PlayStation Posts Its Strongest Quarter In Years As Sony Raises Its Full-Year Forecast, But PlayStation 5 Console Shipments Fell 35% Year-On-Year

It's time for another quarterly report across the industry, starting with Japanese companies like Sony and Nintendo. In this article, we'll focus on Sony and specifically on its PlayStation gaming division.

The so-called Game & Network Services segment posted ¥1,208.5 billion ($7.59 billion) in sales for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, up 8.6% from a year earlier. Operating income came in at ¥220.1 billion ($1.38 billion), up 83%.

That figure needs a bit of context, though. Q2 of the prior fiscal year was weighed down by ¥49.8 billion ($338 million) in non-recurring charges in the segment, most of which (¥31.5 billion, or $214 million) were impairments against Bungie's intangible and other assets. After those are stripped out, the underlying comparison is closer to 29% growth, which is still strong but not the near-doubling implied by the raw numbers.

The adjusted OIBDA of ¥244.9 billion ($1.54 billion) tells a similar story, with a roughly 23% year-over-year improvement. Even so, it's the highest quarterly operating income the segment recorded across the two previous fiscal years.

Software and Services Carried the Quarter for PlayStation

Sony shipped 2.6 million PS5 units in the quarter, down from 4.0 million a year ago, which is a 35% drop and confirms the downward trajectory of PlayStation 5 console sales. In the first half of FY26, the segment has moved 4.2 million units, also down from 6.5 million in the same period last year. Cumulative sell-in stood at 93.7 million as of March 31, 2026, bringing total PS5 sales to 97.9 million as of September 30. Hardware revenue held up far better than units, falling only 4.8% to ¥219.7 billion ($1.38 billion). Pricing actions and a weaker yen account for much of that gap.

PlayStation's saving grace this quarter was full-game software sales, which reached 88.2 million units (+7.9 million), with first-party titles up 30% to 8.2 million. Game software revenue climbed 12.6% to ¥708.5 billion ($4.45 billion), with the digital full-game line doing the heavy lifting at ¥330.8 billion ($2.08 billion), up 23%. Add-on content, such as DLCs and expansions, also grew by 4.4%.

Network Services, which covers PlayStation Plus and advertising, rose 19.5% to ¥218.3 billion ($1.37 billion). It's the fastest-growing line in the segment and continues a trend that has run for several quarters now. Monthly active users hit 127 million, up from 119 million a year earlier and the highest second-quarter figure Sony has disclosed.

Insomniac's Marvel's Wolverine has sold through 2.4 million copies as of November 4, fifty days after its September 15 launch, largely confirming previous Alinea Analytics estimates. For comparison, Sony’s own table has Marvel's Spider-Man 2 at 2.5 million on day one and Ghost of Yōtei at 3.3 million after 32 days. Wolverine is lagging behind them both, but not by much.

Sony has lifted its full-year G&NS guidance from the July outlook, moving sales from ¥4,540 billion ($29.67 billion) to ¥4,830 billion ($31.57 billion) and operating income from ¥660 billion ($4.31 billion) to ¥700 billion ($4.58 billion). That would mean 51% growth over the previous fiscal year.

These financial results reinforce the idea that PlayStation is now primarily a software-and-services business, which aligns with its unpopular decision to stop manufacturing physical discs from January 2028. At the time of writing, we have yet to listen to the conference call for any hints toward the next PlayStation console; we'll update this article if the executives share anything interesting in that regard.

Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.