Highlighting the financial reliance of modern publishers and studios on membership programs and Add-On content, more than half of Sony’s Q1 2020 revenue came from post-game DLCs and subscriptions.
A staggering 41% or $2.29B of the revenue for the first quarter came from add-ons including DLCs and cosmetics. The second leading source was Digital Downloads, accounting for 24% or $1.37B of the overall revenue. In comparison, packaged game purchases were responsible for just 6% of the total figure.
Online services remained strong, contributing to 16% of the entire revenue for the fiscal (~$0.87B) while actual hardware units made up for just 9%. Finally, peripherals including PSVR headsets, controllers had a measly 4% share in Sony’s Q1 revenue.
Looking at these figures, it’s not hard to understand why Sony decided to come out with a Digital Only Edition of the next-gen PS5 console. After all, packaged games earned the company less money than the actual console hardware. In comparison, Digital Sales were 4x as much, holding a commanding place in Sony’s Q1 revenue stats.
