PlayStation 4 has been one of the most dominating consoles in the market since its inception and with the passage of time, its dominance has only grown. Although other consoles like Nintendo Switch and Xbox have been its tough competitors, still it has mostly managed to be on the top. Compared to March 2017, PlayStation 4 has been the best selling console for March 2018. Keeping its success in mind it has recently been revealed in the Sony IR meeting, that this console has entered the final stage of its life cycle. Well, it could mean that PS5’s release could be sooner than we think.
Yesterday was Sony IR day and Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO John Tsuyoshi Kodera passed some really interesting statements on the present business plans of the company. Among those various statements passed he also shared some statements about PlayStation 4 and its future.
Takashi Mochizuki, from The Wall Street Journal, also attended the Sony IR meeting and later shared some of the notes on his official Twitter account.
Various other details regarding the companies business plans have been listed below as per the word of Takashi Mochizuki.
- Sony openly acknowledges problems in the growth of PlayStation VR, PlayStation Vue, and its mobile company ForwardWorks and plans to tackle each of their issues to help improve on their engagement.
- Kodera says the PSVR continues to sell, but it is doing so less than market forecast. From this point on, Sony will aim for a more realistic outlook and healthy growth in the business of the VR device.
- As for ForwardWorks, he says there has been some development and release delays, and they’re planning on improvements to make it a more efficient operation.
- As for business strategies beyond 2018, Sony will put more effort in the development and enhancement of exclusive titles.
- John Kodera: We will put in more effort into the continuous engagement with the users.
- The Vue reached its lowest dip in 2016 and has since then been improving. Sony plans on taking measures to improvie its long-term profitability.
- John Kodera: “It has been a big year of learning for ForwardWorks. It’s difficult to start brand-new IPs, not limited to ForwardWorks and PlayStation. We will continue using pre-existing PlayStation IP as the core of establishment for ForwardWorks, but we’d like to do so while managing the size of new IPs. We’ll continue pushing forward using personnel with knowledge on this point.”
- John Kodera: “As for first party investment, it isn’t necessarily only about increasing new IPs. Part of it is about refreshing current IPs, and enhancing contents by developing franchises for successful IPs.”
- Finally Kodera said that the middle management period up until March 2021 will be a period of taking a breather so that PlayStation can take a further leap.
Having said that, with the word of PS5 in the works and now that PS4 has entered its final phase of life cycle it does seem to imply that perhaps PS5 is closer than we might think off.
