Sony CEO on PS5: 'We Do Not Need to Aggressively Sell the Console' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 3 hours ago / 709 Views
Sony President and CEO Hiroki Totoki speaking with The Wall Street Journal said they were lucky that the storage and memory shortages that have caused prices to skyrocket occurred during the latter half of the PlayStation 5 lifecycle rather than earlier on.
PlayStation is now more focused on recurring revenue from the current userbase rather than trying to sell as many consoles as possible.
"It is lucky, you know, we are in the latter half of the lifetime cycle of a PS console," said Totoki. "That means that we do not need to aggressively sell the console today. And rather than that, we're focusing on recurring revenue from the current, you know, the user base.
"And already our PS have more than 125 million MAU today. And how to monetize from the users is quite important for us."
Sony has shipped 95.3 million PlayStation 5 consoles as of June 30, 2026.
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 follow the author on Bluesky.
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Keep it up, the consumer isn't blind.
Good luck with the ps6
The focus on talking about monetizing the customer base in every single opportunity this year is so shameful.
We'll take as much money as possible from the ones already with us, screw them.
"How to monetize from the users is quite important for us."
I know this is obvious from any corporate perspective, but it's still surprising when it's said out loud lol. Now that discs will soon be out of the equation, how on earth can they further monetize the playerbase?
Well the obvious answer would be simply to release games that people want to buy... Another approach would be to release more faceplates that current owners may want. I would love a full transparent or blue translucent cover (like what Xbox is doing with the 25th anniversery model)
Definitely the most obvious, but he's referring to additional monetization. If they're not concerned about selling as many PS5's as possible, the PS6 is gonna be in the exact same boat with how much it's going to cost. And Sony knows PS6 isn't going to sell as well due to the cost. And coming off a generation that made Sony more money than any previous gen combined, and for the most part withdrawing from the PC market, standard game sales just aren't gonna cut it. Which I imagine is why there's such a push still for live service. And definitely a huge reason for going all digital here soon.
I can definitely see things like faceplates becoming more common, but you have to wonder if additional subscriptions will start to happen or what Xbox is trying with financing/leasing a console with interest. There are a huge number of possibilities, but I doubt any of them will be anything more than a detriment to just wanting to game.
Yeah, the guy is a dick head.
"[W]e're focusing on recurring revenue from the current, you know, the user base. ... And how to monetize from the users is quite important for us."
Well, yeah. If your user base drops by half next generation because the console costs $1000+ and you've alienated the people who still bought 80 million physical discs last fiscal year, you'll have to find some way of squeezing more revenue out of the people that are still left over. And with consoles increasingly becoming a luxury limited to higher-income people, they know those people with deeper pockets won't mind parting with a bunch of extra money for a gaming future that's more aggressively monetized than it already is. I could totally imagine $100 games with similar price hikes to PSN, first-party DLC, more pushes for live-service and subscriptions, and other ways to squeeze money from people.
The console market is in the most dire shape it's been in since 1983, and I'm not joking.
I don't think that 80 millionis accurate. In the last fiscal they sold 317.9 million game of which 78% were digital meaing that 69.938 million were physical. Its still a decent chunch (22%) but its not 80 million. Another way they can monotize the base would be to make their higher Plus tiers more attractive. Simply raising the price might have the oposite effect as shown by Xbox and the GP increase which resulted in fewer subs overall. Lets see if they are smart enough to balance what they want with want customers actually want.
Don’t you just miss the PS2 days where a console was just a piece of hardware, that publishers could distribute games for (with a licencing fee, sure), and there was no talk of “active userbases” and “recurring revenue”.
There is hardly anything surprising in these comments, but that they are so blatant about it now, shows how incredibly arrogant they have become.
"We Do Not Need to Aggressively Sell the Console"
We can afford to do 2 more price hikes in the near future.
"And already our PS Plus have more than 125 million MAU today. " This can't be right. I think he means they have 125M MAU not 125M PS Plus MAU.
