Sony has declared that PlayStation Studios plans to “consistently and continuously” release hit games. Sony Interactive Entertainment strives to refine its development process and release schedules to ensure this is true.
This is surprising, considering PlayStation Studios has recently admitted to struggling to maintain sustainable profit margins despite its highly successful games. These games include the PC port of Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, but that hasn’t been enough to stop layoffs at PlayStation Studios.
Over 900 roles were cut from PlayStation Studios during this process, with a new management structure created under joint CEOs Herman Hulst and Hideaki Nishino.
Sony announced its earnings in its first-quarter financial reports for FY2024 two days ago. In an earnings call, Sony discussed its willingness to strengthen its development schedule: “The Studio Business Group is strengthening its development schedule management and optimizing development projects to consistently and continuously release hit titles.”
In addition to this, they are also working on “maintaining and expanding” the number of active PlayStation users while strengthening user engagement. By doing this, the aim is to “establish a stable earnings base,” which is one of the number one priorities for PlayStation Studios.
While the PlayStation 5 has sold 61.7 million units worldwide, the console sales are slowing down rapidly, faster than Sony was originally expecting. While it did make a profit in Q3 of FY2023 at $10.2 billion, its Operating Profits fell by 25.9% year-on-year.
In terms of game releases, it has been a relatively quiet year for PlayStation overall, as they haven’t released any blockbuster-type games this year. Despite this, they have announced several console exclusives. These games include Concord, Astro Bot, and Lego Horizon Adventures.
In addition, the number of PlayStation Plus members has dropped, predominantly due to players’ dissatisfaction with the selection of games they are given. While it is the beginning of August, PlayStation still has plenty of time to announce more upcoming blockbuster games. Still, we will have to wait and see whether they will do that or continue to focus on porting PlayStation exclusives over to PC, the most recent being Ghost of Tsushima.
Compared to other State of Plays, there was a lot of discourse around the latest State of Play, as people felt it was a bit lackluster compared to other showcases in the past. We can only hope the new schedule and developments they are planning don’t lead to more layoffs.
