PS5 is Sony's Most Profitable Generation to Date, PS4 is Still Half of Active Consoles - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 June 2024 / 8,638 Views
The soon to be appointed Sony Interactive Entertainment co-CEOs, Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino, in a newly posted presentation has revealed new details, sales figures, and more on Sony's Game & Network Services segment.
The PlayStation 5 is Sony's most profitable generation to date with $10 billion in operating income. The PlayStation 4 generation earned $9 billion in profits, while the original PlayStation generated $3 billion in profits and the PlayStation 2 earned $2 billion in profits. The PlayStation 3 ended up losing Sony $4 billion.
Sony did reveal there are the same amount of active consoles with 49 million monthly active PS5 consoles and 49 million monthly active PS4 consoles as of April 30, 2024.
PlayStation 5 users have spent on average $731 to date, which is up from $580 on the PlayStation 4 lifetime. Spending on peripherals increased 26 percent, while money spent on services increased 57 percent and add-on content grew 176 percent. The amount spent full games decreased 12 percent.
The percent of PlayStation Plus subscribers on the higher tiers has grown from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2023. The number of Premium members grew from 17 percent to 19 percent, while Extra members grew from 13 percent to 16 percent.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Adjusted for US Inflation using the mid year point for averaging:
PS4 - $11.920 billion
PS3 -$5.751 billion (negative)
PS2 - $3.408 billion
PS1 - $5.860 billion
Operating income-
PS5 in 3.5 years- 10 billion
PS4 lifetime - 9 billion
PS3 lifetime- 4 billion (loss)
PS2 lifetime- 2 billion
PS1 lifetime- 3 billion
I noticed this too and can't believe other articles haven't picked up on it. Yeah, PS1 thru PS4, because of the severe loss on PS3, totalled $10 billion in profits total for them. Crazy that PS5 is already there after 3 years.
Even more crazy they fell the need to fire almost 1000 employees when making record profits
Amazing that the PS2 only generated that despite being the best selling console of all time.
Also show why some devs are still happy to keep making last gen versions of games, if theres 49million active PS4s.
They kept prices on games and hardware aggressively low a lot of the time.
Even saying that it surprised me too!
I should imagine so, they are releasing games on more platforms now (late PC ports on nearly everything, Xbox too on The Show), while they still sell their hardware at launch pricing 3.5 years into the gen (above launch pricing on PS5 digital).
Microsoft: the market is stagnant. (that's why we are doing so badly.)
Microsoft fans: Oh yea, you are so right. (Mehhhhhh)
Sony: We're making more money than any generation, and it's just the halfway point.
Massive congrats on the success!
Hopefully Sony keeps on trucking and giving us high quality games to the future and beyond!
Am I the only one that's really shocked? lol Like I knew sales were decent but with such a slow start this gen and numerous complaints (not by me) about how stale PS5 library is I didn't expect this level of profit already.
Also, I am one of those that are still playing on the PS4, but still catching up on my backlog, I'm not buying any new PS4 games. Give me the PS5 Pro then ill switch up.
It's kind of amazing that the PS2 was less profitable than the PS1 despite absolutely dominating the gaming landscape from 2000-2006 and being the lead console for GTA.
This just confirms what we suspected. Sony isn't refusing to price cut PS5 globally or in most regions because they can't afford to lose the profits, they're doing it because they want a lot of profit and know PS5 is popular enough to not have a permanent price cut now, if ever.
I'm shocked PS1 made about 1 billion more in profits than PS2. Perhaps the hardware was cheaper to make most or all of PS1's life than PS2.
Also, long live PS4. Other than the lack of backwards compatibility, there's not many shortcomings with that console. Even with games like Spider-Man 2, FF7 Rebirth, and such PS5 still mostly feels like a PS4 Pro Pro to me. We're probably getting to the point soon in graphics and software releases where that will change.
what would be 2 billion considering interest today?
