Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment hosted its Corporate Strategy Meeting in Tokyo, and chief executive officer Kenichiro Yoshida and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki talked about the PlayStation business.
Yoshida-san mentioned that investment in games will continue. Speaking of live services, he explained that he talked with the management at Bungie, and from them, he has learned that it’s important to develop the games in an interactive manner with users. He added that in this particular area Sony has a much to learn and will make investments.
Earlier in the conference, Yoshida-san confirmed the intention to launch over 10 live service games by the fiscal year ending in March 2026 while learning from Bungie.
Totoki-san mentioned that Sony’s first-party development capability and quality have to be improved. That’s a major pillar of the company’s strategy, and if there are opportunities, the acquisition of studios can be discussed and reviewed and will continue.
Later in the Q&A session, Yoshida-san mentioned that in thinking about M&A (mergers & acquisitions), one of the factors in play is whether these can increase the value for gamers and creators. He added that “rather than winning a share, whether we can contribute or not” is a key perspective.
Responding to a question as to whether there are non-core businesses that could be sold, Yoshida-san explained that there are no businesses within Sony at the moment that he sees as non-core.
Yoshida-san also spoke in his prepared remarks and provided a summary of the strategy for the PlayStation business.
- Implemented initiatives to get closer to creators through the creation of IP while also getting closer to users through DTC services.
- Consoles: Sony plans to achieve further growth with the 18 million PlayStation 5 units it expects to sell this fiscal year.
- Network services: PlayStation Network generates more than 1 trillion 800 billion yen in cumulative sales over the network and more than 100 million accounts access the service currently. A major renewal of the PlayStation Plus subscription service is scheduled to roll-out in June 2022 in order to strengthen PSN.
- First-party studios: While Sony will continue to value its relationships with third-party studios, PlayStation Studios, which are its first-party studios, made numerous acquisitions and equity investments over the past year.
- Sony Interactive Entertainment signed definitive agreements for the acquisition of Bungie, Inc., which represents a major step in becoming more multi-platform and enhancing Sony’s live game services.
Yoshida-san also confirmed that Sony will continue to grow the value of its gaming IP by deploying them in new media fields like movies and TV series.
He also talked about the metaverse and mentioned that games, movies, anime, and music have intersected in the network space.
Sony has also started to use AI in the production of games while sensing technology is being used in 3D model production.
If you’d like to learn more about Sony’s most recent financial performance details on top of official shipment numbers for PS5 and PS4, you can check out our dedicated article.
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