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Sony shares quarterly unit sales of total first-party titles in financials for the first time (FY18, FY19 & Q1 FY20)

Nightengale

Nightengale

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Oct 26, 2017
5,708
Malaysia
To my knowledge, this is the first time ever that Sony has shared how the first-party overall portfolio performs relative to total software sales on their platform in their financials, outside of PR.

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FY18: 17.6% of total software sales
Notable first party releases during FY18:
- God of War
- Detroit Become Human
- Marvel's Spider-Man
- MLB The Show 19
- Astrobot Rescue Mission

FY19: 16.1% of total software sales
Notable first releases during FY19:
- Days Gone
- Death Stranding
- Concrete Genie
- Blood & Truth
- MLB The Show 20
- Dreams
- Nioh 2 ( uncertain if it's counted, as it's published by SIE in the west )

Q1 FY20: 20.3% of total software sales
Notable first-party releases:
- TLoU Part II
- Predator Hunting Grounds
 
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cheesekao

cheesekao

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Dec 1, 2017
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I wonder if anyone will be able to extrapolate anything from this with whatever little data we have.
 
Welfare

Welfare

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Oct 26, 2017
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Looks like Catalog sales are really really good.
 
OP
OP
Nightengale

Nightengale

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,708
Malaysia
cheesekao said:
I wonder if anyone will be able to extrapolate anything from this with whatever little data we have.
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Well, there's a few things we can extrapolate, I guess.

1. Back catalog sales are good enough. First-party sales for Q120 shouldn't realistically be higher than 7 mil for new releases, so even if it's COVID-19 quarter, having >60% of sales come from older titles show that first-party have legs at an aggregate level, even if not at an evergreen level.

2. This is a favorable read, but Sony choosing to highlight first-party sales in their financials is arguably the first time that first-party performance is evidently an extremely important part of the business. By showing this, they're putting a pressure on themselves that they have goals and metrics of comparison to benchmark first-party sales. A generous read would be that Sony now, if they continue to share first-party sales, has to keep up the momentum of unit sales and split ratio moving forward, and that will come through continued expansion/investment into first -party.
 
Bulby

Bulby

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Oct 29, 2017
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Uf, digital up 23%? I dont think people are going back now.

Edit- Nope read it wrong. Only 8% from Q4
 
Kolx

Kolx

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Oct 25, 2017
8,505
18.5 million sold last quarter? I assume 5-6 million of these are tlou2. I can't remember any bundles so where does the 13 million come from?
 
Darkstorne

Darkstorne

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Oct 26, 2017
6,820
England
Those PS Plus numbers though.

All this talk about Xbox dropping Gold, I wonder if Sony can afford to lose that much revenue in response.

EDIT: Will also be interesting to see how that digital share changes over the next year or two. I'll bet a lot more people start to appreciate the disc-free lifestyle and won't go back to physical after lockdown ends.
 
platocplx

platocplx

2020 Member Elect
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Oct 30, 2017
36,072
Darkstorne said:
Those PS Plus numbers though.

All this talk about Xbox dropping Gold, I wonder if Sony can afford to lose that much revenue in response.
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MS I bet is not dropping it but adding value to it combining it with Gamepass that's what's prob really happening no company is gonna erase 2 billion in revenue
 
nib95

nib95

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Oct 28, 2017
18,498
If first party sales account for over 20% of their total software sales, given how many thousands of third party titles are available on the system, including major ones like Call of Duty, FIFA, Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption 2, NBA 2K etc, that just highlights how important first party games, and by virtue, exclusives, are to the platform.
 
platocplx

platocplx

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Oct 30, 2017
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nib95 said:
If first party sales account for over 20% of their total software sales, given how many thousands of third party titles are available on the system, including major ones like Call of Duty, FIFA, Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption 2, NBA 2K, Assassin's Creed etc, that just highlights how important first party games, and by virtue, exclusives, are to the platform.
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Yup PlayStation is nearly half of their business so they definitely need as many reasons short and long term to keep people coming back also why their strategy is what it is generational wise.
 
Astandahl

Astandahl

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Oct 28, 2017
9,011
This is an incredible result considering were Sony was with FP titles in the PS3 era.

Impressive growth.
 
Y2Kev

Y2Kev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,863
Darkstorne said:
Those PS Plus numbers though.

All this talk about Xbox dropping Gold, I wonder if Sony can afford to lose that much revenue in response.

EDIT: Will also be interesting to see how that digital share changes over the next year or two. I'll bet a lot more people start to appreciate the disc-free lifestyle and won't go back to physical after lockdown ends.
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Sony does not respond to Microsoft.
 
Triggerhappytel

Triggerhappytel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,043
So out of 113 million MAUs 44.9 million currently subscribe to PS+. Holy fucking shit! That's almost bang on 40%. No way are they dropping that, even if MS do. They've got much momentum that even if there was a sea change and people start getting fed up paying for online it would probably take up to the PS6 to make a real difference.

nib95 said:
If first party sales account for over 20% of their total software sales, given how many thousands of third party titles are available on the system, including major ones like Call of Duty, FIFA, Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption 2, NBA 2K etc, that just highlights how important first party games, and by virtue, exclusives, are to the platform.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
platocplx said:
Yup PlayStation is nearly half of their business so they definitely need as many reasons short and long term to keep people coming back also why their strategy is what it is generational wise.
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It would be nice if they invested some of that billion dollar annual profit into establishing some new dev teams. I would like to see them try their hand at FPSs again.
 
