Sony wants to bring more 1st party titles to PC to solve its 'big problem'

Sony wrapped its Q3 2023 earnings release, and within it, there were insights into what to expect out of PlayStation 5 sales heading into this year and next.

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PS5 sales are in a gradual decline, and Sony is looking to solve one of its biggest problems at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE): operating profit. Firstly, SIE president and CEO Jim Ryan is scheduled to step down from his position next month, with Sony decidedly putting Chief Operating Officer (COO) Hiroki Totoki as Chairman of SIE until a new CEO is obtained. Totoki has been in his position for four months, and during that time, he has noticed some major flaws within the business.

Tokoki revealed those problems during a call, saying, "A big problem of SIE that I found is they don't necessarily have a deep understanding of how their work is being translated to growth, generation of sustainable profits, and higher margins for the unit as a whole," per Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki

To remedy this issue regarding margins, Tokoki said SIE needs to shift its focus from using 1st party titles as a means of popularizing the console to having 1st party titles work in synergy. Tokoki further explains that having 1st party content on other platforms, such as PC, will enable 1st party content to grow, improving operating profits.

"In the past, we wanted to popularize console, and the 1st party titles' main purpose was to make the PlayStation console popular. It is true, but there is a synergy to it. So if you have strong first-party content, not only with our console but also other platforms like computers, 1st party can be grown with multiplatform and that can help operating profit to improve. So that is another one we want to proactively work on.

I personally think there are opportunities out there for improvement of margins, so I would like to go aggressive in improving our margin performance," said Tokoki