Sony saw strong operating profits thanks to the popularity of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day film, and its game and network services division saw operating profit jump 83% in the quarter ending September 30.
But in the quarter, sales of the PlayStation 5 game console fell to 2.6 million units from four million a year earlier. Part of the problem is rising memory chip sales, which also hurt Nintendo’s quarter profits.
Sony said the game and network services division saw operating profits of ¥220 billion ($1.3 billion) in its fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30, 2026, up 83% from a year ago. Within gaming, net sales were ¥1.2 trillion ($7.5 billion), up 9% from a year ago. The operating earnings were better than a year ago since the prior year included a $765 million impairment loss tied to Bungie, which has suffered deep layoffs this year.
Across all of Sony, the second fiscal quarter revenue rose 10% to ¥3.4 trillion ($21.4 billion), while total operating income rose 45% to ¥622.3 billion ($3.9 billion).
Game sales were healthy. Game software revenue increased 12.5% to ¥708.5 billion ($4.48 billion), led by digital downloads and add-on content. Digital downloads were 78% of full-game software sales, up from 72% a year earlier. Game software sales were 88.2 million units, including 8.2 million first-party copies — with total sales up 7.9 million units from a year ago.
Sony said Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Wolverine sold 2.4 million units sold following its September 15 launch; however, sales now appear to be slowing for that title. Network services revenue rose 19.7% to ¥218.3 billion ($1.37 billion). Sony said monthly active PlayStation accounts hit a record in the quarter at 127 million, up from 119 million a year earlier.
Hardware revenue fell 4.8% to ¥219.7 billion as quarterly console sales declined by 1.4 million units. To date, the PS 5 has sold 97.9 million units since 2020. Sony has tried to offset the rising memory chip prices with its own price increases, cost reductions and promotions.
The bright spot is that Rockstar Games will launch Grand Theft Auto VI on Nov. 19, and Sony may very well be the lead platform for sales thanks to its installed base lead over Xbox. Pent-up demand for that title, which is coming out 13 years after GTA V, is unprecedented.
Following the strong software sales, Sony raised its full-year gaming division operating income forecast to ¥700 billion.