Sony’s video game business saw impressive growth during the most recent financial quarter, boosted by sales of blockbuster action game Black Myth: Wukong that more than made up for the disastrous launch of Concord.
Sony’s Game & Network Services (G&NS) division, which includes PlayStation, brought in 1,071.5 billion yen (approx $7 billion) during the second quarter of the financial year (July to September 2024). That’s a “significant increase” of 12% year-on-year, Sony said. Profit tripled to 138.8 billion yen (approx $911 million), up a whopping 184% year-on-year. Those positive results were good enough for Sony to raise its financial year forecast for its gaming business.
Sony said the boost to revenue came from an increase in sales of non-first-party games, including add-on content (like microtransactions), as well as the impact of foreign exchange rates and an increase in sales from network services, mainly from PlayStation Plus. (Sony gets a cut of all sales on the PlayStation Store, and of course generates revenue from sales away from its platform, such as Steam.) Dragging those sales down, however, was the continued fall of PS5 sales.
On the operating income side, Sony said it had seen an improvement in hardware profitability (typically consoles are sold at a loss), as well as the aforementioned increase in sales of third-party games and network services.
Sony sold another 3.8 million PS5 units during the quarter, down 29% compared to the same period last year. The four-year-old console is now on 65.5 million shipped, with Sony recently admitting the PS5 is in the second half of its life cycle. PlayStation Network has 116 million monthly active users, flat quarter-on-quarter.
As reported by VGC, Sony specifically mentioned “a new sports title” (EA Sports FC 25 launched at the end of September) and “an action RPG title from China” (Black Myth: Wukong) for PlayStation’s sales success in the quarter.
Black Myth: Wukong, from Chinese developer Game Science, launched on August 19 and sold an eye-watering 18 million copies in just two weeks across PC and PS5, reportedly making over $700 million in revenue in the process. That’s enough to put Black Myth: Wukong up there with Grand Theft Auto 5 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as one of the fastest-selling games of all time, and is an astonishing return for a game that had a reported budget of $70 million over six years of development.
Concord, a live service hero shooter from Sony-owned Firewalk Studios, followed on August 23, but flopped spectacularly. Amid disastrously low player numbers, Sony hauled Concord offline just two weeks after launch. It eventually shuttered Firewalk and confirmed Concord wouldn’t return. The Sony-developed Astro Bot, which was also released during the financial quarter, has sold 1.5 million copies.
Despite its recent financial success, Sony’s gaming business has endured a difficult year with sweeping layoffs and multiple studio closures. In February, Sony announced a round of layoffs affecting 900 staff, or about 8% of its global PlayStation workforce. The layoffs impacted a number of PlayStation studios, including Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, and Firesprite, but PlayStation’s London studio was hit hardest with a notice of closure. Since then, Sony-owned Bungie has also suffered devastating cuts as Destiny 2 struggles to find commercial success.
Sony has just released the PS5 Pro, a $700 mid-gen upgrade that boosts the graphics and performance of PS4 and PS5 games. Amid a quiet time for first-party launches (Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yōtei is slated for release in 2025), Sony will benefit from upcoming third-party games Monster Hunter Wilds and Rockstar’s guaranteed megahit GTA 6, which parent company Take-Two recently insisted was still on track for a fall 2025 release.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.