• Akira Toriyama passed away

    Let's all commemorate together his legendary work and his impact here

Sony Q3 FY3/2023 Financial Results

Status
Not open for further replies.
MysticGon said:
They expect to have the biggest non-holiday quarter ever based just on pent-up demand?

I don't know what to say. Would be amazing to see, so good luck to them.
Click to expand...
High demand + stocks finally normalized and at the highest level ever + new marketing campaign + some major releases like Forspoken and especially Hogwarts Legacy that has marketing associated with PS5, and also the momentum of games like
Gow R and Cod that came out relatively recently and are still selling well + Psvr2.
They could make it
 
Lelouch0612 said:
The PS5 with a disc-drive was no longer sold at a loss in 2021. We didn't get any info about the digital SKU.

Good point about the rest, however keep in mind that they raised their console's price in 2022 (probably as a consequence of higher manufacturing costs than in 2021).

They didn't in the US so it is possible they are taking a loss there.
Click to expand...

Yeah I guess, we'll see... in about 3 months :>

I'm just looking at the current situation here in the nordics where demand is currently being met since the fall and scalpers in shambles.Now I understand the nordics isnt like the rest of europe, and I'm sure they expect Europe to pick up the pace with ramped up production but I'm just not sure Europe will or can do it at that pace. 6.2M for the next quarter? That's extremely high.
 
mbolibombo said:
PS5 was no longer selling at a loss back in 2021 and with more console sales there should be peripherals, games, subscriptions added on top of consoles to.
Click to expand...
But those revenue streams arent immediate, also they weren't selling at a loss at those fx rates and those production costs. That's not guaranteed to be the case at the moment.

USD to JPY in July 21 was 110, it's now 130. Cost of HW is largely set in USD.
 
Very good result, considering stock was terrible in many countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc.) in Q3.
If they will be able to bring the price back to the original MSRP in Japan, EU and UK they could have one of the best FY ever for Playstation next year.
 
Using the revenue (physical and digital) and the full game units, the average price this Q was 3907 yen (same calculation last year would be 2276 yen. The power of selling 9-11m copies of GoW at its price point.

Also did a quick calculation of the q4 forecast, it comes out to be 59%.
 
Last edited:
Better hardware sales than i thought, i predicted 6.8 million based on sales data and they shipped 7.1 million. 2022 calendar year hardware was 2 million up on 2021 despite the poor CYQ1 which left 2022 trailing. For the fiscal year after three quarters PS5 shipped 12.8 million and needs 5.2 million to hit their target of 18 million which will be incredibly tough. After nine quarters PS5 trails PS4 by 5.7 million units but of course this is due to supply shortages and Sony expects PS5 to eventually catch and overtake PS4.

Calendar year hardware shipments PS5 v PS4

I5p6apU.png


BEzWUtF.png


Fiscal year Hardware Shipments PS4 v PS5

3NMbJ0v.png


eLKOO6r.png
 
Last edited:
PS5 hardware shipments went even higher than what I was expecting, immense growth compared to the same quarter from last year. Also, massive growth coming from first-party software sales thanks to the impact of God of War: Ragnarok (+ 84,10% growth compared to Q3 FY3/2022). Third-party software sales actually witnessed a 19,29% drop compared to Q3 FY3/2022 despite FIFA 23 growing and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II being much bigger than Vanguard.

Overall software shipments across several third quarters of past fiscal years

Q3 FY3/2017 - 80.500.000*
Q3 FY3/2018 - 86.500.000*
Q3 FY3/2019 - 87.200.000*
Q3 FY3/2020 - 88.700.000
Q3 FY3/2021 - 104.200.000
Q3 FY3/2022 - 92.700.000
Q3 FY3/2023 - 86.500.000

*download-only titles, PSVR titles and software bundled with PS4, PS5 and PSVR aren't included
 
NediarPT88 said:
Yeah even with enough consoles available 6M seems like a very high bar for this period.

In terms of software I'm only seeing Hogwarts being able to push some consoles since it'll be next gen exclusive temporarily. Jedi Survivor would be a big one too but it got delayed for the next quarter.

I don't think PSVR2 will have a big effect considering the price of entry, it's a niche product.
Click to expand...
They are pretty much certain to reach 18 million consoles shipped and are even aiming to exceed it.
They have probably already shipped at least 2 million or more consoles in January alone.
You don't raise the forecast for the fiscal year when there are 3 months to go if you know it's difficult or impossible to reach the result.
At this point I would say we can almost taking it for granted.
 
