Sony’s Q1 earnings briefing showcased continued strong Playstation 4 sales, as we covered earlier. At the earning briefing, Sony’s CFO Kenichiro Yoshida spoke in-depth about his expectations for first party games on the PlayStation 4. (Thanks, Dualshockers.)
One startling fact: The sharp 14 percent uptick in the Game and Network Services segment in Q1 2016 was primarily due to Uncharted 4. This goes to show just how much a strong first party lineup can help a platform, something Nintendo’s thought hard about with the NX.
Uncharted 4 shipped 2.7 million copies in just the first week. With Sony maintaining consistently high hardware sales levels for the Playstation 4, Yoshida expects exclusives to drive growth. Yoshida mentioned this in the context Gran Turismo Sport. While we’re still wrapping our heads our the possibility of scoring a legit racing license just by playing the game, Yoshida’s optimism indicates that there’s real potential here. PlayStation VR pre-orders were also said to have been doing well. As the only truly mainstream VR option out there, we certainly hope PSVR does well, to hold the fort until mainstream VR solutions on PC come down to realistic price-points.