Published in Gaming

PlayStation software margins leaked

by on29 June 2023


Revealed when scanned

Sony's highly confidential information about its PlayStation business was revealed by mistake during the court battle between the FTC and Microrosft.

Sony supplied a document from PlayStation chief Jim Ryan that included redacted details on the margins Sony shares with publishers, its Call of Duty revenues, and even the cost of developing some of its games. However, when it was scanned the redacted bits were revealed in their full glory. 

The court has scrambled to remove the document, but the damage is done; reporters and Sony's competition have already downloaded all the documents while they were in the public domain.

Ryan’s unredacted letter suggests CoD represented $800 million in PlayStation revenue in the United States alone, and $1.5 billion, right? — worldwide.

Those players represent way more money to Sony than that, though: Ryan says CoD players spend (what looks to me like) $15.9 billion per year, on average, on everything else they buy.

The document shows that Horizon Forbidden West apparently cost $212 million over five years with 300 employees, and The Last of Us Part II cost $220 million with around 200 employees.

The paper shows that a million PlayStation gamers play nothing but Call of Duty. In 2021, more than 14 million users by device spent 30 per cent or more of their game time playing Call of Duty, over six million users spent more than 70 per cent and a million users just played the game. In 2021, Call of Duty players spent an average of 116 hours per year playing Call of Duty. Call of Duty players spending more than 70 percent of their time on Call of Duty spent an average of 296 hours on the franchise.

 

Last modified on 29 June 2023
Rate this item
(3 votes)

Read more about: