cost cutting, wherever possible. And more importantly, those gains, if reinvested for necessary growth, are best spent in expanding into DIFFERENT markets, and new growth areas, not reinvesting simply to make the best possible product, in a market you're already leading with a secure market. You don't keep trying to please your captive market, you use them as stepping stones to curry interest from a different market. Gains from this could grow their mobile presence for yet more gains, or accelerate their expansion into PC, or take larger experiments on gambling for live service gold, etc. etc. Re-investing in the same thing is the least beneficial use of those gains unless required to main market against tight competition. To be fair VR, which does benefit me, may be one of those investment areas so it may not be a total loss of appeal.

If MS and/or Nintendo post similarly huge gains, then there may be argument they'll keep investing more into what they're doing to further cement it's market position. But if not, there's no benefit to reinvesting it into the same exact market they already have control over. They'll either use it to expand into other markets not relevant to most here, thus everyone here is paying for some other market's growth, or it's just returned to shareholders.

That's not to say we'd benefit by Sony posting major losses. But them posting major gains, while simultaneously focusing on maximum profits per sale and value reduction to the consumer, does not translate to a win for PS fans, but the opposite.

@jrt87 dissagree completely. The ui does what it needs to. Gets me to the games I want to play, its fast and its snappy, I have the games I play right where I need them. Ps store is there and easy to use and the ps plus extra is right there too.

Seperate media section.

I mean everything you ask for is just personal taste, not something which a ui needs.

Plus I'm pretty sure with my use of switch ui, that its the worst out of all of them.

@themightyant as a lifelong Xbox fan, i could go on and on why their brand doesn’t just sell itself. But we can go down that road on Pure Xbox. I think Jim is doing above average things at Sony, but i also stand on my point that the word PlayStation alone is marketing power. As long as they don’t mess it up to bad, the numbers will be there for PS. Unless we see a shift to cloud and PC in 15-20 years. But as long as console is around, PS is going to sell on its back history of being a place that has great games. I am happy to see the Big 3 all doing well and carving out their spots to have success. I am very sure that once we get past some of the holes Covid made that this industry is going to just keep pacing at great numbers and excitement for fans and thats what this is all about, just having fun and seeing what surprises the industry gives us 😊

@IslandLogic Great point. My Red Dead 2 next Gen patch isn’t even in the making. Rockstar hasn’t used their money well it appears.

@themightyant he’s good at giving sony money that’s literally it . anything gaming involved and playstation quality is 💩

@Green-Bandit A big part of Dimbos fabricated-handed success is riding the coattails of the ps4 era . had they had an xbox one situation , hed be gone i bet .

@jrt87 the switch is pretty bad too lol

@Intr1n5ic all but two are ps4 games by the way

With record breaking financial results it's hard to justify the ps5 price increase or ps5 games costing $70.

I miss the old Sony that was still profitable, but not greedy. It's what set it apart from Apple, Nintendo and the like.

@nomither6 If you mean PS5 exclusive, then I mentioned 3. It's funny how the mind works of people who push that narrative though, that because it's cross gen it somehow excludes it's superior version and becomes just a PS4 game. All of the benefits don't matter, the haptics, adaptive trigger use, improved framerate, resolution, asset use, the non existent load times ect.... nope, it's a PS4 game only.

I guess by that logic Xbox will only be releasing Series S games this gen because the X and PC versions seemingly won't count if they're available on less powerful hardware.

Yesss let’s all cheer for a brand making billions in record profits while increasing their pricing. BP oil did the same, times are great for the consumer, amazing.

@Intr1n5ic it’s simple really ; the same way GTA5 is a remastered PS3 game re-released is the same way those games are for ps5 . if those games were made from the ground-up for ps5 only , do you really think it would be the same experience despite the “ps5 upgrades” ? hell , the ps4 still never got to have a true GTA game but we’ve seen the difference somewhat with RDR2 . MKX was originally developed for ps3 but eventually cancelled ; now compare MKX to MK11 , big difference . The ps3 can’t run mk11 , a ps4 can’t run a true ps5 game .

@nomither6 That's not simple, that's pedantic. What's simple is, it doesn't matter by what metric you consider it to be a "true" PS5 game, everything that's been released since Nov 2020 is either a PS5 and 4 game, or a PS5 exclusive.

@Intr1n5ic “ That's not simple”

ok well i’ll make it even simpler for you - if a ps4 can run it , then it’s not a ps5 game .

@nomither6 In your opinion. To me that's just as dumb as saying if a Series S can run it, it's not an X or PC game, or better yet, if a Switch can run a cross platform game, it's not a S, X, PS4, PS5 or PC game.

@themightyant Maybe they should charge $1k for PS5, and $150 for games, then double that profit, and then we have something to REALLY cheer about, right? I know all those people in the Edge reviews were like "Yes, I think ALL DS controllers should be $200, if we just give them more money gaming will grow and get better! I'm buying three!" Oh, wait, I'm practically the only one here that bought one and didn't rail against the price.... So much for championing the corporation...

And since you are such a big fan of making dominant market leaders more dominant "for the gamers", you'll be cheering on MS, then Tencent after as they dominate more and more, right? Or does the confetti and champagne for vendor profits only apply when it's Sony in the crystal tower because they're special and not like those other corporations? Maybe Sony should buy Nintendo. Then Apple should buy the combo. Imagine the profits! What a celebration we would have! It's a whole new beginning for gaming growth!

I already said that posting losses isn't a positive, but posting major gains is not cause for celebration. I'm disappointed to see you on the cheerleading bench. I expect to see a percentage of that sort of thing, but did not expect it from you.

Fortunately the mindsets seen here are irrelevant anyway, enthusiasts are barely significant gnats on the backs of these companies today, a wild change from 20 years ago. But I do love how enthusiasts tend to be shovel ready to dig their own graves and do it with a song on their lips.