The PlayStation 4 has been killing it. The console sold 5 million units over the holiday and is on track to hit 100 million before either the PS2 or Wii did in their lifetimes when launch-aligned. Pretty much everyone can agree the PS4 is a major success, but the problem is that the success is not growing fast enough, and that makes investors nervous.
Shortly after Sony disclosed its quarterly earnings this past week, Sony’s stock price fell a whopping 8.1 percent, the highest decline since 2015 for the company. While there were complaints about Sony’s flagging Xperia phone sales, the real concern was centered around the gaming division and its sales growth. While the PS4 continues to do extremely well, its growth over previous years is not high, which is a recipe for making investors unhappy.
To add to that, investors are concerned about the lack of scheduled software to move units this year. Sony hasn’t tipped their hand about what will make it in 2019 yet, with titles like The Last of Us Part II, Death Stranding, and The Ghosts of Tsushima being undated at this point in time. Even if the PlayStation 4 sells 18 million units again this year, investors don’t see any 2019 games that have been announced so far as making the platform sell 20 or more million units.
The declination could just be reactionary from investors or it could force Sony to readjust plans for the PlayStation 4’s successor. Either way, with no PlayStation presence at E3 this year, Sony is staring down the barrel of 2019 hopefully ready to fire back at some point.
[Source: Bloomberg]
