Sony has revealed detailed information about its future PlayStation business plans. In a recent business update for the PlayStation, Hideaki Nishino, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, spoke about his plans to continue his overall strategy with regard to game releases.
According to Nishino, Sony will release games on PS5 focusing on single-player stories and hope to continue its current strategy of bringing these games to PC and bringing them to PC at least a year later. But despite this, the company was specific saying it had no multi-platform release strategy.
Rather, according to Nishino, PlayStation mentions that its strategy of releasing games on its own console and that PCs are “multi-device.” It is worth noting that PlayStation games don’t usually appear on Xbox or Nintendo consoles. Nishino also noted that PlayStation will continue its strategy to release at least one AAA TentPole single-player game in one year.
He also revealed that the PS5 is doing very well for Sony. The current console generation is considered by the company as the most successful and profitable. Advances the “multi-device” strategy, PlayStation says it will focus on “consoles and beyond.” The phrase Beyond refers to games that will eventually be released on PC and PlayStation Peripherals like PlayStation Portal.
PlayStation also wants to continue its plans to adapt the game’s properties to a variety of mediums, including anime, television shows and films.
During this business update, Nishino also spoke about what the future of the PlayStation would look like. When answering questions about whether cloud streaming will affect the company’s future, he noted that despite the large technology, network stability could still be an issue.
“As we demonstrated with (our) products, cloud streaming is going well from a technical standpoint, but the stability of the end-to-end network is not under our control,” says Nishino. “And the higher costs per playtime are still a challenge compared to traditional console models.”
“While cloud gaming is increasingly offering additional options for players to access content, our belief is that the majority of players want to experience the game through local execution, independent of network conditions.
Returning to the “multi-device” strategy, Nishino also noted that the previous generation of PS4 still has 124 million active users.
“We currently have a large ecosystem of extremely enthusiastic players on both the PlayStation 5 and the PlayStation 4th generation. So of course we have a big interest in the next generation console strategy,” Nishino said. “We can’t share details at this stage, but the future of the platform is the best. We’re working to explore new and enhanced ways for players to join content and services.”
SIE SVP Lynn Azar from Finance and Corporate Development also spoke about the multi-device strategy regarding the future of the PlayStation. “As Nishino said, we are still exploring what the future of our platform looks like,” Hazard said. “Therefore, we cannot provide further guidance on future operating profits, but we would like to re-emphasize that our financial profile as a business has evolved alongside our strategy.”
