Sony forecast game segment sales down 8% and operating income up 16%, before tariffs, in May 2025

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, from public records. Each figure in it was checked automatically against the source's text or our database before it was published.

On May 14, 2025 Sony Group filed a Form 6-K, a report that a company based outside the US files with the SEC, attaching the slides for its earnings announcement. In them Sony forecast that sales in its Game & Network Services (G&NS) segment, counting sales to Sony’s other segments, would fall by 370.0 bln yen, or 8%, in FY25, to 4,300 bln yen from 4,670.0 bln yen, and that the segment’s operating income would rise by 65.2 bln yen, or 16%, to 480 bln yen from 414.8 bln yen, both before the estimated tariff impact. Bln yen is Sony’s shorthand for billion yen; FY25 is its label for the fiscal year after the one ended March 31, 2025. Sony attributed the lower sales to fewer hardware units and exchange rates, offset by higher software sales, and the operating income gain to first-party software.1^,2^,3^,4^,5^,6^,7^,8^,9

For FY24, the year ended March 31, 2025, Sony reported G&NS sales of 4,670.0 bln yen, up 402.3 bln yen, or 9%, from 4,267.7 bln yen, and operating income of 414.8 bln yen, up 124.6 bln yen, or 43%, from 290.2 bln yen. Sony put the effect of exchange rates at 170.0 bln yen of the sales increase and 0.2 bln yen of the operating income increase, and credited non-first-party software sales, add-on content included, and network services, while lower first-party software weighed on both. Segment operating income is stated before intersegment transactions are eliminated and excludes unallocated corporate expenses.3^,10^,11^,12^,7

Sony said monthly active users across PlayStation rose 5% year on year in the fourth quarter of FY24. It defined the figure as an estimated total of unique accounts that played games or used services on PlayStation Network in the quarter’s last month.13^,14

For continuing operations, which leave out the Financial Services business, it forecast operating income at 1,380 bln yen before an estimated tariff impact of 100 bln yen and 1,280 bln yen after it, against 1,276.6 bln yen in FY24 for Sony without Financial Services, a figure that is not an IFRS measure. Sony said it expected to manage the tariff impact on profitability to approximately 100 billion yen, and that the actual impact could vary significantly if tariff policy or other factors changed.15^,16^,17^,18^,19^,20

The slides also covered the partial spin-off of Sony Financial Group planned for October 2025, which Sony expected to bring a considerable one-time loss, recorded as a loss from a discontinued operation, with no impact on operating income and net income from continuing operations. Sony described the treatment behind that loss as a reclassification between items within equity that would not affect total equity. These are Sony’s forecasts and plans of May 14, 2025; how FY25 turned out and whether the spin-off went ahead are outside this account.21^,22^,23^,3