The Sony Group will ramp up its research and development spending as it moves further into service games and the emerging field of extended reality to blend physical and digital worlds.
Games are a significant part of Sony’s business. Earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation for the company’s game business was about R43 billion last fiscal year, up more than 60% from five years ago.
Over the last while, Sony has made a pivot from hardware as its primary focus to a more subscription-based business model. Sony is now looking to hone in on live service games that let customers purchase add-ons for titles streamed online.
According to reports, Sony will pour about R40 billion into research and development for its game segment for the fiscal year ending in March 2024. This means that Sony will spend more on games than electronics and semiconductors for the first time.
Sony recently acquired game studio Bungie and aims to leverage their know-how in the live-service industry to boost development. It plans to have 12 live-service game titles in its portfolio by the fiscal year ending March 2026, up from just one in fiscal 2021.
Alongside this, Sony has also been eying extended reality and plans to combine the resources of the nine overseas game studios it has acquired or invested in, including Epic Games, during the last two years to aid extended reality development.
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