Manmademan

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Aug 6, 2018
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Triggerhappytel said:
It would be nice if they invested some of that billion dollar annual profit into establishing some new dev teams. I would like to see them try their hand at FPSs again.
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The investment in new dev teams and software would be a number that came out of revenue as a business expense. It wouldn't come out of the operating profit number.

The OP number is what's left after all of that is accounted for.
 
JusDoIt

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Oct 25, 2017
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platocplx said:
MS I bet is not dropping it but adding value to it combining it with Gamepass that's what's prob really happening no company is gonna erase 2 billion in revenue
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Requiring Game Pass for online would make so many people mad, unless they drop the price to what Gold is now. Going from $60 to $120 a year when all you want to do is play Warzone with your homies would feel like robbery, even if they're throwing free games you didn't ask for into the mix.

I agree that I can't see them just giving up that revenue stream either, though. Microsoft got all the money in the world, but they still got shareholders to answer to.
 
Triggerhappytel

Triggerhappytel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,043
Manmademan said:
The investment in new dev teams and software would be a number that came out of revenue as a business expense. It wouldn't come out of the operating profit number.

The OP number is what's left after all of that is accounted for.
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Yeah, I'm just being facetious. I've really enjoyed Sony's output this generation but I would like their tentpole releases to deviate a little from the third person cinematic template.

Really I just want a team with the budget and calibre of someone like ND, Insomniac or SMS to try their hand at a story-driven cinematic FPS. I'd also like to see some more big productions come out of Japan Studio, as they seem like an excellent creative team but are never given the attention of their western counterparts.

EDIT - but this is pretty off topic so I will leave it there now.
 
Zedark

Zedark

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,719
The Netherlands
Nightengale said:
Well, there's a few things we can extrapolate, I guess.

1. Back catalog sales are good enough. First-party sales for Q120 shouldn't realistically be higher than 7 mil for new releases, so even if it's COVID-19 quarter, having >60% of sales come from older titles show that first-party have legs at an aggregate level, even if not at an evergreen level.

2. This is a favorable read, but Sony choosing to highlight first-party sales in their financials is arguably the first time that first-party performance is evidently an extremely important part of the business. By showing this, they're putting a pressure on themselves that they have goals and metrics of comparison to benchmark first-party sales. A generous read would be that Sony now, if they continue to share first-party sales, has to keep up the momentum of unit sales and split ratio moving forward, and that will come through continued expansion/investment into first -party.
Click to expand...
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Right, first party unit sales revenue is about 3.3x as high as for third party sales. 20% of unit sales from first party means almost 50/50 revenue split between third and first party. And considering what everyone is saying about exclueive being more important than ever, I think they might expect to grow that 20% further.
 
nib95

nib95

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Oct 28, 2017
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Zedark said:
Right, first party unit sales revenue is about 3.3x as high as for third party sales. 20% of unit sales from first party means almost 50/50 revenue split between third and first party. And considering what everyone is saying about exclueive being more important than ever, I think they might expect to grow that 20% further.
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Good point about revenue split, really puts things in perspective. Though there's DLC, mtx etc revenue to consider too.
 
OP
OP
Nightengale

Nightengale

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,708
Malaysia
I did some simple maths to do a rough guesstimate of how much adjusted revenue that Sony gets from first-party vs third-party. ( Adjusted = after reducing the publisher and retailer cut )

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Bold One

Bold One

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
18,911
Darkstorne said:
Those PS Plus numbers though.

All this talk about Xbox dropping Gold, I wonder if Sony can afford to lose that much revenue in response.

EDIT: Will also be interesting to see how that digital share changes over the next year or two. I'll bet a lot more people start to appreciate the disc-free lifestyle and won't go back to physical after lockdown ends.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
MS is a TRILLION DOLLAR company, that's Trillion with a T, they can afford it.

Sony and Nintendo can not.
 
platocplx

platocplx

2020 Member Elect
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Oct 30, 2017
36,072
Triggerhappytel said:
So out of 113 million MAUs 44.9 million currently subscribe to PS+. Holy fucking shit! That's almost bang on 40%. No way are they dropping that, even if MS do. They've got much momentum that even if there was a sea change and people start getting fed up paying for online it would probably take up to the PS6 to make a real difference.




It would be nice if they invested some of that billion dollar annual profit into establishing some new dev teams. I would like to see them try their hand at FPSs again.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think them expanding damn near every successful office is just as good imo than just acquisitions less risk building up studios that have a great track record.
 
platocplx

platocplx

2020 Member Elect
Member
Oct 30, 2017
36,072
JusDoIt said:
Requiring Game Pass for online would make so many people mad, unless they drop the price to what Gold is now. Going from $60 to $120 a year when all you want to do is play Warzone with your homies would feel like robbery, even if they're throwing free games you didn't ask for into the mix.

I agree that I can't see them just giving up that revenue stream either, though. Microsoft got all the money in the world, but they still got shareholders to answer to.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think warzone will be free online since it's F2P I think they just drop the requirement for F2P games
 
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