Despite its powerful hardware, the PS4 at $399 is already turning a profit for Sony, something it desperately needs given its financial insecurity.
Kaz Hirai announced the news during Sony’s latest corporate strategy meeting. During his presentation he emphasized that the PS4 is following a very different business strategy from Sony’s previous PlayStation products, one that is sustainable and introduces far less risk (i.e. PlayStation Plus is now mandatory for online play increasing the subscription count).
In contrast, the PS3 took four entire years of revision and improved manufacturing efficiency to become profitable, a fact that is true but hard to believe given its $599 debut price. During that time it sold over 40 million units and dug Sony a $5~ billion hole. It has earned back some of that with four years of a profitable PS3, but still has a long ways to go.
Considering a lot of the profits of a console come from software, Sony has some room to play. If there were ever a situation where Nintendo, Microsoft or another business began to eat up its market share, it can realistically drop the price of the PS4. But really, given its continued demand, it’s unlikely that’ll happen any time soon.
Sony has looked positive lately after some major changes in structure and strategy, but has been in a tough financial situation for several years. It lost $1.27 billion during the last fiscal year, which thankfully had nothing to do with the PlayStation brand. If anything, more emphasis will be placed on marketing and supporting the PS4 in order to make it as profitable of a division as possible.
[Via: Impress Watch Headline]
