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On 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyō G” (general live-commentary) board, a post citing Sony Group’s ¥12.4796 trillion in revenue and ¥1.4475 trillion in operating profit sparked a comparison debate with Nintendo. When one user objected that “it’s unfair to compare Sony Group — which also has real estate, insurance, and banking businesses — with Nintendo, a pure gaming company,” another pointed out that Sony’s gaming division alone posted ¥4.42 trillion in revenue and ¥600 billion in ordinary profit. The thread then swung toward claims that “Sony still wins by a mile” and that “the PS5 hardware is struggling while the Switch 2 is outselling it,” eventually touching on differences in accounting methods and expectations for the PS6.
What people said
Revenue: ¥12.4796 trillion
Operating profit: ¥1.4475 trillion
Sony's got its hands in real estate, insurance, banking, you name it.
If you want to compare them, compare the gaming divisions, no?
Nintendo's content business is huge too though
Real estate, insurance, and finance aren't consolidated subsidiaries though, so they're not actually counted in Sony Group's revenue
Revenue: ¥4.42 trillion
Ordinary profit: ¥600 billion
[Grim news] Nintendo, a company that ONLY makes games, gets totally crushed by Sony's gaming division — which is basically a side hustle for them
Their gaming division is raking it in, holy cow
Wait, isn't a big chunk of that mobile/gacha games revenue?
At this point you can't really call Sony a Japanese company anymore
It's a globally successful company Japan can be proud of though
It's headquartered in Tokyo and the CEO is Japanese, but it's still not a Japanese company…?
Digital game software
DLC and additional content
Network services like PlayStation Network
Third-party game software
Hardware
and more, all lumped together
So this is NOT "PS5 hardware sales" alone
Huh? Isn't that obvious?
Most of the revenue comes from the US and Europe anyway
PlayStation's business is run out of America at its core
The majority of shareholders are foreign investors
It's just not the same company it was back when it was a Japanese electronics maker
Too bad Nintendo couldn't sell big worldwide too, huh
How does that make it "not a Japanese company" though? lol
It reads more like a Japanese company competing on the world stage, which is something to be proud of lol
And if "majority foreign shareholders" is your bar, then is TSMC not a Taiwanese company? Is Samsung not a Korean company? lol
So basically Microsoft wins in a landslide
It's a bit concerning that over a third of both revenue and profit comes from the gaming division though
They keep growing their share and it's getting rock solid, so isn't that a good thing?
Spider-Man was a massive hit after all
Meanwhile in reality, the Switch 2 is already peaking out in its second year
Selling worse than the 3DS, which once needed an emergency price cut
Oh, this is a unit-sales-based graph
With the shrinking child population and a steep ¥60,000 price tag, I don't think this graph means all that much
Might buy one if the price drops
The general mood is that a PC and a Switch 2 are enough, and it's getting bashed worldwide for going disc-less
The number of haters right now is insane
Sounds salty lol
If you want PSN you've got no choice but to buy a PlayStation
Sure the PS6 will be stupidly expensive too, but a PC costs even more if you want AAA titles — so really it's less about PlayStation and more about whether the gaming industry as a whole puts out software worth paying for
Honestly, hard to say how much they can differentiate it from the PS5
There seem to be plenty of users who'll just stick with the PS5 until it dies, even more so than with the PS4
Blame Famitsu (the magazine that compiles Japan's weekly sales rankings)
For a console in its sixth year, moving 7,000 units a week domestically is pretty impressive
It's not some toy that only sells as many units as there are kids
Most of Sony's profit comes from PSN
Talking about hardware vs. software is outdated at this point
Sony takes a cut of every sale made through the PS Store, after all
That's right
And then they pay royalties back out of that revenue to those unrelated games
It's what's called "net accounting," so both revenue and expenses look inflated, but profit is just revenue minus expenses, so you can still compare it on the same footing as companies using gross accounting
FH6's (Forza Horizon 6) PS5 release date has been confirmed
People were saying it might not even come out, but guess the release date's locked in now
Background and Key Points of This Debate
This kind of “Sony vs. Nintendo” comparison is a recurring topic on 5ch’s console-war (“geha”) threads, and the sticking point is almost always what unit of comparison to use. Sony Group is a conglomerate spanning film, music, gaming, and more, and its real estate, insurance, and finance-related businesses aren’t consolidated subsidiaries, so they aren’t included in its reported revenue. Nintendo, by contrast, is a pure gaming company, so putting the two side by side starts from mismatched premises in the first place. As pointed out in the thread, Sony’s gaming division uses “net accounting,” which folds in revenue from third-party software — so while the top-line revenue looks huge, expenses balloon right along with it, meaning profit is the real figure to compare. It’s also worth noting, as the thread mentioned, that the Switch 2 launched in 2025, making 2026 its second year — and how you read its sales trend (unit-based vs. revenue-based graphs, and how you factor in the shrinking child population) can shift the picture considerably, a nuance readers can easily miss.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyō G) thread “[Breaking] Sony vs. Nintendo: The Data Has Finally Settled This Once and for All lol.”
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