PlayStation is making money on its PlayStation VR hardware at launch, Shawn Layden, chairman of Worldwide Studios at Sony Interactive Entertainment and president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, told Polygon.
"We’re making money on the VR console," he said when asked in a recent interview.
While it’s not unusual for game console creators to sell their systems at a loss initially, Sony has recently made a habit of avoiding that.
In 2014, Sony president and CEO Kazuo Hirai said that the PlayStation 4 isn’t being sold at a loss.
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"From a profitability perspective, PS4 is also already contributing profit on a hardware unit basis, establishing a very different business framework from that of previous platform businesses," he said at the time.
The same is true for the Xbox One, according to Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi in 2013.
"The strategy will continue which is that we're looking to be break even or low margin at worst on [Xbox One]," said Mehdi, according to Daily Tech. "And then make money selling additional games, the Xbox Live service and other capabilities on top. And as we can cost-reduce our box as we've done with 360, we'll do that to continue to price reduce and get even more competitive with our offering."
The PlayStation VR launched today for $399. You can read more of our conversation with Layden about the potential of the system, the launch lineup and where VR is headed in our full feature right here.
Comments
What foolish hardware company, that isn’t selling printers, would still use hardware as a loss leader?
Don’t do that.
By Lerkero on 10.13.16 4:41pm
Companies that earn $15 every time you purchase a $60 game for their system.
By xPutNameHerex on 10.13.16 9:15pm
If that $15 doesn’t justify the profit loss from hardware, then it’s still not worth the profit loss in the beginning.
There is still a large second-hand console and software market that reduces the license fee that first parties receive from the sale of new games. Sony and Microsoft mentioned many times during the 360/PS3 generation that licenses were not eliminating their hardware revenue losses.
By Lerkero on 10.14.16 9:43am
selling it with many year old glow sticks from last generation, a cheap and also fairly old webcam, and a headset that’s essentially a small monitor strapped to your head. I would hope they’d be making money. The only thing they need to recoup here is R&D to make it work.
By wizll on 10.14.16 4:53pm