Nintendo may be doing well on its own merits, but Sony has pulled ahead to ridiculous degree at this point. Thanks to the company’s foresight in investing in services such as PSN and PS Now (which seems to be doing very well for itself too, incidentally), it seems like Sony is now reaping major financial rewards in addition to how well their console is already selling.
For instance, consider this—in 2018, PSN made more money than Nintendo made across its entire hardware, software, and services divisions put together. This observation comes from analyst Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners, who posted it on Twitter.
What this goes to demonstrate is how much digital sales and services will be cornerstones of revenue generation going forward, and how well Sony has tapped into that market already. Nintendo has been late to the party on the services and digital monetization front (as a second graph shared by Ahmad on Twitter demonstrates), but at the very least, the company is now attempting to make amends. Nintendo has recently launched Nintendo Switch Online, a paid service that already seems to have 8 million subscribers. Now to see if they can capitalize on this going forward.
Meanwhile, congratulations to Sony for tapping the pulse of the market as well as they clearly have.