Blog: Sony

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

How PlayStation broke its hardware and active user records in Q4

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Rhys Elliott

13 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Sony released its financial results for calendar Q4 2024. Here are the high-level results: Sony generated revenues of $27.9 billion As always, its Game & Network Services (G&NS) Segment – PlayStation – was the biggest segment (38%) Sony Music accounted for 11% and Sony Pictures for 9% of revenue share respectively We'll be focusing on PlayStation for the rest of the article.

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Are console platforms about to push smartphone-style subscription plans?

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Rhys Elliott

17 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

assassin’s creed

Diminishing returns on console generations, cash-strapped consumers, and increasing console prices might just open up a new pricing model for consoles – one in which consoles look increasingly like smartphones.

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Move over, console wars – the battle for AAA portable gaming is coming

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Rhys Elliott

25 Nov 2024

Seemingly every manufacturer in the games space is working on a portable machine. Now, Bloomberg sources claim that Sony has started early work on a portable that plays PS5 games. Microsoft’s head of gaming, Phil Spencer, has already confirmed that Xbox is working on its own portable (also per Bloomberg ).

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What would happen if Sony bought Kadokawa?

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Rhys Elliott

22 Nov 2024

Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa recently confirmed that Sony sent it a letter of intent to acquire Kadokawa (increasing its current 2% stake). Kadokawa owns FromSoftware, the developer of Elden Ring , a 25-million-selling game that became a huge cultural moment in 2022.

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Sony's $700 PS5 Pro is for superfans – it won’t really grow PlayStation’s playerbase

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Rhys Elliott

10 Sep 2024

Sony just announced its worst-kept secret, the PS5 Pro. It's launching for $700 in November 2024, four years after the debut of the original PS5. Compared to the original, PS5 Pro will offer better visuals and performance: Larger GPU with more speed : Sony says the PS5 Pro’s GPU will render 45% faster than the current model, with substantial improvements to ray tracing (three times better in some cases), a favourite of graphics aficionados CPU improvements : An “enhanced mode” will allow for more CPU power.

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PlayStation shifts lanes, letting its family-friendly ambitions known

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Rhys Elliott

6 Jun 2024

Sony’s second State of Play marketing event of 2024 has increased anticipation for the company’s upcoming game releases. The roughly 30-minute presentation advertised 14 games consumers can look forward to in 2024 and 2025.

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PlayStation’s financial results: The good, the bad, and the hopeful

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Rhys Elliott

16 May 2024

PlayStation Plus

Sony released its earnings for the 12 months ending March 31, 2024 (FY2023). As always, gaming was Sony’s biggest vertical and the heart of its cross-media strategy . Revenues grew +17% in FY2023 to $28.

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Back to the future; (Non-device) entertainment returns to the fore for Sony

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Tim Mulligan

14 May 2024

cross-entertainment strategy

Today, (May 14th) Sony Group published its results for the Fiscal Year ended March 31, 2024. Group revenues were up 19% to 13 trillion yen which amounts to USD 86 billion (in USD, this makes a more modest revenue growth of 14% for the previous 12 months).

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Helldivers 2's woes show publishers should nudge, not push, gamers

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Rhys Elliott

10 May 2024

Helldivers 2 is one of the most popular games of the year so far and has been PlayStation’s biggest PC and live-service success story to date. But PlayStation drew the ire of the game’s PC fanbase by announcing it would force Steam players to link their account to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account.

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Steam is the unlikely winner of the modern console wars – for now

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Rhys Elliott

4 Apr 2024

Thanks to console manufacturers and third-party publishers moving content to Steam, Valve now boasts one of the most diverse AAA offerings on the market, benefitting from new strategies adopted by Xbox and PlayStation.

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Embracing the cultural ascent of games: Zelda, Sony, and games-video symbiosis

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Perry Gresham

10 Nov 2023

Legend of Zelda

Gaming has been mainstream for a while, but in recent years it has started flexing its cross-cultural muscles, intersecting with music, sports, and increasingly with video . The latest example is a new live-action movie, based on The Legend of Zelda games franchise, announced this week as a collaboration between Nintendo and Sony Pictures.

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Sony is tapping its core media fusion opportunity. Here is why:

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Tim Mulligan

11 Oct 2023

cross entertainment

In March 2023, MIDiA wrote a report on the increasing media fusion emerging between gamers and video streaming. In rebooting video fandom we argued that gamers were now both shaping and being targeted by streaming services keen to expand their reach (and revenue) across the digital entertainment landscape.

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For Sony's games division, add-on content is the one to watch

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Karol Severin

16 Aug 2023

in-game monetisation

Sony reported its Q1 FY2023 results last week. The Gaming & Network Services (G&NS) segment was up 27.8% on last year. At the same time, however, operating income was down 6.83%. This segment had been selling more while operating slightly less profitably.

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What Project Q tells us about Sony’s strategic thinking?

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Karol Severin

25 May 2023

During Sony’s Showcase event last night, Sony unveiled Project Q – a handheld gaming device. It will come to the market later this year, though Sony did not specify the exact date or price yet. Project Q will enable the user to stream the games that are installed on their PS5 device over wi-fi.

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The Last of Us – when games meet video

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Samuel Griffin

26 Jan 2023

Video streaming

The HBO Original production of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is solidifying the foundations of modern expectations for games video crossovers. With the games market increasingly saturated and seemingly dominated by a handful of games, companies that are acting on the cross-entertainment opportunity have a better chance of nurturing fandom of their IP and weather the current macroeconomic dynamics.

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Can afforfable MOCAP help with VR adoption?

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Samuel Griffin

16 Dec 2022

Motion capture (MOCAP) has been synonymous with big-budget productions such as Avatar and The Lord of The Rings since their respective releases. Sony hopes to change that. Sony’s January 2023 release of Mocopi , a mobile MOCAP hardware, will allow users to attach sensors to their person and have an avatar mimic their movements on-screen.

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Will PlayStation Tournaments deliver on Sony’s hopes?

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Perry Gresham

9 Dec 2022

competitive gaming

PlayStation recently announced “ PlayStation Tournaments ”, a new on-console tournaments platform designed to centralise events. Participants can enter a range of tournaments and win prizes based on their performance – including in real life (IRL) prizes.

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The trials and tribulations of virtual reality

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Perry Gresham

26 Aug 2022

virtual reality

The new world of virtual reality (VR) has felt closer over the past ten years than ever, but is still just over the horizon. VR remains niche The main sticking point is adoption: currently just under one in ten US gamers has a VR headset, dropping to around 1 in 20 in western Europe and even less in other tracked nations (MIDiA Research survey data).

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The Morbius flop demonstrates the importance of measuring sentiment, not just engagement

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Hanna Kahlert

8 Jun 2022

its morbin time

The Marvel films franchise has been one of the most reliable box office attractions of the last decade. Thus, when the latest instalment, Morbius , was due to be released, expectations were high: the film was expected to gross around $33 million on its opening weekend, with some estimates as high as $40-50 million.

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Sony continues investing in Epic Games

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Karol Severin

19 Apr 2022

Sony continues investing in Epic Games Although Microsoft stole the headlines with its acquisition of Activision early this year, Sony is certainly not just standing on the side-lines. Last week, it announced a significant $1 billion investment into Epic Games.

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