Following the appointment as a new president of Sony Corporation, Kenichiro Yoshida (the successor of Kaz Hirai) spoke about the PlayStation brand revealing some very interesting numbers on the console and the various services related to it, like PlayStation Plus.
Yoshida confirms the distribution of 76.5 million PS4 consoles since launch and is satisfied with this result, in spite of the distributed units, profits have decreased in the last quarter, thanks to the excellent sales of software, in-app purchases (microtransactions) and the business of digital content, including purchases on PlayStation Store, Plus and Now subscriptions.
As of December 31, PlayStation Plus subscribers were 31.5 million, positive numbers also for the PlayStation Store, which in the quarter from October 1 to December 31, 2017, saw sales growth by 41% compared to the same period of 2016. In total, the revenues from the digital market amounted to 2.18 billion euros, an absolute record for the history of PlayStation.
Kenichiro Yoshida will be the new CEO of Sony Corporation from April 1, 2018, when Kaz Hirai will abandon his role, as announced this morning.