As one of the major platform owners, many gamers would claim that PlayStation is a titan of video games.With the PlayStation 2 still sitting on top of the list of best-selling video game consoles of all time and three other Sony machines in the top ten of that list, it is clear that the company has seen some major successes with its hardware endeavors. However, this doesn't always equate to financial growth, as Sony has recently reported a dip in revenue for Q1 2022.Sony's first quarter ended on June 30, 2022, and now it is revealing how this year's Q1 matched up against previous years. In terms of hardware, Sony reported that it shipped 2.4 million PS5 units between the end of March and June 2022, which is an increase of 0.1 million from the year before and an increase of 0.4 million from last quarter. While these may seem like small increases, it still shows that the PlayStation 5 is selling well. Back in February, it was reported that the PlayStation 5 had sold nearly double the units the Xbox Series X had.Still, even if the PS5 is being outsold by its competitors in places, its sales increase still marks a financial positive for Sony. Where this dip originates from appears to be in software sales for the company. PS4 and PS5 full game software saw a total of 47.1 million units sold during the first quarter, which is a decrease of over 16 million units from the same period of last year. Also, even with the launch of the new PlayStation Plus packages, users of Sony's subscription service decreased in Q1 by 0.1 million users.
The monthly active users of the PlayStation Network are also down to 102 million, which appears to be the lowest figure since Sony began sharing these details in early 2020. It is believed that this decline is attributed to the lack of new first and third-party PlayStation releases between March and June. Titles such as Horizon Forbidden West sold well for the company's previous quarter, and with God of War Ragnarok releasing in November, it is possible that by the end of the 2022 financial year this dip won't have much of an effect on the company's revenue.
Another reason that PlayStation has taken a financial dip is due to Sony's acquisition of Bungie. While it was announced earlier this year that the deal would likely be going ahead, it was confirmed much sooner than Sony had apparently planned, leading to a massive increase in expenses associated with acquisitions.
Source: VGC