In case your world revolves across the destiny of Joel, Ellie and the Fireflies, it in all probability means one in all two issues: both you might be hooked on the post-apocalyptic tv sequence The Final of Us or you’re a monetary analyst with a “purchase” ranking on Sony.

Both approach, there are nail-biting weeks forward, particularly for chief monetary officer Hiroki Totoki who will formally be placed on monitor to go the Japanese group when he takes over as president this spring.

For long-term Sony watchers, The Final of Us symbolises the end result of a decade-long metamorphosis. It’s a company transformation carried out below two successive chief executives and set to be entrusted to a 3rd, with Hiroki’s promotion seen as the newest step earlier than he ultimately inherits the highest job.

This course of, which veteran Sony analyst David Gibson at MST Monetary describes as “exceptional”, has steadily transformed Japan’s best-known shopper electronics model right into a much less well-understood mix of specialist-hardware maker and worldwide media big.

“It has targeted on being actually good at just a few issues, relatively than making an attempt to be common at plenty of issues,” mentioned Gibson.

It’s the concentrate on the media enterprise, say analysts, that defines the brand new Sony, an organization that has constructed globally important positions in a broad vary of leisure genres at a time of pockets tightening and because the battle between rival streaming providers intensifies.

Within the first 9 months of the monetary yr ending subsequent month, 48 per cent of the group’s working income got here from video games, music, movies and tv. Analysts anticipate that ratio to climb to greater than 56 per cent within the monetary yr that ends in March 2024.

Those self same analysts, historically obsessive about Sony’s TV gross sales and fluctuating competitiveness in cellphones, should now comb media information for critiques of Spider-Man motion pictures, the excitement round trailers for TV reveals based mostly on Sony video games and the record-breaking streaming numbers of Mariah Carey’s hit music “All I Need for Christmas Is You”.

Amongst Sony’s strongest new fits is its globally dominant place within the distribution of Japanese anime cartoons — a enterprise that has been considerably expanded each financially and geographically by the arrival of streaming providers.

Bolstered by the $1.2bn buy of AT&T’s anime streaming service Crunchyroll in late 2020, which now has 10mn paid subscribers, the group has constructed what is usually understood because the world’s largest portfolio of anime.

Consequently, Sony has adopted an “arms seller” technique — distributing titles throughout a number of rival streaming platforms to maximise income.

“When it comes to proudly owning the IP and distribution for animation, Sony owns most of them,” mentioned Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal. “They’re making all the best strikes in video video games, animation and TV. They’re now primarily a media firm.”

Sony’s anime technique has advanced at a crunch second. Through the pandemic, in accordance with figures produced by the Affiliation of Japanese Animations, Japanese anime unfold extra extensively to audiences outdoors Japan.

The newest figures accessible in 2021 present the worldwide marketplace for Japanese anime grew to a file excessive ¥2.7tn ($20bn). Estimates produced by SkyQuest Expertise Consulting, and utilized by a number of Sony analysts to tell their very own forecasts, recommend that the worldwide anime market is now rising at about 10 per cent a yr and will attain a worth of $47.14bn by 2028.

Extra importantly, nevertheless, the market outdoors Japan represented ¥1.3tn of that 2021 whole. Within the intervening months, say analysts, the steadiness may have shifted definitively in favour of the worldwide market and, for the primary time, anime will make more cash abroad than in its home market.

However The Final of Us, mentioned Macquarie analyst Damian Thong, marks an vital subsequent step within the transformation, wherein Sony is ready to leverage its totally different media companies to higher revenue from its mental property.

The Final of Us was first launched as a 2013 PlayStation recreation from one of many firm’s in-house studios, across the time the marketing campaign to reinvent Sony started.

The title grew to become a broader video games franchise that bought 37mn copies — a fan base that assured a major international viewers for the present, even earlier than it had been made. The TV present, at present being streamed by HBO within the US, was described by Thong in a word to shoppers as “presumably the all time online game adaptation for tv or cinema”. Others have dubbed it “Sony’s Sport of Thrones”.

The impact of its success, Thong mentioned, would now elevate expectations for the long run TV outings for the various different blockbuster video games titles that Sony’s personal studios have produced. These embrace Horizon Zero Daybreak, which is being produced for Netflix, and God of Conflict for Amazon Prime Video.

“Now, Sony in all probability takes a bit of my spending each time I take heed to a Conflict music or watch The Boys on Amazon,” mentioned longtime Sony watcher Pelham Smithers. “If I had been a Spider-Man fan, they’d in all probability take a small fortune off me this yr, with all of the Spider-Man universe product out throughout movie and video games.”

However Smithers sees loads of areas of threat for Sony. Its shares, although greater than 10 occasions greater than they had been in the beginning of the transformation course of in 2013, at the moment are 21.5 per cent decrease than they had been on the finish of December 2021, when the inventory reached a 21-year excessive. The autumn follows considerations that chip shortages had been delaying the rollout of its flagship PlayStation 5 console and that shopper spending on video games usually would fall post-pandemic.

It’s towards this background that Totoki shall be promoted to president and chief working officer from April. Amongst buyers, the 58-year-old finance chief had lengthy been thought-about the pure successor to chief government Kenichiro Yoshida, with the duo enjoying a pivotal position in stemming a decade of losses on the group’s shopper electronics companies.

Totoki, a maverick identified for his position in establishing Sony’s on-line banking enterprise, has already signalled that he’ll implement Yoshida’s total technique. However whereas the group is forecasting file income for the present monetary yr, Totoki shall be tasked with navigating a slowdown within the international financial system, geopolitical dangers and local weather challenges.

“I really feel a robust sense of disaster that we’re on the point of whether or not we will benefit from the speedy development in expertise . . . to drive additional progress or face disruption,” Totoki mentioned at a information convention this month.

Minami Munakata, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, mentioned she anticipated the transformation course of to proceed below Totoki and that working income from the mixed leisure companies would account for 61 per cent of the full within the 2026 monetary yr.

“We consider buyers are conscious of that transformation, so one of many main debates is easy methods to worth the corporate,” she mentioned.

Though there’s ample alternative for extra The Final of Us-style synergy between divisions sooner or later, Sony has nonetheless been gradual to unleash that. MST Monetary’s Gibson says the corporate dangers being left behind due to its legacy companies.

“Prior CEOs have spent billions on small R&D tasks and concepts, on the lookout for the following huge factor or the following Walkman,” he mentioned. “Innovating for a $120bn firm that’s materials could be very laborious.”