Over 40% of PlayStation’s Revenue in Previous Quarter Came from DLC and Microtransactions

During their recent quarterly financial brief for the first quarter of the current fiscal year (April 1 – June 30), Sony revealed that the bulk of revenue for their PlayStation division (their Game and Network Services division, as they call it), came from add-ons (via Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad on Twitter).

To be more precise, 41% of their net revenue came from microtransactions in games and from purchased expansions and DLC via the PlayStation Network, amounting to $2.29 billion. Meanwhile, 16% of the revenue (amounting to $0.87 billion) came from subscription services, including PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now.

24% of the revenue (or $1.37 billion) was attributed to digital sales of games. Digital sales have been steadily increasing for all companies of late, especially in this previous quarter (the pandemic has likely contributed to those boosted numbers significantly). Console sales and physical software sales collectively make up for 15% of the net revenue.

Sony recently also confirmed that the PS4 has now shipped 112.3 million units worldwide.

Here is a breakdown of Sony's Game & Network Services net revenue by segment for FY20 Q1 (Apr 1- Jun 30).

Console Hardware: $0.52bn / 9%
Packaged Software: $0.35bn / 6%
Digital Software: $1.37bn / 24%
Add on Content: $2.29bn / 41%
Subscriptions: $0.87bn/ 16%
Other: $0.23bn / 4% pic.twitter.com/Vx0nwaL6ZE

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) August 4, 2020

This was the best quarter ever in terms of overall network sales too, boosted by increased game sales, add on content sales and subscriptions across the board.

74% of full game sales in the quarter were digital too, up from 53% last year.

No wonder there is a digital PS5. pic.twitter.com/kNpNkQizdK

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) August 4, 2020