Sony’s first-party games have sold incredibly well during the last three months, but the company isn’t resting on its laurels. During the most recent financial results, Sony revealed they are investing a further $300 million into their first-party studios with the aim of strengthening their games and releasing them on multiple platforms.
Releasing games like God of War: Ragnarok on multiple platforms
Speaking during the latest earnings call, Sony clarified they will be investing ¥40 billion (approximately $308 million) in its current first-party PlayStation Studios. This money will not be used for any more acquisitions, which will come from a separate pot of money. Instead, the $300 million will be aimed at strengthening the portfolio from Sony and developing more first-party games like God of War: Ragnarok, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Marvel’s Wolverine. Sony will then be “deploying that software on multiple platforms”. Those multiple platforms weren’t clarified, although their games are already released on PS5, PS4, and PC. The statement is most likely to be referring to just those three platforms rather than expanding to other consoles like Xbox.
Sony’s first-party game sales were up 84% during FY Q4 2022 when compared to the same time last year. Of course, Sony released Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, Horizon Forbidden West, and Gran Turismo 7 between January and March 2022 while there were no first-party releases during those three months in 2021. On the other hand, sales of third-party games were down throughout the entire fiscal year despite the release of PlayStation exclusives like Ghostwire: Tokyo, Babylon’s Fall, and Sifu. The first-party sales more than made up for that deficit though. As revealed earlier, a total of 70.5 million games were sold on PS5 and PS4 in the last quarter, an increase of 6.6 million from the same period last year.
In other news, a deleted item description on the BioWare Gear Store suggests Shepard may be returning in Mass Effect 4. Elsewhere, PS Plus subscriber numbers have dropped but Sony doesn’t seem to be worried about this even with the impending launch of the new PS Plus tiers.
