Sony announced results for fiscal 2021 that ended March 31, 2022, noting that PlayStation 5 sales fell short of company expectations.
According to Sony, it expected to sell 14.8 million PS5 units this year, but only 11.5 million were actually sold, down from its forecast of 3.3 million – which Sony predicted could happen.
Sony attributed the missed forecast to an ongoing chip shortage. That said, Sony has managed to sell 19.3 million PS5s since its release.
In gaming and network services, hardware sales rose 9.5% year over year to 840 billion yen ($6.4 billion). Additional content and software fell 2% year over year to 1.42 trillion yen ($10.8 billion), while web services increased 6.8% to 409 billion yen ($3.1 billion).
Overall gaming segment sales rose 3% year over year to 2.74 trillion yen ($21.06 billion), while operating income was 346 billion yen ($2.6 billion), up 4.4 billion yen or 1.2% year over year. The increase was attributable to improved PS5 profitability, despite being impacted by lower non-first-party software sales.
In fiscal 2022, Sony plans to increase development expenses to strengthen first-party software at its existing studios, up about 40 billion yen ($307.5 million) year over year. Its sales forecast for the PS5 is 18 million units, a figure based on what the company currently knows about parts sourcing.
