Sony says PS5 is now in the latter half of its life cycle
Sony is changing its strategy for the PlayStation 5 as the console moves deeper into the later part of its life cycle. The shift comes nearly six years after the PlayStation 5 launched in November 2020.
Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki said the company is no longer focused on “aggressively” selling the PS5, arguing that the console has reached a stage where the company can put more attention on earning money from its existing players. “We are in the latter half of the life cycle for a PlayStation console,” Hiroki Totoki said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in August this year. “That means that we do not need to ‘aggressively sell’ the console today,” he added. Sony’s focus is now moving from selling more consoles to increasing recurring revenue from its large PlayStation user base, according to Totoki. During the WSJ interview, Totoki said Sony does not need to push PS5 sales as aggressively as it did earlier in the console’s life.
Instead, Sony is looking at ways to generate more recurring revenue from people who already use PlayStation products and services.
He said the service now has more than 125 million monthly active users, making its existing customer base a major opportunity for Sony. Totoki pointed to PlayStation Plus as an important part of that strategy. Sony’s comments suggest that services and subscriptions are becoming increasingly important to the PlayStation business as the PS5 matures. Rather than relying only on new console sales, the company wants to increase the value it gets from its existing users. PlayStation Plus offers access to online multiplayer, games and other benefits across its subscription plans.