The financial results of the last quarter of Sony at first life they tell of another glittering success, yet the words of President Hiroki Totokiwho also appears to be a decidedly outspoken guy and all in one piece when it comes to numbers, have given a certain jolt to the usual media fanfare about PS5. The first issue is that, in the face of very high and record revenues for the fiscal quarter, the margins are decidedly reduced, revealing a problem in the management of costs in relation to revenues: in fact, the issue seems to confirm once again how in the videogame market it is difficult to obtain large margins, especially if you invest in productions that cost a lot. If not even Sony's impressive sales can justify the large investments, it means that the situation is particularly difficult.
It doesn't take much to understand, just look at the closures and mass layoffs that have occurred in recent months, as well as the cancellations of projects considered too risky to be completed, or those completed with enormous efforts and which have not managed to meet the deadlines. costs, as seen recently with Immortals of Aveum. Which brings us to the other issues that emerged from Sony's financial conference: no big game of PlayStation Studios belonging to known intellectual properties is expected before April 2025, and the fact that Totoki has clearly indicated the multiplatform approach as a possible solution to improve profits. The first point may not be as bad as it seems: we know that Sony intends to launch a large amount of live services in the coming months, many of which are actually new intellectual properties and therefore “not belonging to well-known series”. It could also be possible that there are some new big-name IPs in development, although Sony's policy on this front has been extremely cautious recently, so this has positive implications, although it undoubtedly means a widening gap for new first party releases already seen for a good part of 2023.
Sony launches into multi-platform?
The issue of multiplatform is very interesting, also because it comes almost simultaneously with the rumors of Microsoft's opening in this sense, with Xbox titles that could arrive on competing platforms. In fact, it is a confirmation of what we were saying just in the last few hours when talking about the future of the entire videogame industry. Obviously Totoki is referring here to the PC as another platform to support, but it seems to suggest an expansion in this area, which could translate into the possibility of releases at the same time as day one on PS5 and PC, which also proved to be a success with the recent Helldivers 2 and which should also be repeated for the next upcoming live services. Obviously we are not yet at the release of the first parties on other consoles, but considering what Sony's policy on its exclusives has been so far, a less delayed launch between consoles and PCs has an epochal value.
Finally, all this must be put into the perspective of a generation that is now well into its own second half of the life cycle, as reported by Sony itself in the documents. If you consider that the vast majority of games released so far were cross-gen, one might think that this generation has never really hit the ground running, from the point of view of expressing its technological potential. A strange generation, in many respects: just think of the fact that Sony's large-caliber first party productions on PS5 have largely been remasters, remakes or Director's Cut style re-releases of games released for PS4. Just when the time for the new platform seems to have come, we are already in its “final” phase, although obviously this is another 3 and a half years at least. In this, the pandemic in the midst of which the new consoles were launched obviously played a fundamental role, as well as the fact that all the major productions by the first parties occurred right at the end of the PS4 cycle, effectively forcing a long subsequent hiatus, only partially filled by reissues.
However, the fact remains that PS5 sells a lot, and continues to do so in a rather disconnected manner from the presence or absence of large first party games developed specifically. At this point, we are curious to see how the second half of the console's life cycle will shape up, which could prove to be a good one more interesting and unexpected of the first.
This is an editorial written by a member of the editorial team and is not necessarily representative of the editorial line of Multiplayer.it.
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