{"id":107121,"date":"2025-05-16T19:57:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T19:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/107121\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T19:57:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T19:57:14","slug":"sony-to-focus-on-ps5-engagement-first-party-showing-greater-financial-discipline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/107121\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony to Focus on PS5 Engagement, First-Party Showing Greater Financial Discipline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sony<\/a>Image: Push Square<\/p>\n

Sony has gone through a series of leadership changes of late, with hardware bigwig Hideaki Nishino promoted to PlayStation CEO<\/a> and temporary boss Hiroki Totoki taking the top job at the Japanese giant overall.<\/p>\n

Ex-SIE exec Lin Tao has also been given a seat at the big table, assuming the role of Chief Financial Officer. And in her first earnings call in the role<\/a>, she acknowledged some changes that have taken place within the company since the executive reshuffle.<\/p>\n

\u201cSell-in units was the focus but now we are focused on monthly active users (MAU),\u201d she said of the firm\u2019s gaming division. \u201cThe management is focused on engagement and MAU. This is leading to profitability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sony\u2019s gradually been growing its MAU for years now<\/a>, with more and more people playing on PlayStation than ever before. Over the holidays it peaked at over 129 million players<\/a>, and while that number slumped slightly to 124 million during the most recent quarter, it\u2019s still up year-over-year.<\/p>\n

Gaming is no longer a one-and-done proposition, with many titles like Fortnite<\/a>, Roblox<\/a>, and Genshin Impact<\/a> encouraging spending over time. Sony is making more money than ever from microtransactions, and so it\u2019s philosophy here is simple: more people playing means more people paying.<\/p>\n

Engagement also allows it to upsell customers on pricey PS Plus<\/strong><\/a> subscriptions, controllers, and other accessories. In other words, while getting consoles into players\u2019 homes is still important, it\u2019s just the beginning of each customer\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n

Tao was a little unclear about how the company intends to increase MAU moving forward, but she pointed out that the PS5\u2019s install base will continue to grow with \u201cmany of the users\u201d being new to ecosystem. She also noted that, unlike in past generations, many consumers have stuck with the PS4, which contributes to the active users as well.<\/p>\n

Presumably, porting games to the PC and even creating movies and television shows that increase awareness of PlayStation\u2019s brands will also help with its ambitions.<\/p>\n

In related news, Tao said that Sony\u2019s also been better controlling its first-party spending, and it\u2019s something it wants to continue to improve on moving forwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, there were issues with the first-party studios, and Totoki-san was temporarily the CEO and talked about various structural reform. Compared to a few years ago, the financial discipline is in place, but there\u2019s still upside opportunity here. Mainly, I think the mindset has changed significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, all of this is driving PlayStation to unfathomable profits. Whatever you think of the PS5 in its current guise, the company\u2019s strategy is working because it\u2019s making more money than it ever has in its entire history.<\/p>\n

As we know with these kinds of companies, though, the pursuit of growth never ends.<\/p>\n

[source irwebmeeting.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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See Also<\/dt>\n
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\"Sammy<\/p>\n

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He\u2019s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Push Square Sony has gone through a series of leadership changes of late, with hardware bigwig Hideaki…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[51,806,59,55,341,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-107121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-industry","10":"tag-ps4","11":"tag-ps5","12":"tag-sony","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114519280710514730","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}