Last edited:
Although overall software was down year on year it was much closer to the previous year compared to Q1 and Q2. Software is currently tracking to be around 260 million for the fiscal year. God of War: Ragnarok helped push 1st party to 20.8 million which is an increase of 9.5 million year on year.

Fiscal year software shipments since 2016/17

EsmXgQ5.png


Fiscal Year 1st party software shipments since 2019/20

wLnXmgT.png
 
Last edited:
Great OP, reminds me of that guy that used to do them (Armgunner or something ??)

You think Sony is gonna give an update on their PC games sales espeacilly with Both Spider-Mans, Uncharted and Sackboy (although the last two sounded like they bombed) ?
 
Wow, GOW really saved their ass and then some for 1st party sales. Q1-3 comparison:

FY19: 40m
FY20: 50.5m
FY21: 29.4m
FY22: 34m

They should stay ahead of 21 if sales don't totally collapse in Q4, abundance of PS5 availability should help there though they don't have any major Q4 launches like last year (GT7, Horizon 2). Historical Q4 for comparisons with what they'll need to be targeting (10m to not be last for FYs):

FY19: 9.2m
FY20: 7.9m
FY21: 14.5m
 
MarcoP90 said:
PS5 hardware shipments went even higher than what I was expecting, immense growth compared to the same quarter from last year. Also, massive growth coming from first-party software sales thanks to the impact of God of War: Ragnarok (+ 84,10% growth compared to Q3 FY3/2022). Third-party software sales actually witnessed a 19,29% drop compared to Q3 FY3/2022 despite FIFA 23 growing and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II being much bigger than Vanguard.

Overall software shipments across several third quarters of past fiscal years

Q3 FY3/2017 - 80.500.000*
Q3 FY3/2018 - 86.500.000*
Q3 FY3/2019 - 87.200.000*
Q3 FY3/2020 - 88.700.000
Q3 FY3/2021 - 104.200.000
Q3 FY3/2022 - 92.700.000
Q3 FY3/2023 - 86.500.000

*download-only titles, PSVR titles and software bundled with PS4, PS5 and PSVR aren't included
Click to expand...

Q1
(April - June)		Q2
(July - September)		Q3
(October – December)		Q4
(January - March)		FY
(April - March)
FY201739.954.085.554.9234.2
FY201845.976.192.859.4274.2
FY201947.782.395.662.3292.7
FY202050.571.688.765.3276.1
FY202191.481.8N/AN/AN/A

On Sony's buisness page they include download-only software from FY 2017. In these quarters download-only software is only adding around 5 to 8 million. Software increases from 80.5m to 85.5m, 86.5m to 92.8m and 87.2m to 95.6m.
 
Anthony_The_Ghost said:
They are pretty much certain to reach 18 million consoles shipped and are even aiming to exceed it.
They have probably already shipped 2 million or more consoles in January alone.
You don't raise the forecast for the fiscal year when there are 3 months to go if you know it's difficult or impossible to reach the result.
At this point I would say we can almost taking it for granted.
Click to expand...

Yeah I imagine that at this point they are already aware of the sales in January. Curious to see if there was a significant growth this month when we get NPD data and EU numbers from Christopher Dring.

bf2142 said:
Great OP, reminds me of that guy that used to do them (Armgunner or something ??)

You think Sony is gonna give an update on their PC games sales espeacilly with Both Spider-Mans, Uncharted and Sackboy (although the last two sounded like they bombed) ?
Click to expand...

Doubt we are getting anything from Uncharted or Sackboy, since they didn't sell well like you mentioned.

Last year we got some PC numbers from their IR Day which was in May iirc. We might get something this year as well.
 
Astandahl said:
Very good result, considering stock was terrible in many countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc.) in Q3.
If they will be able to bring the price back to the original MSRP in Japan, EU and UK they could have one of the best FY ever for Playstation next year.
Click to expand...
PS5 Shipements in France during Q3 were massive.

Shipements were so good that PS5 sales in 2022 could be almost flat YoY there.
 
Astral_lion02 said:
PS5 Shipements in France during Q3 were massive.

Shipements were so good that PS5 sales in 2022 could be almost flat YoY there.
Click to expand...

