From the looks of it, Sony has internally delayed a couple of first-party PlayStation 5 titles targeting a release during its current fiscal year.
This information comes from a slide from Sony’s latest financial results for the 1st quarter of its current fiscal year (FY23). For those in the unknown – Sony’s FY23 runs from April ’23 through March ’24. We’ve included a screenshot of the slide below (thanks @ethangach).
“Operating income is expected to remain unchanged from the April forecast mainly due to the impact of the above-mentioned increase in sales of non-first party titles and an expected decrease in costs, substantially offset primarily by a deterioration in profitability of PlayStation 5 hardware mainly due to changes in promotions by geographic region and the sales channel mix, as
well as the impact of changes in the launch dates of a portion of first-party titles”, Sony writes in its quarterly financial statements document.
While Sony doesn’t directly mention delays, it’s likely that these ‘changes’ do mean that several first-party titles were pushed back internally. Further details about which titles have been affected haven’t been shared, but titles that come to mind include the upcoming The Last of Us multiplayer game, Stellar Blade, and the rumored Twisted Metal reboot.
Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us standalone multiplayer project was recently pushed back as the studio said that more development time is required. Meanwhile, the rumored Twisted Metal project is said to have been rebooted recently and given to Sony’s Firesprite studio – the title was said to be in development at Lucid Games.
We’ll update you as soon as more information about these potential delays of first-party PlayStation 5 titles comes in. What are your thoughts about which titles are involved? Is it indeed the rumored Twisted Metal project or Naughty Dog’s TLOU Multiplayer title? Hit the comments below.
