Sony's latest earnings call confirms that it's now focusing on "the transition of PS4 users to PS5 users", which seems to suggest that most of its future games won't be appearing on both generations like God of War Ragnarok.
Over the past week, Sony's marketing has been making one thing very clear – it's now easier to get a PS5 than ever before. At the start of the week, it shared a new advert which (aside from seemingly teasing a new Uncharted game with a different protagonist) told everyone that PS5s are in stock everywhere and no longer tough to find.
This was compounded by a PlayStation Blog post that once again highlighted that Sony has increased supply of the PS5 after the holidays. In the blog, Sony thanked its fans for their patience as they "navigated unprecedented demand for the PS5 console amid global challenges", ending the statement by reminding everyone that they should have a "much easier time" finding the console at retailers.
Alongside the TV spot and blog post, PlayStation also posted a video on its YouTube page advertising all the reasons why players should upgrade from a PS4 to a PS5. That, combined with the blog post and advert, has made it pretty clear that Sony is aiming to move its active playerbase from the PS4 to the PS5, which is a different strategy compared to what it was doing as recently as two months ago.
If you had any doubts that this is what Sony is aiming to do this year, it outright confirmed it in a financial call that was shared earlier today (thanks PlayStation LifeStyle). In the financial call, Sony notes that the "engagement metrics" of those who moved from a PS4 to a PS5 (including things like gameplay time, PS Plus subscription rate, and average spending amount) were higher than those who had just played a PS4. Because of this, Sony is looking to "continue to focus on accelerating the transition of PS4 users to PS5".
Sony also notes in its summary of the financial call that it believes it has "created positive momentum to re-accelerate the growth of the game business centered on the expansion of the penetration of PS5". All of this makes it clear that Sony is putting a lot of effort into pushing the PS5, both for those transitioning from the PS4 and those who have never played one.
This is a remarkably different strategy than what the company was doing last year. Two of its big exclusives, Horizon: Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok, were both cross-generation games, with some criticism levied towards them for potentially holding the titles back. With Sony now pushing the PS5 even harder in its marketing due to stock issues being mostly resolved, it seems to indicate that we won't be seeing many more games on both the PS4 and PS5, except for a few outliers that were announced more recently like Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6.
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