Who knew that being stuck inside for months on end while living in a world of uncertainty would lead to more video games being purchased? What a concept. The latest Sony financial earnings report is out and is giving us normal folks our first look at fully pandemic-laced sales numbers from the PlayStation camp. Unsurprisingly, the first-quarter numbers for 2020 (ending June 30th) show that PS4 game sales numbers saw an increase by double over previous numbers, showing that gaming in the age of the coronavirus pandemic is good for business. The numbers reveal a bevy of details about the nature of Sony’s game sales business at the moment, including that digital sales are skyrocketing and there’s a pretty good reason as to why a digital edition of the PlayStation 5 is going to exist.
Here is a breakdown of Sony’s Game & Network Services net revenue by segment for FY20 Q1 (Apr 1- Jun 30).
Console Hardware: $0.52bn / 9%
Packaged Software: $0.35bn / 6%
Digital Software: $1.37bn / 24%
Add on Content: $2.29bn / 41%
Subscriptions: $0.87bn/ 16%
Other: $0.23bn / 4% pic.twitter.com/Vx0nwaL6ZE— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) August 4, 2020
According to the Sony report, 91 million PS4 games were sold during the three-month lead-in period of April 1 to June 30, compared to 49.8 million sales reported at this same time last year. That number is thanks in part to first-party releases such as The Last of Us Part II, which led to over 18.5 million Sony published games sold (which doesn’t include Ghost of Tsushima. The Sucker Punch title released after this reporting period and will be factored into Q2 numbers). To compare, 11 million first-party games were sold in Q1 this time last year.
The more impressive number is the increase in total digital sales, going up by over seventy percent from digital sales last year. This goes along with an increase in PlayStation Plus subscribers, now sitting at 44.9 million–almost a three million subscriber increase from Q1 2019. This is all a very promising lead-in to the holidays and the looming specter of the PlayStation 5, which will surely have a renewed focus on digital release games given one of the models being digital-only.
Is Sony right to double down on the digital revolution? It doesn’t appear anyone in the United States is going anywhere anytime soon thanks to a continued upwards trends in infection rates, hospitalizations, and deaths across the country, and worldwide, there are still a number of concerns surrounding the pandemic. Originally looked at with raised eyebrows, the digital edition PS5 could end up being a brilliant opening salvo to the next generation of gaming—price dependent—especially if these numbers continue to go up and crush previous records.
