Sony Prepares for Life After Game Consoles

As Sony forecasts its sixth loss in seven years and struggles to keep its internal files out of the hands of hackers, its lone bright spot is its gaming division. The company has sold about 15 million PlayStation 4s in the year since its release, regularly outpacing rival Microsoft’s Xbox One in the $44 billion console-gaming industry. But as the PlayStation franchise turns 20 this month, Sony is preparing for a post-console world.

The company says one of its top priorities in 2014 has been buying servers and expanding its cloud networks to make sure it can reliably stream high-bandwidth games through PlayStation Now, the service it introduced over the summer. Players using PS Now don’t need to own any Sony hardware beyond a game controller or two: The service relays its 200-odd titles directly from a data center to a player’s TV, which doesn’t have to be Sony-made. “If you look at other forms of entertainment and the dramatic impact streaming has had on those, that says to us that there’s clearly a strong consumer satisfaction with the instant gratification that’s provided by streaming experiences,” says Andrew House, president of Sony Computer Entertainment. “We think that has a role to play in the future of games, as well.”