PlayStation Revenue Up 33%, Biggest Revenue Driver for Sony

by Sohrab Osati | May 1, 2015 | 10 comments
Sohrab Osati

With the revelation that Sony expects to sell 16 million PS4s in 2015 comes some even rosier news about Sony’s entire gaming division. Revenue for PlayStation, which include predecessor models as well as network services like PSN, was up 33% year on year. In fact, PlayStation has become the biggest revenue driver for Sony, though not necessarily the biggest profit driver. All in all, PlayStation revenue accounted for $11.5 billion dollars for FY2014. Some more good news for Sony after the jump.

While revenue is an important indicator for a company, profits are even more important and PlayStation continues to improve on that front as well. Profits for the division rose to $401 million from a loss of $78 million for FY2013. That makes PlayStation the sixth largest profit driver for Sony behind

  • Imaging
  • Sony Pictures
  • Sony Music
  • Devices
  • Financial Services

That’s fairly impressive if you consider the more limited audience PlayStation enjoys and the lower price tag when compared to something like ‘Devices.’ While PS4 continues to stay extremely healthy, other parts of PlayStation have expectedly tapered off. PS3 sales are down to  3.1 million compared to 7.1 million in FY2013. Sales of PS Vita, PSP (yes, you can still buy it in certain countries), and PS TV totaled to 3.3 million, again down from 4.1 million from a year prior.

Despite shipping fewer models of its aged devices, software sales were up by a healthy margin. In total, software sales tallied to $3.9 billion dollars, up from $3.2, year on year. The biggest increase, however, came from PlayStation Plus, which almost brought in $3 billion in revenue, up from $1.7 billion in 2013.

 This significant increase was primarily due to an increase in PS4 hardware unit sales, a significant increase in network services revenue, the impact of foreign exchange rates and an increase in PS4 software sales, partially offset by a decrease in PlayStation 3 (“PS3”) hardware and PS3 software sales.

Operating income of 48.1 billion yen (401 million U.S. dollars) was recorded, compared to an operating loss of 18.8 billion yen in the previous fiscal year. This significant improvement was primarily due to the impact of the above-mentioned increase in sales, partially offset by the impact of the decrease in PS3 software sales, the unfavorable impact of the appreciation of the U.S. dollar reflecting the high ratio of U.S. dollar-denominated costs, as well as the recording of an 11.2 billion yen (93 million U.S dollars) write-down of PS Vita and PS TV components in the current fiscal year. In the previous fiscal year, a 6.2 billion yen write-off of certain PC software titles was recorded. 

Discuss:

Is Sony improving PlayStation 4 and PSN fast enough for you?

[Via Sony]