PS4 Success From Spider-Man And Fortnite Raises Sony's Financial Outlook

Sony has raised its earnings outlook, thanks largely to the success of its PlayStation business. The company raised its profit outlook for the current fiscal year to 870 billion yen ($7.72 billion), an increase from the prior forecast of 670 billion yen ($5.9 billion). It also raised its revenue forecast to 8.7 trillion yen, from 8.6 trillion.

Bloomberg reports that the revised forecasts are largely the result of success in the PlayStation division. Between the record success of Spider-Man and several third-party games, PS4 is helping stabilize the company as its smartphone business faces uncertainty. This comes just after Sony previously lifted its forecast in July due to the success of God of War.

Analysts predict sales of third-party games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will help bolster it as well. Rockstar's own sales figures announced today suggest Red Dead 2 is the hit they expect. Fortnite also helped boost the brand, since spending on in-game items increased over the summer while kids were home from school, and that revenue is shared with Sony.

Damian Thong, an analyst with Macquarie Group said this will be "the best year for the PlayStation for first party games and overall profitability of the platform."

Game and network service sales were up 116.9 billion yen ($1 billion), and the company has now reached a total of 34.3 million PlayStation Plus users as of the end of the quarter on September 30. Operating profit for PlayStation alone rose 65% from a year ago, and sales for the September quarter rose 27%. PlayStation isn't the only part of the business helping Sony's bottom line, though. Roughly half of the increase is reportedly due to Sony's purchase of EMI Music Publishing.