During today's Q3 2021 earnings webcast, Sony confirmed it's planning to release ten live service games by March 2026. After many years of strict focus on single-player titles, the company is pushing heavily towards the Game as a Service (GaaS) business model.
Obviously, the fresh news of Bungie's acquisition for $3.6 billion factors heavily into this list. Other than Bungie's new game, though, Sony might be referring to the long-awaited The Last of Us multiplayer standalone game inspired by Factions, the announced projects being worked on by partner teams like Deviation Games, Haven, Firewalk Studios, in addition to Sony's internal teams like Insomniac Games, Guerrilla Games, Firesprite, and London Studio.
Sony also provided an update on PlayStation 5 sales. Global shipments have now reached 17.3 million units to date, which means the console lost a lot of ground in the last quarter compared to its predecessor. The PlayStation 4 had sold 20.2 million units in the same timeframe, though it didn't have to deal with the global chip shortage, unlike PS5.
In fact, Sony even had to revise its full-year forecast for PS5 sales down to 11.5 million units for this very reason. Here's the relevant excerpt from the quarterly financial statements document:
Sales are expected to be lower than the October forecast due to an expected decrease in PlayStation 5 hardware unit sales, primarily due to shortages in the supply of components, especially semiconductors. Operating income is expected to be higher than the October forecast due to an expected decrease in selling, general and administrative expenses.
The new forecast is over three million lower than the original one. Sony now expects to sell around 19.3 million units by the end of March, compared to the original forecast of over 22.5 million units. However, they are confident the console will be able to make up for the lost sales in the future, once the chip shortage becomes less of an issue.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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