Sony has made a remarkable turnaround as far as their online offerings go- from PSN being a joke at the beginning of the PS3 era, to the widely publicized PSN hacks, to PSN now widely being considered the gold standard for console online services, just as Xbox Live once was, Sony needs to be commended for this turnaround.
Apparently, this has also been accompanied by a rise in the revenues that they get from their online offerings- a whole lot of this has to do with PS+, to which half of all PS4 owners are currently subscribing.
“Our forecast included investment in networks. As you know, currently we have almost 52 million users and as you may know PS4 has social networking features that double or triple total traffic and sessions. That requires the network investment to handle those kind of sessions and traffic.
“As for the progress of the investment, we have been investing, but we are forecasting significant increase in the later half of the year, during the year end season in November and December, so investment in the network services will be increased in the latter half of this fiscal year,” said Sony in a briefing to its investors.
Sony also talked about the launch of the PS4 in China:
“I recognize that one of our competitors has begun business in China and we also recently made a join venture with a Chinese partner and we’re going to release a game business in China. As for the actual sales timing we haven’t decided yet,” they said.
Hurry up, Sony! If China turns out to be as important a market and battlegrond for this round of console wars as so many are speculating, then your lead may yet be reversed!