Sony released its financial report for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 and the full year 2025 today. During the earnings call, executives also answered a question about the upcoming PlayStation 6 console.
Sony admitted they haven’t decided when to launch the next PlayStation. This is due to ongoing memory shortages, which will be a key factor in their decision. They expect memory prices to stay high even next year and are looking at “new business models and products” to deal with the problem. This suggests that rumors of a PS6 delay to 2028 or even later might be true.
Now, back to the financial report. Sony’s ongoing operations brought in $82.8 billion in sales (up 4% from last year) and $9.6 billion in operating income (up 13%). Their operating profit margin improved from 10.6% to 11.6%. However, net income for stockholders actually dropped 3% to $6.8 billion.
As usual, the Game & Network Services segment is Sony’s biggest earner by sales, at $31.1 billion, and clearly the best performer in the entire company. Sales of the PlayStation 5 console reached 15.9 million units this fiscal year, beating Sony’s cautious forecast of 15 million units. However, the last quarter saw a big drop compared to the previous year: in Q4 2024, Sony shipped 2.8 million PS5 units, but this year, it only shipped 1.5 million. Overall, Sony has shipped 93.7 million PS5 units to date.
Network services (like PlayStation Plus and the PlayStation Store) drove both sales and operating income growth. Sales of games not made by Sony also went up compared to last year. Monthly Active Users (MAUs) hit 125 million in March, a record high for a fourth quarter, up 1% year-over-year. Total playtime in Q4 FY25 also grew 1% year-over-year.
The Game & Network Services (G&NS) operating income would have grown 45% compared to last year if it weren’t for a huge loss of nearly $800 million related to Bungie. On top of that, Sony had to record an additional $121 million in expenses for correcting previously recorded development costs for Bungie.
Essentially, Sony has formally decided that Bungie’s value is now less than what they originally recorded. In simple terms, this could be seen as an admission that they overpaid for Bungie ($3.6 billion) back in 2022, as analyst Michael Pachter from Wedbush Securities had suggested at the time. This seems especially clear now given the poor performance of Destiny 2 and, more recently, Marathon.
Sony also shared its forecast for fiscal year 2026. Sales are expected to drop by 6%. Sony blames this on lower PS5 hardware sales, though they expect first-party software sales to increase. However, operating income is predicted to go up by 30%. This is mainly because the Bungie loss won’t happen again, and first-party software is expected to contribute more.
Interestingly, Sony also says that G&NS operating income for FY26 will be “essentially flat” compared to FY25 (excluding one-time items like that loss) because of “investments for the next-generation platform,” meaning PS6 development costs. Aside from these factors, Sony expects profit to grow steadily at a double-digit rate. Furthermore, they said they will base PS5 hardware production on how much memory they can get at reasonable prices.