That would make France a outlier.

Overall in these countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland) PS5 sales were down 35% compared to 2021.

(Edit: in Spain the drop was around 37% according to these numbers)

And in the UK they were down 33%. Only missing Germany (in terms of big markets) but it's probably around the same values.
 
Strong HW and 1st party SW sales as we all expected. 3rd party SW sales are disappointing given FIFA and COD's YoY growth - Ubisoft and EA not having major releases is almost certainly to blame here.

I'm really skeptical about Sony increasing their FY3/2023 PS5 HW forecast from 18M to 19M - they would need to ship a record-breaking 6.2M units during FYQ4 (which is only 900K below their 7.1M FYQ3 holiday quarter shipment). PS5 would need to achieve nothing less than earth-shattering HW sales figures at NPD/GfK/GSD in the coming days/weeks/months for this goal to be realized.
 
Last edited:
2m in channel as of the new year makes me very doubtful they'll hit their original hardware target much less the upward revised 19m. January NPD will be telling I guess.
 
awng782 said:
I'm really skeptical about Sony increasing their FY3/2023 PS5 HW forecast from 18M to 19M - they would need to ship a record-breaking 6.2M units during FYQ4 (which is only 900K below their 7.1M FYQ3 holiday quarter shipment). PS5 would need to achieve nothing less than earth-shattering HW sales figures at NPD/GfK/GSD in the coming days/weeks/months for this goal to be realized.
Click to expand...

They can do very well in the USA, like in the past months and increase stocks in Europe and Japan as they seem to be doing.
The supply problem is completely or nearly completely solved, and demand is still high.
It's quite unusual to raise forecasts when we're practically almost at the end of the fiscal year, it is even more so if you then internally think a result is very difficult or impossible to achieve. They have to be pretty much certain that they are going to achieve the result. It's very likely that in January alone they shipped 2 or 3 million consoles.
 
Considering their new target i actually doubt there were 2 M units in the channel at the end of December.
Are they including PS5 shipped but not yet delivered to stores?
 
Anthony_The_Ghost said:
They can do very well in the USA, like in the past months and increase stocks in Europe and Japan as they seem to be doing.
The supply problem is completely or nearly completely solved, and demand is still high.
It's quite unusual to raise forecasts when we're practically almost at the end of the fiscal year, it is even more so if you then internally think a result is very difficult or impossible to achieve. They have to be pretty much certain that they are going to achieve the result. It's very likely that in January alone they shipped 2 or 3 million consoles.
Click to expand...
I mean maybe Sony can do ridiculously massive channel-stuffing, but if they want PS5 sell-through to align with their 6.2M shipment goal for FYQ4, PS5 would need to see sales nearing holiday figures during FY3/2023 Q4 - something along the lines of 750K+ monthly sales for the US market (NPD figures) in the current quarter.
 
There's absolutely no way that they'll hit their hardware sales forecast here, but that's still a solid result.

PS5 will almost certainly never catch PS4's sales, but it's still going to end up being very successful overall.

The real big win for Sony isn't their hardware sales though, it's their first party software. They are finally now competing on equal footing against Nintendo in terms of first party sales power (and they're well ahead when it comes to TV/Film adaptation).
 
Astandahl said:
Considering their new target i actually doubt there were 2 M units in the channel at the end of December.
Are they including PS5 shipped but not yet delivered to stores?
Click to expand...
Yes, it'd include units in transit to retail and also things like inventory at vendor warehousing. 2-3m in channel is pretty normal for healthy platforms, it's an indication supply has normalized globally (though SIE still has regional issues there).

The ~2m in channel figure likely comes from Sony saying they broke 30m sellthrough as of Jan 1.

www.videogameschronicle.com

Sony says PS5 has cleared 30m sales after its ‘biggest month yet’ | VGC

Jim Ryan claimed at CES that the console is now more widely available…
www.videogameschronicle.com www.videogameschronicle.com
 
Last edited:
Do we have quarterly or LTD regional splits for PS5 hardware shipments? Want to know what the NA share looks like.

Hitting 6.2M globally would need something like 2.2-2.4M from NA, with the bulk of that being the US. We'd need like 500/600/1,000 Jan/Feb/Mar NPD result. WII 2009/NSW 2020/21 performance, and then outperformance of that outside the US because neither Wii nor NSW hit 6M in those years (despite NSW getting like 2M out of Japan).
 
