Today, Sony has released its latest earnings report for the full year ending on March 31, 2020. Leading the charge for the company is Game & Network Services which operates PlayStation who brought in approximately $25 billion in revenue, increasing total sales for the G&NS division by 34%. Software and add-on sales made $13.8 billion which is up 43%. Hardware sales went up 34% to $7 billion. Network services like PS Plus rose 14% bringing in $3.5 billion.
One of the biggest things for PlayStation last year was the release of PlayStation 5. Over the course of its time on the market, a number of records have been broken: it had the biggest launch month in U.S. history, was the biggest console launch in the UK, surpassed Nintendo Switch as the fastest-selling hardware platform, and became the fastest-selling console in U.S. history in unit and dollar sales. Sony has reported that PlayStation 5 has shipped 7.8 million units into retail since its launch in November. Sony reached its goal of outselling the PS4 at launch. PlayStation 4 sold 7.6 million units in the same period. PlayStation 4 shipped 5.7 million units, dropping from 13.5 million in 2019.
338.9 million games were sold in the past year across the PS5 and PS4. Last year 276.1 million games were sold. 58.4 million of the 338.9 were first-party games, up from 49.2 million last year. Digital downloads accounted for 65% of all sales for the full year. Some of the biggest games that helped contribute to the increase in numbers were The Last of Us Part II, Ghost of Tsushima, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
Games & Network Services was the biggest segment at Sony Corporation with its $4.6 billion in revenue. Overall, Sony Corporation reported revenues of $81.7 billion, a 9% increase year-on-year. Operating income increased 15% to $8.9 billion. Sony is forecasting revenues of $26.6 billion for the Games & Network Services in its next financial year which would be a 9% increase from this year.