Sony has reported a 98.9 billion yen ($1 billion/£685 million) loss for the financial year ended March 31, 2009.
During the period company sales fell 12.9 percent to 7,730 billion yen ($81 billion/£53.5).
"Sales decreased and losses were recorded due to factors including the slowdown of the global economy, the appreciation of the yen and the decline in the Japanese stock market," said the firm.
Game division sales were down 18 percent to 1053.1 billion yen ($11 billion/£7.3 billion), primarily due to "the impact of the appreciation of the yen and a decrease in unit sales of PS2."
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However, the segment's operating losses more than halved from 124 billion yen to 58.5 billion yen ($612.4 million/£404.6 million), due largely to PS3 hardware cost reductions and increased sales of PS3 software.
10.06 million PS3 consoles were sold during the year, representing a ten percent increase. PSP sales increased from 13.81 million to 14.11 million, while PS2 sales decreased from 13.66 million units to 7.91 million.
PS3 software sales jumped by 45.8 million units to 103.7 million units. However, PSP software sales fell around ten percent to 50.3 million units, while PS2 software sales dropped from 154 million units to 83.5 million.
Sony isn't expecting a turnaround in the wider company's fortunes any time soon, as it said it expects to report a net loss of 120 billion yen ($1.25 billion/£830 million) for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2010.
Not great news, but at least things seem to be picking up for the PS3. Hopefully Sony can recoup their losses over the next few years or so. The increase in software sales is just the boost that they need.
I wouldn't expect a drop in the PS3 price too soon though.
At least sony can cope with such losses, and that also means they will be fine this time next year. Because sony are expecting greater losses this next year, so if they are expecting bigger loses and still carrying on as normal that would mean they don't think they can't cope
every big company is making losses. who cares, what is this, the financial times? well seeing its EDGE news.
and i doubt they will do worse next year. they have some good games upcoming and a price cut.
However if they do cut the price they could end up initially loosing even more unless they can drastically cut the production costs.
Sony can take it though. £1billion is a lot of money but a company the size of Sony could absorb losses like that for a few years.
One thing that is likely though is that we see a delay in the release of the next gen consoles as Nintendo, Sony and MS are not going to want to rush out a console in this financial climate so I would imagine that the R&D departments are on a go slow for the moment. However in my eyes this is a good thing, We often see the next gen consoles just as the games for the current gen ones are getting interesting. With a longer life we may see exactly what the developers can get out of the current machines.
every big company is making losses. who cares, what is this, the financial times? well seeing its EDGE news.
and i doubt they will do worse next year. they have some good games upcoming and a price cut.
we should care, what if sony decides to cut all loss making products/divisions or sell them off? i would say this is unlikely for the ps3 but stranger things have happened.
surely price cuts would only be approved if they think they will sell so many more units that revenue actually goes up? if they increased the price by £10 would they still sell as many? the only reason i can see a price cut is if they dramatically reduce the cost to produce the machines or to increase the user base significantly so that software sales increase.
It's time Sony put the PS2 out to pasture, they're not making that much from it anymore. With that price cut a few months ago they're making nothing. Kill it off, release PS2 HD games on PSN. PSN seems to be a right little cash cow for them. They'll sell well there with minimum expense and boost their online content as well.
Not great figures but could have been and was suppose to have been a lot worse.
It's time Sony put the PS2 out to pasture, they're not making that much from it anymore. With that price cut a few months ago they're making nothing. Kill it off, release PS2 HD games on PSN. PSN seems to be a right little cash cow for them. They'll sell well there with minimum expense and boost their online content as well.
Not great figures but could have been and was suppose to have been a lot worse.
They might not be selling it for much but I bet it also costs very little to make. They are most likely making a nice profit on them or they would not bother.
They might not be selling it for much but I bet it also costs very little to make. They are most likely making a nice profit on them or they would not bother.
They're making next to no profit on it. Even software sales for it aren't bringing in that much.
What I don't understand is why all their losses seem to be concentrated in this quarter. As I understand it as a whole they were profitable for the first 3 quarters, then suddenly lost 1.65B this last one. I mean the recession has been going on quite some time. Similar gaming lost $260 million this Q. On the one hand the forecast to sell 3 million more PS3's in fiscal 09 strongly suggests a price drop. On the other, 260 million gaming losses quarterly makes you wonder how they can do it. Plus, Sony are still bleeding money, so PS3's just have to be cheaper this Autumn or they'll understand what suffering really means.
Very tough quarter for Sony, last quarter they sold 2.13m PSP's. In the same quarter, Apple sold 7M iphone/itouches, with 1000's of games (many crap, but some really quite good), available from the app store. Sony and others are right to be worried about the Apple gaming threat. Additionally, MS will push hard this later this year - it's a given, they have offered a special rebate (€40), twice in Europe already, so I can't see them not doing it again late Summer/early Autumn and that could come on top of another €50 price cut.
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