Today, during Sony’s quarterly conference call for investors and analysts, which also included the corporate strategy presentation, CFO Lin Tao offered more color on the PlayStation business, including the end of physical games on PS5.
In addition to what was mentioned earlier today, Tao mentioned during the livestreamed conference call that Sony is aiming to continue to “grow the PS5 installed base while closely monitoring PS5 hardware demand trends and the potential for securing additional memory”
Tao also talked about the Studio business, mentioning that MLB The Show 26 is continuing to contribute steadily to revenue.
We hear that Marathon “has maintained a high user retention rate while also acquiring new users” thanks to the release of Season 2. Saros “is steadily expanding its user base.”
Looking at the future, Sony expects upcoming games (Marvel’s Wolverine, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and God of War Laufey) to continue to drive performance.
Tao was asked multiple times about PlayStation’s discontinuation of physical game sales, and she mostly dodged the question of how Sony will respond to the widespread criticism of the decision.
She mentioned that digital sales are already becoming dominant, and that Sony put a lot of thought and time into making the decision, and they’re going to cautiously move forward with it.
She admitted that people have strong opinions and games are tied to fond memories, so Sony would like to continue to explore how to engage gamers in the future digital ecosystem, and how to respojnd to the feedback.
She also mentioned that since a large part of game sales are already digital, the discontinuation of physical sales shouldn’t have any impact on PlayStation’s business.
Tao was also asked about the potential market on retailers, and she said that retail partners have always been important to Sony. The company has communicated the end of disc sales to retailers at an early stage, to give partners enough time to provide feedback.
She added that in the West game packages already include codes instead of discs. Retailers have regional characteristics and with each regional partner Sony tries to have a trough dialogue so that they can find a win-win solution.
She was also asked how Sony would differentiate its consoles from PC gaming, since (according to the investor who asked the question), some user may feel that a fully digital platform could be closer to a gaming PC.
Tao answered that PlayStation’s strenghts include curated content and stability, and consoles are more affordable than high-end gaming PCs, so Sony doesn’t feel that discs are a strong differentiating factor and going forward they believe they can “coexist peacefully with PC games.”
If you’d like to hear more about Sony’s financial performance, you can read our dedicated article from earlier today, including an update on PS5 lifetime sales.
