Sony is currently making far more money from each active PlayStation user than it did during the PS4 era. According to calculations by Daniel Ahmad, Research Director at Niko Partners, Sony's average revenue per user (ARPU) has increased by 59% compared to the PS4 period.
Specifically, this figure was about 23,580 yen (approximately $230) in fiscal year 2018, and had climbed to 37,485 yen (approximately $370) by fiscal year 2025. This translates to each active user contributing about $230 (approximately 1,650 RMB) more in annual revenue than during the PS4 era.
Ahmad analyzed that this growth is driven by multiple factors: players shifting to higher-tier PS Plus subscriptions, increased spending on games, DLC, and microtransactions, as well as price hikes for the console hardware itself.
However, he also pointed out that this metric has basically stopped growing in the past year or two. But this does not affect the essence revealed by the overall trend—Sony's business model is undergoing a fundamental shift: from "acquiring new users by selling hardware" to "earning more money from existing users."
This also explains why Sony is no longer aggressively promoting the PS5 as it did before. Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki previously stated publicly that the company is no longer pursuing explosive hardware growth—when each active user contributes more revenue, the necessity of desperately acquiring new users naturally decreases.
In other words, the joke circulating online that PlayStation is a "platform for paying players" is actually not far from the truth.
Of course, this strategy comes with a cost—Sony plans to stop releasing physical disc versions of new games starting January 2028, a decision that has sparked strong dissatisfaction among some players. But regardless, the march toward digitalization will not stop, and Sony's "harvesting model" will only deepen.