Not even close. $176 mil profit for the quarter is pathetically low. Last quarter was $715 mil, which still pales in comparison to what Sony's been making per quarter.
Aren't you comparing all of Sony Corp vs. Nintendo here?
Ultimately Sony would prefer to sell slightly fewer PS5s and generate much higher profits.
This doesn't establish a trend that would mean PS6 would be lower than PS5. Sony is retaining their audience across generations.
Well, truthfully we haven't had enough time to establish if this is true or not, yet. One thing we DO know is that a lot of PS4 players have yet to upgrade to PS5. However, a lot of those PS4 users are still active enough to keep MAU high and I'm guessing out of what PS5s are selling some are joining the MAU hence increases.
But this is going to create another issue longer-term IMO: a problem where the baseline remains low enough to where majority of games are still targeting PS4 as a performance spec many years out. Ironically, that, like the Series S, ultimately helps Nintendo in getting more 3P AAA support, as Switch 2 will be equivalent to those systems in settings depending on how it's being used.
For SIE specifically, if that trend continues, it will naturally suppress demand for the next console iteration because even in the event PS4 support completely phases out over the next few years, PS5 will just take its place and stay around even longer while the PS6 is on the market. Now, I'm not stupid enough to say SIE aren't accounting for any of this; in fact it could be what they want in the long run as they see PS more like a family of devices concurrently on the market, targeting different customer brackets while providing cross-gen software support for longer periods of time. Essentially, what Microsoft wanted to do with Series S & X, but using those as the start of that trend while cutting off the XBO and One X, and including PC as a platform in that mix because even tho other OEMs make the PCs, they're all ultimately running Windows which is where PC gaming is dominant, and Windows is a Microsoft-owned OS.
Maybe Sony want to move in that direction but obviously unlike MS they're going to use PlayStations as those devices primarily, yet are also leveraging on PC more and more as an option in the mix, and that's where I think SIE are going to make a big mistake longer-term vs. Microsoft. Again, at least for now, PC gaming is ubiquitous with Windows on the OS level, that's Microsoft's vested interest. SIE doesn't have that vested interest and they don't even have one in terms of the storefront, because Steam is owned by Valve. Gaming on PC is just going to get easier and easier over time, with low & mid-range "good enough" options entering affordable pricing brackets via OEM systems. It's even possible the next generation of Xbox devices help in that regard, we'll see.
So, Sony could have a situation five years from now where PS4, PS5 and PS6 are all still supported platforms for release, alongside PC eventually getting all of their games (either Day 1 or within some time frame after release), but it'd be Sony's focus on PC in that equation that ends up weakening such a strategy. Like sure, a PS4 owner might upgrade to the PS5...but they may also just invest in a mid-range gaming PC instead. Sony still get them as MAU when they buy their games on PC, but chances are that user won't re-sub to PS+, they won't continue doing 3P purchases on the PS store, so SIE are still going to lose out in some area or another. Additionally, if and when such a switch happens user-side, it ultimately means a customers out of the PS hardware ecosystem, so the PS6 (for example) is going to come up short with later-term buyers because that would've-been late onboarder has already switched to a different platform. This isn't even getting into matters related to pricing.
That's not a fair comparison though, Nintendo as a whole vs Sony's game division. Has to be whole vs whole as to not be skewed.
Well by that logic people should be able to compare Microsoft Corp's total revenue & profit vs. Sony's, and somehow be able to equivalate both to just their respective gaming sides.
Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, not to mention badly skews the conversation. Sony's other divisions have little impact on SIE; SIE are the ones in the core traditional console gaming market. Microsoft Gaming are the ones in the core traditional console gaming market, not the Windows or Azure divisions at Microsoft.
Nintendo is vast majority gaming-centric, though they have some mobile spinoffs and things with Universal plus films more recently. But when comparing them to SIE or MS Gaming, people only focus on Nintendo's gaming-side affairs, as it should be.
