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The story
On the 5ch hardware/industry (“geha”) board, speculation was heating up that Sony’s PlayStation business might eventually withdraw from the market or be sold off. The trigger was an apparently contradictory situation: while Sony has been reworking its relationship with Kojima Productions, scaling back disc versions, and pushing through a string of studio closures and layoffs, its gaming division’s operating profit keeps hitting record highs. The thread was split right down the middle — one camp arguing “the earnings are great, so it’s safe,” the other suspecting “those very numbers were manufactured through asset sales and cost-cutting” — and the debate expanded to include comparisons with Nintendo. It’s worth noting that there’s no actual information confirming any withdrawal or sale has been decided; this remains purely user speculation.
What people said
Right now PS is basically just cutting off its own flesh and selling it, then calling the result a profit.
Historically, this is exactly the kind of move companies make right before selling off a business, so I wouldn't be shocked by a sudden sale announcement.
Best results ever, even beating Nintendo's all-time high! So… withdrawal!
Sony Game Division Results / Nintendo Results
Year Revenue Op. Profit / Revenue Op. Profit (¥100 million units)
FY20 26,563 3,422 / 17,589 6,406
FY21 27,398 3,461 / 16,953 5,927
FY22 36,446 2,500 / 16,016 5,043
FY23 42,677 2,902 / 16,718 5,289
FY24 46,700 4,148 / 11,900 2,800
FY25 46,857 4,633 / 23,130 3,601
FY26 45,700 6,600 / 20,500 3,700
Still blindly believing that, huh.
Given how much of a mess things are, you should be questioning how the numbers look this good.
Well yeah, if you cut Kojima, cut studios, cut staff, and cut projects, of course things look good on paper.
The question is why it's come to that in the first place, isn't it?
No, think about it relative to company size.
They'll win the next earnings report and the year-end sales season too.
You always post 5-minute candlestick charts, huh (a stock-trading chart term — implying you're reading short-term noise, not the real trend).
or they get sold to China and become "Hoyostation."
Pick your poison.
There's also a good chance they get sold to some weird advocacy group and become "PoliCorrectStation."
new unit prices keep going up while trade-in prices barely move.
Guess nobody really wants one after all.
There's just nothing I want to play on it.
Even most Monster Hunter Wilds players have moved over to PC.
Better sell it off quick before the liquid metal (thermal paste) starts leaking ☺
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iPhone still has spec-tiered versions though, like the Pro or the e (what used to be the SE).
the phone business (Xperia) is already washed up,
and now PlayStation is shrinking like crazy too.
Isn't Sony just really bad at running a business?
They're just killing off the parts that don't work, like PlayStation — if anything, that's the right call.
2015 158.7 million units
2016 217.9 million units
2017 246.9 million units
2018 292.7 million units
2019 276.1 million units
2020 338.9 million units
2021 303.0 million units
2022 264.2 million units
2023 286.4 million units
2024 303.3 million units
2025 317.9 million units
You're bringing up numbers that are supposedly great, but people are worried precisely because they're cutting Kojima and killing off discs at the same time, you know?
You're exactly the kind of person who should be the most suspicious of this.
Well, there's a trick behind those numbers anyway.
If it's selling that well, then why in reality are PS exclusives shrinking, first-party titles not selling, and studio layoffs still piling up…
What's actually selling here?
Nobody can actually answer when asked which games are selling.
Unless they're counting download numbers from Chinese mobile gacha games, that is.
Guy really lives up to being "the cost cutter."
The normal move would be to start setting things up now for a launch exclusive.
Exactly, if they were planning to keep the PlayStation business going, they wouldn't cut ties with Director Kojima —
even if the project ran at a loss.
Because Sony itself knows that "Sony's own Kojima-kan (Director Kojima)" is part of PS fans' identity.
So the fact that they threw that identity away this time means something.
No one thought VAIO or BRAVIA would ever get sold off either, right?
For Sony people, profit is everything — they have no real attachment to their own brands.
If they don't see enough margin in it, they'll sell while there's still value to sell.
Honestly, I think Sony was way too slow to pull out of TVs compared to other electronics makers.
but in reality, companies that quickly bail out of competing with China, Korea, and Southeast Asia and pivot to B2B tend to do just fine.
Gaming can't really do that pivot though, so who knows what happens.
Become a platform holder and collect a cut from developers instead — that's the model.
On paper, you're no longer doing business directly with end users.
Steam is basically exactly that.
Sony looks like it'll keep riding PS5 for another 4 years or so.
You got a habit of always taking the contrarian take or something?
Nintendo's quick to cut its losses, after all.
Switch 2 isn't going to make money.
They could just as well ditch it fast and move on to the next thing.
The hype's already died down anyway, if you ask me.
Has there ever been a time with this much good news and this little of it feeling real?
Closing or selling off parts of a business shows up as revenue on the books.
Even a hopeless money-losing factory turns into sales the year you sell it, so on paper the numbers look up.
Totokin seems fully intent on running out the clock, so isn't that why he's cutting business after business?
With Steam and Epic already out there, can they really jump into that game at this point?
An ordinary person couldn't pull it off, I think, but companies do take on challenges like that.
Most fail, but as an example of one that succeeded, there's Rakuten Mobile.
Background and key points of this discussion
The backdrop to this discussion is an apparently contradictory situation at Sony’s game division: in recent years it has ended its contract with Kojima Productions, scaled back disc versions, and pushed ahead with studio closures and layoffs, all while operating profit keeps hitting record highs. The thread was split mainly along two lines. One was the divide between those who read “strong earnings” as “everything’s fine” and those who suspected the earnings figures themselves were inflated through cost-cutting and asset sales. The other was a disagreement over comparisons with Nintendo, where some pointed to Switch 2’s strong sales to argue “PlayStation will be the one to pull out first,” while others pushed back on that view. It’s worth keeping in mind that everything discussed in the thread about a sale or withdrawal is user speculation — Sony has made no official announcement. The earnings figures and unit-sales numbers cited are also based on the posters’ own tallies, not primary source material.
※This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry) thread “Could PlayStation seriously be pulling out or getting sold off?.”
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