The stellar holiday quarter of Q3 saw significant player growth for Sony’s PlayStation Division.
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One of the most important metrics in the games industry is the MAUs. This data is used by a variety of game developers and publishers, including Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox and many others, to assess the health of a platform. It can be either subscription-based, such as World of Warcraft, or more general F2P levels like Fortnite or Warzone. The MAUs are a useful tool that can instantly determine the popularity of a particular platform. This affects engagement and spending.
In Q2 (July-September 2022), Sony experienced a drop in PlayStation users. MAUs fell to 102 millions, which marked a sequential decline in userbase from Q3 2021. The dramatic turnaround in the gaming division occurred in Q3 2022 when it reported its largest ever quarterly user base. Holiday earnings at $8.8 Billion: The best ever. Other important milestones were also associated with this historic earnings increase, such as a significant growth in the number of PlayStation monthly active users.
5Sony reports that PlayStation’s MAUs stood at 112,000,000 as of December 31, 2022. This is an increase of 10,000,000 users quarter-over-quarter.
This was the last time we saw this level of significant MAU growth. It was Q3-Q4 FY19.
5It’s interesting to note that Xbox MAUs actually outnumber PlayStation’s. Microsoft previously stated that Xbox MAUs had reached an all-time high at 120 million. However, we aren’t sure how Microsoft came up with these numbers. The figures include all platforms that have access to Xbox games and content, including consoles, smart TVs, tablets, smartphones, tablets and mobile phones.
5After a drop of 1.9 million subscribers in Q2’22, PlayStation Plus subscribers have stabilized. PS Plus now boasts 46.4 million users, an increase in subscribers of 1 million since Q2. Our research shows that the majority of PlayStation Plus users are not signed up for it.
Partly, the increase in MAUs can be attributed to Sony’s hardware boom. Sony sold 7.1 million PS5s to consumers who were eager to purchase during the holidays. They bought: In Q3, Sony made more than $3 billion in hardware sales.
So, what does this all mean? Sony’s PlayStation platform is expanding on all fronts, as key segments of the games industry suffer from declining revenues year-over-year. This execution is a result of significant investment and infrastructure/logistics planning and may not be sustainable for longer periods of time, however the PS5 platform on-ramping has been interrupted by COVID-19 production chain issues and Sony very much wants to get as many PS5s on the market as possible.
Once the install base has stabilized, the real moneymaking starts. These games are free to play and AAA titles cost $69.99 each.