Formula with compounding: FV = PV (1 + interest rate)^number of years
FV (Future Value) = $2 billion (present value) (1 + 0.05)^23.75
FV ≈ $8.9 billion
2 billion was a lot of money back then....
if you’re adjusting for inflation, $2bil (1999) is the modern equivalent of $3.76bil. Or are you calculating something else?
Thats crazy quz in my eyes this is the worst genn ever.
It seems to be primarily because of "content - add one" which I basically means microtransactions.
Spending on microtransactions has increased so substantially since the PS4 generation that it is now one of the primary revenue drivers for a lot of publishers. Something like 60% of Activision-Blizzards revenue was microtransactions before MS bought them.
Dude, recently I was reminiscing about Gen 7. It had some things wrong, like 50% of 360 breaking, PS3 ridiculous costs and stuff but it added so much innovation in the Wii and other interactive stuff. But what I was thinking about most was the games or more the game series. Bioshock, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Halo, Uncharted, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, the start of CoD era. All these amazing great series and games all established in that era.
We are 3.5 years in to this and while I don't think it's terrible (not as bad as early gen 8 where there was just nothing, late gen 8 was amazing, especially on PS4), I can't think of a single game series, especially new, that will have the same impact as those game series above will.
Maybe I'm just a bit disillusioned mainly because all we've had over the past few years is companies buying each other instead of making games.
Halo, Fallout, CoD and Elder Scrolls all existed before the PS360 era.
This is why nostalgia is so strong, we subconsciously nudge the narrative in the direction we desire.
You took that far to literal. Yes, those games existed before that gen but considering Fallout 3 relaunched things in 2008, Oblivion was 2006, CoD4 (and it's huge success on XBL) wasn't until 2007. Although, Halo 1-3 was cross gen. It's like I played all those games for the first time in that gen. ;-)
The point isn't I'm pining for these games, the point is I'm pining for game series where entries are given to us in a matter of years, not half decades. Ones that for all intents and purposes define console generations. Is there a series that for this 9th gen people will think in 10-15 years "Man, that was sooo good?"
Or is it Fortnite?
I’m sure things like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077(both launched after the start of this gen) will be remembered as fondly as things like Dragon Age and Mass Effect in the future. BG3 also if we’re just randomly including franchises that have existed previously, Alan Wake II also.
When you’re talking about entire game series it will always looks better when you look back as you can see the whole series of games, right now some legendary series might only have one game so far
If you look at just the PS4/X1, maybe, maybe not. I'd still give the edge to the PS4 over the PS3.
The Switch has been absolutely amazing. It's probably my favorite console of all time. I personally thought the 7th gen was the weakest generation since the NES in terms of game quality.
First to increase prices of consoles ever, one of the first publishers to increase game prices, increased the price of PS+ 1 year after the new model launched, yet still closed studios and had layoffs while being the most profitable they have ever been. Of course MS and others are guilty of doing similar practices, but I don't see them bragging about being the most profitable generation yet after only 3.5 years.
Nintendo seems to be the only one doing it correct.
Choose your poison: price increases and layoffs or no roms allowed and lower graphics.
They weren't "bragging". They release all the numbers for current or future shareholders. Got nothing to do with bragging. They're trying to get people to invest into their business on the stock market
This is not true, when you adjust for inflation. Good chance it will become true by the end of the generation. But it isn't true right now.
How big is the PS Plus share of the profits in this account? Seeing as both PS4 and PS5 users have to pay the PS Plus, I'm not sure how big of a percentage of it is attributed to each console.
Are those numbers split by hardware or by timeframe associated with he generation like is the ps4 $9B true figure for the PS4 hardware up to now or the figure of profits for 2013-2020?
Since the ps4 is still going extremely strong I'm guessing it's the latter and a huge part of the profit generated by the ps4 hardware is attributed to Ps5 generation.
Edit: the doc confirms it, it is revenue by years not hardware lol at the thumbs down.
Nintendo: Hold my beer, Sony.
But but look guys Nintendo too!
Everyone else: no one asked...
Didnt nintendo always made more profit with there systems?
All but the Wii U I believe, and even then I don't think for every year it was out.
