SIE Head Hiroki Totoki Cites Strong First-Party Titles On PS5, PC “And Other Platforms” As A Key To Improving Sony’s Operating Margins

Since the departure of Jim Ryan, it’s been Sony’s chief operating officer, Hiroki Totoki, stepping in as temporary head of Sony Interactive Entertainment while a more permanent replacement is chosen.

While he has the job though, it’s clear that Totoki isn’t idling while the company is busy choosing the next guy. He’s been making some big statements, and seems to have made another one by identifying first-party titles on PS5, PC “and other platforms” as one of the keys to improving Sony’s operating margins for its games business.

During Sony’s fiscal year 2023 third quarter reporting, specifically the Q&A portion, Totoki was directly asked what he believes are the “keys” to improving operating margins.

In response, Totoki cited that while the company is currently struggling to improve margins due to manufacturing costs for the PS5 not going down, he looks to first-party games as a big driver.

“Another driver will be first-party titles. Strong titles that achieve growth on PS5s, PCs and other platforms will widen our margins. We believe that we have opportunities for margin improvement and intend to pursue them aggressively.”

The big question obviously is what does Totoki mean by “other platforms?” An easy guess for anyone paying attention to the industry is that by “other platforms” he means mobile devices and cloud platforms.

Sony’s previously talked about strengthening its mobile and cloud offerings, so this is likely what he means. It’s doubtful he meant PS4, since that generation is almost in the rear view save some third-party titles, and entirely in the rearview for first-party games.

Of course we shouldn’t leave out PlayStation VR2, even if it feels like Sony often does from its public talks. It could be the case that a big push for the new VR headset is coming. However because all PS VR2 games are PS5 games, perhaps that’s all lumped together.

There’s also the fourth, much more wild option that he means Sony will begin to look at bringing some of its games to Xbox and Nintendo platforms. Unlikely as it is, especially when it comes to the big first-party stuff, this could be an avenue for multiplayer offerings to come.

Source – [Sony via Genki_JPN on Twitter]