Today Sony announced its financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2022, related to the period between April 1 and June 30, 2022, including an update on PS5 and PS4 shipments.
2.4 million PS5 units were purchased by retailers worldwide during the latest quarter (between January and March), which means that as of June 30, 2022, the console has shipped 21.7 million units in its lifetime.
As of this quarter, Sony has stopped reporting PS4 unit sales, which means that those remain at the 117 million figure disclosed in May.
In the slides below, you can find an overview of the performance of the Game & Network Services business (which includes both PlayStation and PlayStation Network), with all the relevant figures including software sales and more.
Sales dropped 2% year-on-year (11.7 billion yen) due to a decrease in sales of first and third-party games, partly offset by the weak yen.
Operating income significantly decreased (-37% or 30.5 billion yen) year-on-year due to the same reason, on top of the growth of development costs at existing studios.
The sales forecast for the full fiscal year has been slightly reduced (-1% or 40 billion yen) due to the predicted drop in sales of third-party games.
The operating income prediction has been significantly decreased (-16% or 50 billion yen) due to the same reason as sales, plus an increase in expenses associated with acquisitions. This includes the fact that the acquisition of Bungie has been completed earlier than expected, which caused an additional 13 billion yen expense to be recorded this fiscal year, which would otherwise have been recorded in the next.
Additional documentation about the performance of Sony’s gaming business reveals that the grand total of PlayStation Plus subscribers was at 47.3 million as of June 30, while PlayStation had 102 million monthly active users.
We also notice that, while software revenue dropped as mentioned above, hardware and network services revenue increased year-on-year.
Speaking of Sony as a whole, both sales and operating income show a modest improvement year-on-year, as you can see below.
If you’d like to compare with historical data, you can read our dedicated article about the previous financial results announced in May.