Sony forecasts higher yearly profit, but gaming sales to fall on chip costs

Sony set out a sharper profit picture for the year ahead, even as the company’s most visible consumer business faced a softer stretch. The group forecast operating profit of 1.6 trillion yen for the year ending March 2027, up 11%, while gaming revenue was projected to fall 6% to 4.42 trillion yen as console hardware sales eased under rising memory-chip costs and supply-chain pressure.

The split forecast captured the tension inside Sony’s business mix. Gaming operating profit was expected to rise 30% to 137 billion yen, helped by stronger first-party software sales and the absence of an impairment loss booked a year earlier. But that margin gain did not erase the drag from hardware. Sony said PlayStation 5 sales depended on how much memory it could secure at reasonable prices, and the company had already sold 16 million PS5 consoles in the latest financial year, 14% fewer than a year earlier.

Price increases followed the cost squeeze. In March, Sony raised U.S. PS5 prices by $100, with the digital edition moving to $599.99 and the PS5 Pro to $899.99. The company said it had secured the minimum memory needed for the year-end shopping season, but the moves underscored how a surge in semiconductor prices can reach all the way from component suppliers to retail demand.

Sony’s broader earnings engine remained intact. The new 1.6 trillion-yen operating-profit target would mark another record if reached, topping the 1.4072 trillion yen Sony reported in operating income for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025. Net income in that year was 1.1416 trillion yen. The company also announced a share buyback of up to 500 billion yen covering as many as 230 million shares, expanding on a 250 billion-yen repurchase program it had already authorized. Sony has also been reshaping its portfolio, including a plan to spin off more than 80% of Sony Financial Services.

The near-term outlook for games still depended on how quickly Sony could stabilize hardware economics and turn users into higher-margin software buyers. Take-Two Interactive has scheduled Grand Theft Auto VI for November 19, 2026, a release that could strengthen PlayStation engagement and software sales if it lands on time. For now, Sony’s numbers showed a company with multiple profit engines in pictures, music, chips and anime, but one still caught between healthier earnings on paper and a more fragile console cycle.