Sony is the latest company to reveal its quarterly report and when it comes to the PlayStation division, the outlook is not all that positive.

This as Reuters reports the company having contrasting fortunes on its hardware and software sides of the business for Q1 of 2022, which looks at April to June in particular.

To that end, PS5 sales were up slightly at 4 percent for the quarter, with 2.4 million current-gen consoles shipped compared to 2.3 the previous quarter.

The same could not be said for the software element of the business, which saw a massive 26 percent drop. This is not all that surprising given no significant PlayStation-exclusives released in that time and its new PlayStation Plus subscription model has flattered to deceive.

Added to this is Elden Ring’s dominance in terms of new games released so far in 2022.

As a result, Sony has revised its annual profit forecast down 16 percent as it expects game sales in the coming quarters to be similarly slow. The company is also factoring in the recent purchase of Bungie, with a deal to acquire the studio having now been finalised for $3.7 billion.

While it looks like some leaner times are ahead for PlayStation, its issues are symptomatic of the larger gaming industry struggles as The Verge points out, with Microsoft too recording a fall of 7 percent in its overall gaming revenue.

Like PlayStation, the company cites a change in customer behaviour as a result of the pandemic and people not being indoors as much to consume gaming content. We saw a similar trend as regards streaming as well, with Netflix reporting a sizeable shift from subscribers.

It therefore looks like many a PlayStation hope will be pinned on God of War Ragnarok to paper over any cracks when it releases in November this year. Either way, the method the company employs for delivering content needs a rethink.