Sony has revealed its financial earnings for Fiscal Year 2018, and they have reported that there was a decline in PlayStation 4 hardware sales this Fiscal Year, while software has increased.
That said, this isn’t bad news for Sony, as the latter was able to cover up the lower hardware sales, as overall sales still increased 19% year-on-year, from 1,943.8 million units sold to 2,310.9 units sold. To put this total sales number into context, this doubled the revenue of the gaming division in 2013 when the PlayStation 4 first came out, and the profit from this year alone for PS4 surpassed the entire profit made with the PS2 comparatively during its six years.
Sony predicts that the same will happen for Fiscal Year 2019, although in terms of operating income, a decrease is expected thanks to less heavy hitter first-party titles, such as God of War and other titles, as well as an increase in development costs for their next console.
Additionally, a segment of their financial presentation was dedicated to PlayStation Now, and how the service has been growing, exceeding 40% in average annual increase, and reaching around 700,000 users overall. After the launch of a feature that would allow PlayStation Now users to play offline, it led to significant increases in gameplay time per user, as well as retention.
While services and software remain strong, it does seem like a trend that the PlayStation 4 is now winding down, with the next console on the horizon. That said, it’s next console will not be releasing over the next 12 months.