  • ¥1,211.6B, at EoQ USD rate ~ $9.44B
  • Biggest holiday quarter ever for a platform holder, and its not even peak hardware/software sales for PS5 yet.
  • Still on track for ¥3,600B ~ $27B FY revenue. It seems the Bungie acquisition is still causing notable costs on OI, really curious what their margin next FY is going to be without that.
  • 20.8M 1st Party units sold, 24% of all software units sold were from Playstation Studios, is historically big as well. The growing strength of Playstation Studios is massively helping Playstation shore up the declines (game units not revenue) we see in the third party ecosystem (-19%). Bungie and their GaaS games could give them an even larger buffer or growth vector.
  • 1st party should reach 40-45M units sold FY. Impressive considering the now $70 price of games.
  • 7.1M PS5 is good, not the ideal 8M.
  • Massive confidence by Sony to increase FY to 19M. 18M was looking possible with the recent results but to push it to 19M suggests that they see huge demand.
    • I reckon there's a lot of pent up demand in Europe. It was flat YoY and notably down in UK and Spain, big contrast to US being like 40% up. Pushing it in a single Q4 is unprecedented though.
    • Bodes well for what PS5 peak sales could be.
 
Last edited:
Very good quarter for PlayStation, especially software, wow! GOW Ragnarok obviously the main contributor. 11 million copies sold already is absolutely nuts!
 
awng782 said:
I mean maybe Sony can do ridiculously massive channel-stuffing, but if they want PS5 sell-through to align with their 6.2M shipment goal for FYQ4, PS5 would need to see sales nearing holiday figures during FY3/2023 Q4 - something along the lines of 750K+ monthly sales for the US market (NPD figures) in the current quarter.
Click to expand...
we must also consider sales in europe, asia and the rest of the world, which i imagine will now reach the highest levels since launch.
in uk,france,italy and spain for example very high sales are reported, in spain in the last week they sold close to
10 000 units , something not seen in many of the past few weeks, in italy where I live ,since the beginning of the year there have been multiple restocks that were online for a long time before they were sold out and you can also buy consoles in physical stores much more easily like never before, In Japan now they sell 30-40k or more a week, this week 60k.
Then they don't necessarily have to ship 6 million, if they ship 5 million and reach 18 million which is the previous prediction , that's perfectly fine too. Is an amazing result
 
Last edited:
Amazing quarter overall. Just again highlighting the importance of commercially strong FP software.

Regarding the increase in FY forecast, it's quite shocking and ambitious. But I think they can make it.

If PS5 continues to sell at such high pace as they're predicting, then even my predictions will turn out to be conservative. Lol

I hope PS5 turns out to be the Switch of the PlayStation family, where even the most absurd sales predictions end up getting surpassed.
 
Last edited:
m051293 said:
Do we have quarterly or LTD regional splits for PS5 hardware shipments? Want to know what the NA share looks like.

Hitting 6.2M globally would need something like 2.2-2.4M from NA, with the bulk of that being the US. We'd need like 500/600/1,000 Jan/Feb/Mar NPD result. WII 2009/NSW 2020/21 performance, and then outperformance of that outside the US because neither Wii nor NSW hit 6M in those years (despite NSW getting like 2M out of Japan).
Click to expand...

NA is not where the stock is going. We know EU is very supply constrained, UK, Spain showed huge declines compared to an already supply constrained 2021. EU countries beside UK/GER were flat, while the US showed significant growth (up to 40%).

Another way to look at it is how skewed US NPD sales are:
  • In 2022, US NPD ~ 5.8M (est) -> 5.8/14.8 = 39%
  • PS4 at the same time was 33%
  • PS5 should be even lower than this considering the huge growth Playstation has had RotW.
Most of the stock needs to be sent to EU/RoTW first.
 
NediarPT88 said:
That would make France a outlier.

Overall in these countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland) PS5 sales were down 35% compared to 2021.

(Edit: in Spain the drop was around 37% according to these numbers)

And in the UK they were down 33%. Only missing Germany (in terms of big markets) but it's probably around the same values.
Click to expand...
Numbers will be avaible soon.

But this aleready give an idea:
Lelouch0612 said:
987.000 Switch units sold in 2022, 50% of consoles sold were Switch in 2022
Click to expand...

