Whereas the PS5 has been doing properly for Sony, the corporate’s R&D groups have already began wanting in direction of the long run. Sony Interactive Leisure president and CEO Hideaki Nishino spoke about the way forward for PlayStation throughout a current enterprise phase assembly. Based on VGC, Nishino additionally spoke about whether or not cloud gaming may very well be one of many avenues for the way forward for Sony’s consoles.
Based on Nishino, whereas cloud streaming is a promising entrance, particularly with regards to the know-how concerned, community stability continues to be a sticking level for the corporate. Cloud streaming additionally tends to be dearer for Sony itself with regards to “price per playtime”.
“Cloud streaming is progressing properly from a technical standpoint, as we now have demonstrated with [our] choices, however end-to-end community stability shouldn’t be in our management,” Nishino mentioned. “And the upper price per playtime in comparison with the normal console mannequin stays a problem.”
“Cloud gaming is more and more offering a further choice for gamers to entry content material, however our perception is that almost all of gamers proceed to need to expertise gaming by means of native execution with out dependency on community circumstances. And PS5 and PS5 Professional have validated this thesis, I imagine.”
Nishino additionally famous that, whereas wanting on the future is necessary, the Sony can be doing properly with its present and older consoles. He particularly brings up the truth that 124 million month-to-month energetic customers are nonetheless enjoying their video games on a PS4, slightly than dashing to improve to a PS5.
“We now have a big ecosystem of extremely engaged gamers throughout each the PlayStation 5 and the PlayStation 4 generations. So naturally, due to this fact, there’s an enormous curiosity in our subsequent technology console technique,” mentioned Nishino. “Whereas we can not share additional particulars at this stage, the way forward for the platform is high of thoughts. We’re dedicated to exploring a brand new and enhanced approach for gamers to have interaction with our content material and companies.”
Sony Interactive Leisure SVP of finance and company growth Lynn Azar echoed Nishino’s sentiments about having gamers throughout a bunch of various consoles when requested concerning the potential enterprise affect of the following iteration of PlayStation consoles.
“As Nishino-san talked about, we’re nonetheless exploring what the way forward for our platform would appear like. So, due to this fact, while we can not present any additional steerage on working earnings in future years, I’d wish to re-emphasize that our monetary profile as a enterprise has developed in keeping with our technique.”
Azar additionally identified that, at this level, a lot of the firm’s income come from recurring sources, together with in-game microtransactions and subscription companies.
“So, we’ve lowered conventional cyclicality, as you describe it, by establishing a big ecosystem of gamers throughout each the PS5 and PS4 generations, which offers recurring revenues,” mentioned Azar. “So, this has pushed total excessive and secure stage of spend on content material and companies, which, by the way in which, now represent over two-thirds of our income, offering a constant, predictable, and worthwhile base of our income.”
Whereas Sony has been coy about asserting any plans for its next-gen console, a press release from again in 2022 indicated that Sony was releasing the PS6 after 2027.
