Sony is a goliath in the games industry, boasting some of the best-selling and most popular video game consoles on the market. With Sony's PlayStation being so popular, it stands to reason that the company would earn a hefty sum through consoles, games, and additional content. According to figures shared by Niko Partners' Senior Analyst Daniel Ahmad, the company is also making tons from microtransactions and DLC.
Ahmad shared figures representing PlayStation's FY2020 Q1 games and network services sales figures, and it paints an interesting figure. The most immediately striking aspect of the chart is how much PlayStation makes from "Add on Content," which would be classified as DLC or microtransactions.
Shockingly, DLC and Microtransactions make up 41% of the total chart, compared to the runner-up — digital full game sales — making up 24% of the total. Equally interesting is "Full Game Packaged Software" making up 6% of the chart, which seems smaller than many may have anticipated. It is worth noting, however, that these figures cover April 1 to June 30, so they represent the effect the coronavirus has had on PlayStation's sales.
The past few years have seen a sharp rise in digital sales, causing financial trouble for companies like GameStop. With stores operating in a limited capacity or not at all due to the pandemic, it seems that the fall of physical copies may be expedited to a degree, though it's unlikely they'll go away entirely for quite some time.
Lower console sales are to be expected, as the PS5 is releasing soon, meaning gamers have very few reasons to invest in current-gen hardware if they haven't already. At this point, fans that haven't picked up a PS4 are better off waiting until a few months after the launch of the PS5, as there will likely be some solid deals on the consoles.
The next few months will be big for PlayStation, assuming its able to nail the PS5's launch. There are rumors that PS Now and PS Plus could be getting tweaks, and if true, that may mean something more along the lines of Xbox Game Pass, though that's still just a rumor.
Of course, with recent surveys showing the PS5 as more popular than the Xbox Series X, Sony likely has little to worry about with its box. That being said, the sales chart is interesting, and the microtransaction numbers staggering, considering how unpopular they seem to be.