Sony Plans on Investing ‘Aggressively’ in its In-House Studios

The current fiscal year has been going really well for Sony, thanks to the success of the new-gen PlayStation console. In fact, the Games and Network Service division of Sony even called this year the best one yet in terms of profits and revenue. There is no doubt about the contribution of the success of PS5 in this. The new-gen console delivered the performance that it promised and changed the gameplay experience for the better. The latest update even did a major UI overhaul.

PlayStation 5 sales had reached the count of 7.8 million sold units. It was one of the best years for PlayStation so far. However, Sony still maintains that it has been selling its new-gen consoles at a loss.

Hiroki Totoki, the CFO of Sony, talked about the company’s upcoming plans in terms of game software investment. The company’s forecast for the upcoming fiscal year says that it is expecting even higher revenue returns from first-party titles over a period of at least 11 months.

Based on this, the Sony CFO has decided to enhance its software offering. In order to do that, the company has decided to focus on investing in its in-house studios.

Further reading: PlayStation Boasts Staggering Statistics For PS5, PlayStation Plus, and First-Party Games Sales

“…in addition to aggressively investing in our in-house studios”: Sony CFO

On the investor call, Totoki said:

“We intend to increase development personnel and other in-house costs by approximately 20bn yen [$183m] year-on-year, as we further strengthen our in-house software… To enhance our software offering, we intend to continue investing in partnering with external studios, in addition to aggressively investing in our in-house studios.” (Transcription courtesy: VGC)

As for external investments, he mentioned the partnership with Haven Entertainment. External partnerships also include the recent $200 million investment in Epic games, which aims at building a ‘metaverse’.

Totoki’s statement is very close to what Jim Ryan had said earlier this month. In an interview with Nikkei, the Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO said,

“We have been quietly but steadily investing in high-quality games for PlayStation, and we will make sure that the PS5 generation will have more dedicated software than ever before.”

Speaking of first-party titles, the community is eagerly waiting for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. The upcoming title of this iconic PlayStation franchise was one of the first to demonstrate the performance of the PS5. We believe that this one will be yet another worth contributor to the expected success of Sony this fiscal year.