Sony Says Next PlayStation Development Is Progressing as Scheduled

Sony says development of its next PlayStation platform is "progressing as scheduled." The comment came from chief financial officer Lin Tao during the company's latest financial results presentation, as Video Games Chronicle reported.

Sony also said it intends to make "solid progress" in preparing for that next-generation machine during its next business year, which starts in April 2027. A business year is the company's own reporting period, so this is the year ahead for Sony's planning.

The results also covered the current console. Sony sold 2.6 million PS5 consoles in the three months ended September 30, bringing cumulative PS5 sales to 97.9 million. Cumulative means the running total since launch.

Sony's games business grew 9% in sales compared with a year earlier. Operating income, the profit from running the business before certain items, rose 89% over the same period. Sony revised its forecasts for gaming sales and operating income upward.

Memory is another part of the hardware story. Sony said it has secured enough memory components, the chips a console uses to hold data while it runs, for its next business year. Supply of these parts matters because they go into nearly every device with a processor, and securing them early gives a company more room to plan.

On the software side, Sony said sales of Marvel's Wolverine have exceeded 2.4 million units. A unit here means one copy sold.

Sony also reported that monthly active PlayStation users reached 127 million in September. Monthly active users are people who used the service at least once during the month. Sony described that figure as a record high for September.

For players, the picture is a larger active audience and a company that expects to sell more. For the people building the next machine, the update is simpler. Sony says the work is on schedule, and the next business year is when the preparation picks up.