Mad-Dogg posted... Its actually the complete opposite when it comes to sony being hurt (at least money-wise anyway).......the PS5 is the most profitable playstation generation sony has ever had. Its been more profitable than all the previous playstations combined. *I'm not even joking about that.*
The PS5 generation alone generated 13 billion. The PS1 through 4 cumulative generated 10 billion.
*That zhugeEX analyst dude was talking about the sony business segment meeting a few days ago, so all of this is coming from sony theirselves.*
Like this has finally been the month that PS5 active users are higher than PS4 active users, but both crowds are mainly playing the exact same games.....live game as a service stuff.
38 percent of PS plus users are paying for the extra or premium tier, up 8 percent from last year I think it said in that report. Which is like 63 percent higher spend percentage on subscription services in the PS5's first 5 years compared to the PS4's first 5 years.
I'm almost certain its the same thing when it comes to microsoft and gamepass, but the reason why sony doesn't go all-in on 1st party titles no more/no bloodborne sequel or port and they are still trying to get more into live service games despite concord flopping? This is exactly why...
https://x.com/ZhugeEX/status/1933563437168087457
(alternate bluesky link for the same guy) https://bsky.app/profile/zhugeex.com/post/3lriuob25422e
(This is a report for investors, so yeah, they already accounted for inflation with all of these profit updates).
As for the specific games/services a lot of this generation of playstation console gamers is playing that is making all that microtransaction money for them its these:
EA sports games. All of them. UFC, football both college and nfl, soccer, hockey etc.
Roblox
call of duty
NBA 2K
EA Play
Fortnite
Genshin impact
GTA online
ubisoft+ classics
I'm not in anyway happy about just how much money gamers give for live as a service/microtransaction filled games because I want my dark cloud and alundra sequels also, but this really is why we don't see as many 1st party games anymore since gamers overall decided they actually enjoy said live as a service stuff.
Keep in mind profits can be increased temporarily from heavy layoffs as well, as which has been happening the past two years. But yeah, 2020-2023 was the peak year for gaming profit in all of video game history. It took a dive after that which can be seen with the financial struggles that couldn't keep up with the covid years but not so bad that it removes how strong that era was. PS5 era also had the strong PS4 numbers to aid it while the PS4 era had to pretty much go solo due to PS3's huge financial failure.