Sony Q3 Results, Spider-Man 2 hits 10 million, and no Sony first party until March 31st, 2025?!

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/02/ps5-shipments-top-54-8-million-marvels-spider-man-2-sales-top-10-million

PlayStation 5 has shipped 54.8 million units worldwide, Sony announced in its financial results for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023.

A total of 8.2 million PlayStation 5 units were shipped during the three months ended December 31, 2023, which is up 1.1 million from the same period the previous fiscal year.

Here are a couple of additional statistics:

• There are 123 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network as of December 31, 2023, which is up 11 million from the 112 million active users during the same period the previous fiscal year.
• PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 software combined sold 89.7 million units during the three months ended December 31, 2023, which is up 3.2 million from the 86.5 million software sold during the same period the previous fiscal year. 16.2 million units were first-party titles, which is down 4.6 million from the 20.8 million units sold during the same period the previous fiscal year. 66 percent of software sales were full game software digital downloads, which is up four percent from the same period the previous fiscal year.
• Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has sold-through 10 million units as of February 4, 2024.

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/02/sony-interactive-entertainment-will-not-release-any-new-major-existing-franchise-titles-before-march-31-2025

Sony Interactive Entertainment does not plan to release “any new major existing franchise titles next fiscal year,” which ends on March 31, 2025, the company said during its fiscal year 2023 Q3 earnings briefing.

“Regarding first-party software, we aim to continue to focus on producing high-quality works and developing live service games,” Sony Group president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki said. “But while major projects are currently under development, we do not plan to release any new major existing franchise titles next fiscal year (Editor’s Note: begins April 1, 2024 and ends March 31, 2025) like God of War Ragnarok and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.”

It should be noted that while “major existing franchise titles” includes intellectual property such as God of War and Marvel’s Spider-Man, it does not include new intellectual property like Concord or non-major existing franchise titles like Until Dawn.

Wowza, did not expect we’d be in the first party drought for that long! But at the same time, so many games to play. I guess Sony’s second half of this gen will be packed. What do you think, SW?

That's quite a break in Big first party game alright. They could take a leaf out of Nintendos book though and promote some of their older titles. Maybe have bundles for Christmas this year for the likes of GT7.

No shortage of games to play but still not ideal having no new first party content.

Of bigger concern is the push for live service games.....blech.

lol :P

Xbox is this close to imploding and Sony decides it must sink together. What the actual ****.

Ghost of Tsushima April 1st launch party wooooop

I guess Sony figures it can coast the rest of the year on third party exclusives and Xbox games.

Record breaking Q3 revenue but profit is down 25% yoy. A 5% profit margin is abysmal. There will be no price cuts to hardware anytime soon. And more layoffs? Their costs are clearly out of control. And if their costs are out of control, I can only imagine how bad Xbox’s profit margins are. If only they shared that information. 🤔🤔🤔

Ahhh the results are in for having gaming budgets over 300 million dollars... And it's abysmal. Keep waiting everyone, but don't worry too much the game will play exactly the same as the last one... Wish I could push a button and reset the industry sometimes.

You mean back to the days when there were FAR more exclusives and things were less “consumer friendly”?

"any new major existing franchise titles next fiscal year,”

So no sequels till 2025? That sucks. But hopefully that means new IPs are launching this year. I think Concord is one of them. That better be good.

I think it's more that those live service projects got canceled and now they're working on their real projects full time. Factions was rumored to come out this year, for example.

Wowza. Absolutely nothing until April 2025? No wonder their fan base is praying for some games on Thursday. Cows are going to have a collective aneurysm.

@Zero_epyon:

It definitely implies new IP is coming but, then again, some existing IP is not considered "major" either like Astro.

They're main point was that there's no heavy hitter like GoW or Spider-Man.

What’s funny is that this came out on the eve of Xbox announcing Hi Rush, Pentiment, and SoT are going to PS.

We knew last year PS was gonna have a light year for exclusives, cows didn’t believe it. It was widely reported for months by many. “Wait until State of Play, wait until the Showcase…ok well the next State of Play…we meant the next one…uhhh, Spiderman 2 got NG+ and new suits so that’ll tide us over….”

Meanwhile, Xbox will launch several exclusives this year which is a big win, plus new Starfield content. Helldivers 2 is cool, it’s ugly as hell, but it’s priced right and a game you can fiddle with for a few hours. It’ll be dead in a month though. It’s not the next COD, Fortnite…it’s not gonna stand the test of even six months. Watch for that big drop off. Ronin looks decent but we’ll see.

"Please help us Xbox"

So Im confused, I thought it was ESTABLISHED IPs, meaning the window was open for new IPs to release this year.

Either way this year if front loaded anyway with Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, and Rise of Ronin. I think gamers will be fine

we need more AA Games from AAA publishers. Let the devs be creative and try new things

@saint-george said:

sad week for you isn't it? xbox first party is on ps5 as well now.

on top of xbox games late in the year for ps5 aswell.

I have said this many times, game development has taken a massive toll on the development time it takes to making AAA exclusives and trust me, it's not just Sony, but MS and even Nintendo as well due to current-gens requiring way more time to develop than it was for last-gen or the 7th gen. 7th gen was the very last gen we've gotten so many great games releasing, we'll never see that again and we sure didn't see it from last-gen either.

That being said, don't just relied on exclusives, we're still gonna get more games and new IP such as Banishers just came out so...look, there's nothing wrong relying on 3rd-party and Indie games to be fillers until AAA exclusive are out. I'm not even all that concerned on exclusives as there's more games to play or replay for that matter.

Buuut as a PC gamer, I've got a freaktons of games to play on PC, so I'm all good👌😎

Full quote : "Actually, I am the chairperson [of SIE]. It's been about four months, and I am trying to demonstrate leadership and trying to have as many meetings as possible with the management team. I also visit studios and everyone is working really hard to fulfill their responsibility to try to optimize the business, and I understand that. But overall growth and sustainable profitability or increasing margin, how will that translate to these goals? I don't think people understand that deeply. I think that is the problem of the organization. So as far as I'm concerned, I try to understand what is happening in the company, in the industry, and also in the perspective of the analysts, and try to explain in a transparent manner so that people can recognize and notice these issues so that we can have a harmonized approach going forward. That is a very general comment since I became the chairperson. There are concrete points which I will not go into today.

"Now, about visiting the studios, and I've had meetings with the leaders there, the studios. People who work in the studios have very high motivation. They're very highly motivated. They're very good people. And they're very creative people. They have great creative minds. And they also have knowledge about live streaming. However, having said that, when it comes to the business itself, I think there is room for improvement. And that's got to do about how to use the money or about the schedule of development or how to fulfill one's accountability towards development, et cetera. Those are my frank impressions. So I will continue to engage in dialogue with the people so that we can find the right way to proceed."

Uh oh...

The spending is out of control and the suits are starting to ask more questions. And to detail the problems with the organization publicly like that... After four months in the position...

Nah... I wouldn't rewind, I'd reset. To your point, I'd remake it without all the anti consumer exclusives though definitely... Just not sure I'd encourage a priority on cinema in modern games over valuing diverse player experiences through gameplay. Budgets are ballooning with no benefits to the gamer.... Or the devs/publishers either, as we're seeing.

lol :P

what do you mean this first year sony had to rely on third party exclusives.

these new systems are so much easier to develop for. much better cpu and ssd make it much easier. look at the list of sony first party since launch. from gt7,gowr,hfw2,sackboy,ratchet,demon souls,returnal,miles,spiderman2 in a 3 year period that is so many games.

on top of all the ps4 games going over to ps5 format like death stranded and ghost.

even switch back2, and horizon call of the mountain for vr.

gamers don't realize this and want more. they want 10 games a year from first party.

ps5 had so many games I expected a game drought.

heck sony been releasing bangers since 2015 without a game drought.

Again, when discussing PC, talking about "b but but teh AAA singleplayer games!!1!" is pointless when Sony isn't planning on releasing any until 2025~..

For all practical purposes, Playstation has already gone Day One on PC for the foreseeable future due to their continued focus on live service games..

This clear change in strategy is likely because their current AAA development growth is Unsustainable..

Well said..

Imagine what happens when Xbox becomes the most worthless system in the universe?

Yeah this sounds pretty bad. I'm hoping this sentiment doesn't lead to additional layoffs. But based on the Insomniac leaks, it seems at least they were already trying to solve to bloated budget problem.

I take it Wolverine isn't releasing this year then. Perhaps the leak provided needed feedback and people were like "the ninja enemies are effing stupid", 'cause they were.

Reset? I don’t get it. A reset would still have a starting point. Where are you resetting to? The 80’s? 90’s? 00’s? How is that different than a rewind? Or are you erasing the industry as a whole and starting at an anti-competitive gaming utopia?

The cinematic gaming push started in the PS1 era (thanks to cd’s) That era also had damn near the same game prices we have today. (Higher adjusted for inflation). Memory cards. Oh, and 50X the exclusive games. It was also when the industry was the healthiest. Tons of A and AA games. Low hardware prices. Games journalism was booming. And some of the best games ever released.

Edit: Or are we talking snapping your fingers, erasing everyone’s memory and incorporating a new video game industry reality? I would be in favor of something like that

Sad times in general for you, PS first party is on Xbox as well now.

World class, meta score breaking, meeeggggaaaa sales, current gen leading PS5 does it again.

Awww yeaaahhh

That is not good!

https://wccftech.com/playstation-wants-to-improve-operating-profit-with-a-more-aggressive-pc-first-party-games-release-plan/

Ghost of tsushima and Gran Turismo 7 will soon be mine.

Ghosts is interested in an Xbox and he is the most die hard PC gamer around.

He isn't anymore. I am in the process of converting him into getting a ps5. Well, him, and many others.

SuperMighty XSX MonsterBox is the only way to go. ;o

Especially when tomorrow, they announce Everwild will launch late 2024. lol :P

Everwild releasing february 21st, you heard it here first.

RARE still has no idea what THEIR game is even supposed to be. Don't be surprised if even by 2030 they aren't sure yet.

@saint-george said:

Meanwhile XBOX with its award winning 1st party titles, manage to place...

You can bet the farm (cows and all lol) GOAT Everwild will never land on the hapless BS Jive. lol :P

Insane times as compared to the PS3 when Sony was at their strongest with first party content. Pick any year from 2006 - 2013 and you will find a wide variety and quantity of exclusives.

And they missed their sells target on PS5's by 4 million. As I said exclusives matter and their move to live service and the PC will hurt their brand.

Cows..."PlayStation games will never come to PC....NEVER"