Sony says PS4, unlike their previous consoles, is "already contributing profit"

Speaking today at a corporate strategy meeting, Sony president Kaz Hirai said that the PlayStation 4 is “already contributing a profit on a hardware unit basis.”

Reported by Japanese site AV Watch (via NeoGaf), a Sony representative provided GameSpot a translation for one of Hirai’s most interesting statements from the meeting. “From a profitability perspective,” Hirai said, “PS4 is also already contributing profit on a hardware unit basis, establishing a very different business framework from that of previous platform businesses.” It’s a slightly roundabout quote, but that statement essentially says that the PS4 is already profitable, unlike previous console generations that are typically sold at a loss for their first few years.

This lines up with earlier comments from Sony prior to the PS4’s launch that they did not expect their current-gen console to “generate losses like they did for the PS3.”

While the strategy meeting focused on Sony’s business as a whole, Hirai also mentioned that over half of PS4 owners subscribe to the PlayStation Plus service, which lines up with previous projections earlier this year. Sony recently opened up beta invitations for the PlayStation Now game streaming service to PlayStation 4 owners, and Hirai noted that Sony plans to “introduce a new, cloud-based television service within the calendar year 2014.”

According to the AV Watch article (as translated by GameSpot), Hirai said that, given the success of both hardware sales and network services, “The PS4 is likely to generate more revenue than PS2.”

As of April, Sony announced that the PlayStation 4 had sold over 7 million consoles, though we’ll likely hear even more about the system and what Sony’s plans for further audience expansion at this year’s E3.

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