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http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/info/electronics_141125.html

Dualshockers is doing a nice write-up about Sony's IR day and some interesting tidbits have come from them. PS4 is indeed a major pillar for Sony going forward. Doesn't look like Spider man is going back to Disney any time soon either lol...Hopefully an unbanned site does a write-up soon because there's really good info here. Andrew House laying out a nice roadmap.

During the Sony’s Investor Relations Day, Sony Computer Entertainment Andrew House gave some interesting data about the Middle Eastern and German markets for PS4 and PlayStation.

In the Middle East PS4 adoption has been four times that of any previously launched console.

On the other hand, Germany has become the number two European market for PlayStation. According to House that’s the sign of a change: the German market was previously dominated by PC gaming, but apparently now German gamers are shifting to consoles.

During the Investor Relations Day in Tokyo, Sony Computer Entertainment President and CEO Andrew House explained that the goals for PlayStation Now over the next year are threefold.

According to House, Sony wants to increase the number of client devices that can use the service, to increase the availability of the content, so that there are “really good games to play,” and to refine the consumer proposition on rental and on subscriptions.

The PlayStation Now beta launched to criticism mostly due to its pricing structure, and it’ll be interesting to see how Sony will try to improve the situation. A reasonably priced subscription plan would definitely be a step in the right direction.

Sony is holding the Investor Relations Day for the Electronics segment of the business in Tokyo, and the company also published new data on the PlayStation division.

At the bottom of the post you can see all the slides of the presentation by Sony Computer Entertainment President and CEO Andrew House.

We learn that Sony’s goal is to increase the sales of the Game & Network Services Segment to between 1,400 and 1,600 billion yen (between $11.8 and 13.5 billion), with an operating income margin between 5% and 6% by Fiscal Year 2017.

This is radically higher than the already announced forecast for the current fiscal year of 1,290 billion yen in sales, with an operating income of 35 billion and an operating income margin of 2.7%.

We get a chance to see the ratio of sales of the PlayStation division in the past Fiscal year, split between hardware and software and region, showing that the Americas are currently on par with Europe and the Middle East combined.

The strategies for the mid-term are to retain and expand engaged PlayStation users (at the moment there are over 50 million active monthly users for the whole brand), and to increase the ARPPU (Average Revenue Per Paying User) of the business.

In order to enable the first strategy, Sony wants to deliver new experiences and reduce hardware cost (presumably to reduce price in turn), acquire casual users while using strong titles to strengthen the engagement of core gamers as well, and expand the customer base with innovative network services like PlayStation Now.

Enhancing PS4′s game features to maintain and strengthen competitive advantage and targeting new markets like Latin America and China are also priorities. During the presentation House mentioned that Asia is seeing a very significant growth for the PlayStation business.

In order to increase the ARPPU, the company aims to get a higher conversion rate and improve retention rate of PlayStation Plus by enhancing its user value, to create more more demand for personalized TV, Video and Music distribution services and to increase revenue via partnerships with “best-in-class” third party services.

Finally, we see that the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers quadrupled since the launch of PlayStation 4, which is definitely an achievement.