The Daily Populous Friday May 31st, 2024 morning edition
Authored by eurogamer.net and submitted by chusskaptaan

Sony has called the PlayStation 5 its "most profitable generation to date".

During this morning's business segment meeting and investor presentation, the company revealed its PS5 generation had hit $106bn in sales. It is close to catching up with its predecessor the PS4, which generated a total of $107bn sales for the company.

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Operating income for the PlayStation 5 generation, meanwhile, has surpassed that of the PS4, having now reached $10bn. To compare, the PS4 is sitting at $9bn.

Further in the presentation, Sony shared some statistics from its consoles' user base.

It noted the PS5 had "established a significant install base" four years into its cycle, and currently makes up half of its monthly active console users. The PS5 and PS4 both have 49 million users per month, as of 30th April.

Engagement on PlayStation 5 in terms of gameplay hours is higher with Sony's most recent console, however. Of the 3.8bn hours played, 2.4bn of those were on PS5.

Meanwhile, PS5 users are spending 176 percent more on add-on content, 57 percent more on services and 34 percent more on peripherals than the previous generation of console did in the first four years of its cycle.

PS5 users are also spending 12 percent less on full game content than those on PS4 did.

Earlier this month, PlayStation announced Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino were to replace Jim Ryan as the company's new CEOs. Ryan left PlayStation in March, soon after the exec announced company-wide layoffs equating to eight percent of its workforce.

Next, Sony is hosting its State of Play broadcast. Scheduled for later today, the show is set to run for around 30 minutes, and will cover updates on PS5 and PS VR2 titles, as well as a look at PlayStation Studios games arriving later this year.

Present_Bill5971 on May 30th, 2024 at 13:36 UTC »

> Meanwhile, PS5 users are spending 176 percent more on add-on content, 57 percent more on services and 34 percent more on peripherals than the previous generation of console did in the first four years of its cycle.

> PS5 users are also spending 12 percent less on full game content than those on PS4 did.

For everyone confused because they don't read articles.

Effectively it's that PS5 is fully during the era of live service. PS4 was most profitable second half of it life when love service took off. PS5 came out the gate inheriting all the live service games of the PS4 and then more. The most valuable (spend-happy) users probably moved from PS4 to PS5 which explains why even though half of Playstation users are on PS4 but more than half of player spending is on PS5

Less spent on new games but way more spent on old games DLC and the new that are released, probably more DLC. Couch co-op is on life support so I wonder if peripherals are up from Playstation headphones and the PS Portal rather than Dualsense sales. The chart looks like you can remove the services profit and still exceed the PS4. PS+ Extra/Premium tiers and the base price hike are gravy on top of live service

NIN10DOXD on May 30th, 2024 at 12:25 UTC »

I thought they told us their profit margins were thinner due to higher budgets.

jimschocolateorange on May 30th, 2024 at 12:08 UTC »

Oh that’s lovely; however, for consumers, this has been one of - if not the most - lacklustre ‘generations’ in gaming.

Good to know that the investors are happy though.