Giuseppe Nelva
3.3 million PS5 units were purchased by retailers worldwide during the latest quarter, which means that as of September 30, 2022, the console has shipped 25 million units in its lifetime.
As of the previous quarter, Sony has stopped reporting PS4 unit sales, which means that those remain officially locked at the 117 million figure disclosed in May.
In the slides included in the gallery below, you can find a full overview of the performance of the Game & Network Services business (which includes both PlayStation and PlayStation Network), with all the relevant figures including software sales and more.
We learn that sales for the quarter significantly increased (up 12%) year-on-year, mostly due to the impact of foreign exchange rates partly offset by declining sales of third-party games.
Operating income significantly decreased (down 49%) year-on-year due to the increase in costs for software development, the recording of the expenses associated with the acquisitions of studios including Bungie, and the declining sales of third-party games. This was only partly offset by the decrease in losses for the sale of PS5 hardware, due to production cost-cutting and possibly the recent PS5 price hike.
The sales forecast for the segment has been increased slightly from the one published in July due to the foreign exchange rates and the price increase for PS5, partly offset by the decline in third-party game sales.
The operating income forecast has been dropped by 12% due to the same reasons.
Additional documentation about the performance of Sony’s gaming business showcases that the grand total of PlayStation Plus subscribers was at 45.4 million as of September 30, while the PlayStation Network had 102 million monthly active users. Both numbers were down from the previous quarter and also year-on-year.
It’s worth mentioning that Network Services sales were significantly up year-on-year despite the loss in users, so it’s possible that the new and more expensive PlayStation Plus tiers are having a positive effect there.
Speaking of Sony as a whole, both sales and operating income show improvement year-on-year, as you can see below.
If you’d like to compare with historical data, you can read our dedicated article about the previous financial results announced in July.
