Sony Eyeing Network Services to Drive PlayStation 4 Sales: CEO

Hirai said gaming was the one area where Sony would chase higher unit sales even as it puts profitability ahead of sales volumes across the rest of its electronics division, where losses from TVs and other devices have pushed it into the red.

While the company is forecasting growth for the troubled TV unit, which notched up a tenth straight year of losses in the year ended on March 31, Hirai said it would be able to make a profit even if sales were flat with last year.

Hirai also said at a meeting with reporters that network services - such as PlayStation Now - that offer streamed games, music and movies, would be an important driver of growth across Sony's product categories. The business made 200 billion yen ($1.96 billion) in 2013/14.

The Japanese giant had at a private event recently announced that hundreds of titles will be available via PlayStation Now for PS4 gamers at launch, and had previewed the PS3 title Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception streaming on the PS4 console, while demonstrating Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus on PlayStation Vita.

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Sony announced its PlayStation Now game streaming service in January, meant for mobiles, tablets, TVs, and its game consoles - specifically the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation. For the PS4, the feature is a critical one, giving owners of Sony's latest game console a way to play PS3 game titles - and essentially bringing the much-requested backward compatibility feature. The service, when launched later this year, will enable gamers to also stream PlayStation games to a variety of platforms, such as select Bravia 2014 televisions, as well as Sony smartphones and tablets.

Currently, the PlayStation Now game streaming for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles is in private beta, with the console announcing the extension of the beta to PS4 only last week. Sony had at last week's announced also added that its PS3 Private Beta for PlayStation Now programme had been running successfully, with testers logging more than 50,000 gameplay hours till now.

Notably, Valve, with its Steam game distribution system, launched Steam In-Home Streaming for games earlier this month. The feature allows Windows gamers to stream their games onto a variety of PCs (running Linux, Mac, SteamOS or Windows) in their home, as long as they are connected on the same network (wired recommended) and support the Steam client.

Sony's Gaikai-powered version of game streaming differs greatly from Valve's, with the game being processed remotely in the cloud with PlayStation Now, and not at the user location.

Written with inputs from Reuters