PlayStation to deliver 32% returns next year, Sony predicts

Following multiple years of heavy investment and lower returns, PlayStation is expected to deliver a strong 32.2% return on investment this year.

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Sony's latest earnings results were triumphant for PlayStation, with record-breaking $31 billion revenue and $3.1 billion operating profit and a new all-time high of 125 million MAUs. Amidst the overperformance was a hefty $700 million+ impairment charge to Bungie's assets--two charges were made, one in Q2, likely due to Destiny 2's Edge of Fate missing expectations, and another in Q4, tied to Marathon's missed expectations.

It's not all doom and gloom for PlayStation, though. Far from it. Sony expects PlayStation to make even more operating profit in FY26, about $3.7 billion compared to last year's $3.1 billion. Another big overlooked metric is the division's return on invested capital (ROIC), which is exactly what it sounds like: Sony puts money in, the returns come out, and that's tracked as a %, denoting a certain level of business operating efficiency.

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For FY26, which runs through most of this year from April 2026 through March 2027, Sony expects PlayStation to deliver a 32.2% ROIC.

This is the first time in the last four years that the game segment will have broken the 30% ROIC threshold, indicating that the division will return to more streamlined operations. PlayStation's ROIC dropped starting in FY22, which lines up with 2022, the same year that Sony purchased Bungie.

PlayStation's ROIC stayed at sub-20% levels for the next two subsequent years as Sony paid down the $3.7 billion acquisition on Bungie, and made other major investments into the PlayStation brand.

It should be worth noting that ROIC measures all the capital investments that Sony makes into PlayStation, and not just acquisitions like the Sony buyout. However, Sony did also start up multiple studios that it later closed down, as well as cancelling a number of projects along the way.

What this really tells us is that Sony expects PlayStation to return to a better base of stability, at least when it comes to profit-earning efficiency.