PS5+XBS 2021 : 0,8M (PS5 - 0,6M / XBS - 0,2M)

PS5+XBS 2022 : between 0,9M and 1,0M depending on PS4 sales.

With these numbers a 33% drop like others European markets is impossible.
 
A 6 million Q4 would be absolutely unheard of. I have a hard time believing they can make it to be honest. Sounds like they're setting themselves up for failure if anything.
 
Interesting forecast with the 19M. They would have to beat the best Q4 the NDS (and of course every other console) ever had to reach that number. I know that demand is still high, but I personally don't buy it.
 
With the strong demand and historic supply issues I wonder if retail are making space for larger stock holdings - would fit Nintendo and Sony's bullish outlook on hardware.
 
How many companies revise their forecast up in the last quarter of a fiscal year when there is no market pressure to?

It’s clear with this new marketing campaign with a lot of focus in Europe they are doing a mini relaunch and plan to flood the market to quickly catch up supply to demand.
 
If PS5 can sell 60k in a week in Japan I think there is no doubt they will reach the 6M forecast for Q4.
 
Undead Warrior said:
If Sony actually manage to ship 18M PS5s I'll buy a hat and then eat it. I really don't think the current manufacturing and distribution reality is going to improve anytime soon.
Click to expand...
Make it two hats now that it's 19M. April might be a good time to buy Sony stock, I guess...
 
7.1m consoles shipped.
Nice, that's more than expected.
More than PS4 first holiday season.



But WTF.
Sony has raised their forecast?
They really want to ship over 6m consoles in a non holiday quarter
Especially with 32.1m shipped and 30m sold through, you don't ship 6m more
 
Have to imagine some of that will be the traditional console market reclaiming dominance over mobile as well as Nintendo performing their role of bringing young gamers into the market.

Would be interesting to see the Male/Female split as clearly amongst younger women there is significant growth in gaming.

Very strong from Sony against some worrisome Xbox figures.
 
mbolibombo said:
Vous trouvez ça bizarre qu'ils n'augmentent leurs prévisions de bénéfice d'exploitation que d'aussi peu que s'ils ont vraiment l'intention d'expédier 6 millions d'unités au cours du prochain trimestre ?
Autres dépenses entrant en vigueur?
Click to expand...
Sony is sort of paying off its debt (BUNGIE).
 
fiendcode said:
Wow, GOW really saved their ass and then some for 1st party sales. Q1-3 comparison:

FY19: 40m
FY20: 50.5m
FY21: 29.4m
FY22: 34m

They should stay ahead of 21 if sales don't totally collapse in Q4, abundance of PS5 availability should help there though they don't have any major Q4 launches like last year (GT7, Horizon 2). Historical Q4 for comparisons with what they'll need to be targeting (10m to not be last for FYs):

FY19: 9.2m
FY20: 7.9m
FY21: 14.5m
Click to expand...

MLB The Show launches the last week of March so the end of the FY will catch some sales from that game.
 
Josh5890 said:
MLB The Show launches the last week of March so the end of the FY will catch some sales from that game.
Click to expand...
Oh right, it's earlier this year again! Last two years were April launches, that plus GOW legs, plus catalog sales with new hardware availability and maybe some minor stuff (PSVR2 games) will probably help 1st party software stay relatively high. I don't see it matching last Q4 (14.5m is crazy) but over 10m should be doable.
 
By PS5 expanding share among peers, it's not that great of a statistic if you know the context. Xbox did poorly end of last year because they had no exclusives to boost sales and switch is trending down in sales (even if it's selling at peak ps4 levels in the US). The switch has lost some sales from it's height and it's successor is coming 2024. Xbox will also do better this year if they can provide the games.

This is just PR spin for Sony imo as once switch 2 comes, it'll go back to dominating NPDs all generation so ps5 share will decrease.
 
Excellent financial results for Playstation, PS5 finally coming out of its shortage problem. If they do hit their new target in this coming quarter that would be exceptional. The sales we're seeing in Japan and Spain so far show that there is indeed much increased stock this quarter, but 6.2M for a Q1 would take exceptional sustained demand.

Also I would dispute that there was 2m units in the channel at the end of the year, anyone who follows stock would know that isn't true. Sellthrough was anything over 30M, it was probably closer to 1M in the channel, which makes it a little easier.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom