PS5 is Sony’s most profitable console ever but half are still playing PS4-Adam Starkey-Entertainment – Metro

The power of the PS5 (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Despite declining hardware sales, Sony has revealed the PlayStation 5 is still the most profitable console generation in the company’s history.

There’s a sense of doom and gloom around the gaming console business as hardware sales drop across the board, but Sony has found a silver lining among the negativity.

In a business presentation with Sony’s new co-CEOs, Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino, the company shared that the PS5 is its most profitable generation to date with $10 billion (£7.8 billion) in operating income within its first four years.

In comparison, the PS4 generated $9 billion across its first seven years between 2013 to 2019, which means the PS5 has already eclipsed its revenue in a much shorter timeframe.

The high revenue of recent generations stands in sharp contrast to Sony’s older consoles, with the original PlayStation having earned $3 billion over its lifespan, the PS2 just $2 billion, while the PS3 lost the company $4 billion.

As shown in the graph, however, the profits don’t paint an entirely positive picture. While PS5 console sales were higher than ever in 2023, profits over the past two years have seen a dramatic drop, likely due to rising costs in the wake of the pandemic.

Profits, however, have taken a tumble in the past two years (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

When you couple this with the projected decline in console sales for the rest of 2024, it’s likely these profits could tumble unless Sony finds another solution.

Elsewhere, Sony confirmed there is an exact split in its active users across the PS5 and PS4, with both having 49 million monthly active users as of April 30, 2024.

During a web call, Nishino said: ‘As you can see, the PlayStation 5 userbase has continued to grow significantly, driving to half of our monthly active consoles. While the PlayStation 4 is still an important part of our business, our PlayStation 5 players are even more engaged than in our previous generation, and we expect these trends to continue.’

In comparison to the first four years of the PS4, PS5 players are spending more on add-on content (up by 176%), services (up by 57%) and peripherals (up by 26%) but 12% less on full games.

Along with being indicative of the growing prevalence of live service titles which hinge on in-game purchases, these figures perhaps explain why Sony is keen to knock out so many live service games itself by 2026.

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While the PS5 is certainly in a healthy position with lifetime sales at 59.2 million, just below what the PS4 achieved in the same period (60 million), the company has projected sales to decline over the next year. The company also confirmed it doesn’t have any ‘major’ existing franchise titles before April 2025, so it’s expected to be a pretty glum year across the board.

However, we’ll have a better idea of Sony’s 2024 plans in its upcoming State Of Play presentation, which is scheduled to take place later today (May 30).

PS5 in-game spending is on the up (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

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