Playstation makes Sony £3 billion

PlayStation continues to do the business for Japanese electronics giant Sony.

For the third quarter ending 31st December 2014, Sony's Game & Network Services division, of which PlayStation is a part, brought in a whopping 531.5bn yen, or £2.9bn. G&NS generated more revenue than any other Sony division during the quarter.

That made for a "significant" sales increase of 16.8 per cent year on year, primarily due to PlayStation 4 sales boost.

6.4m PS4s were sold during the quarter. The same quarter the previous year, 4.5m were sold. Earlier this month Sony announced the PS4 had sold 20.2m units globally.

But the "favourable" impact of foreign exchange rates and a "significant" increase in network services revenue (that'll be all those PlayStation Plus subscriptions) also helped.

Not everything PlayStation prints money, however. Decreased sales of the ageing PS3 and PS3 games had an impact, as you'd expect.

With such high sales, operating income increased to £153m. There was a £62m write-downof Vita and PS TV components as both of those products continue to struggle sales wise. But Sony benefited from a comparison with the same quarter last year, during which it recorded a £34m write-off of PC games relating to PlanetSide and EverQuest maker Sony Online Entertainment. Sony recently sold the developer.

Sony forecasts 17.5m PS4 and PS3 combines sales for the 2014 financial year, which ends March 2015. That's up from its previous forecast of 17m. Its 3.5m sales prediction for portables (PS TV, Vita and PSP) remains the same. It expects software sales of 420m, up from the previous forecast of 390m.

For Sony as a whole, it was a positive quarter. Sales were up 6.5 per cent and operating income was up 104 per cent. But it still expects to report a net loss - its sixth in seven years - for the current financial year.

The pressure has been on Sony boss Kaz Hirai for some time now to return the iconic Japanese company to something approaching its former glory. Sony recently announced a new business strategy, which it hopes will help the gargantuan company swing to profit over the next few years. PlayStation is central to the plan.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-03-17-playstation-just-brought-in-3bn

Sony not dead yet.

Sony is doomed...

Lol Sony has been not dead yet for a good while now, yet still doomed.

bb bbb bbbut sony is doomed

No doubt. Its a long haul, but I have been saying since last gen they can turn this company around.

I hope they do turn it round, the electronics industry, as a whole, would be very different (not in a good way) without them.

Besides the games industry needs competition to stay somewhat healthy

They are putting all their eggs in the Playstation basket....so they better make money or Sony is DOOMED

Playstation makes Sony £3 billion

Not bad ! closing that black hole in Sony´s pocket is closer.

"Bu..bu..bu..Sony isss doomeddd!!"

Lol.

Btw their stock has gone up quite a lot in a year.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/sne/interactive-chart?timeframe=1y&charttype=line

They had a decent quarter,theyre still reporting a loss,Sony is just a shadow of its former self with everything its lost and sold off and its not over yet.

And they still got no games.

RIP Sony

Approx 225Mil in profit for the quarter then. Looks like they are gaining some ground back on market cap. Software sales should coalesce with quarterly earnings better as entrenched userbases become more active as well as a big schedule for third party software sales will bring in tidy licensing profits. Hardware has less of an impact on these things than software sales do. Sony likely took a small bath on The Order but will recoup profits with other titles this quarter.

Sony has no clue why the PS4 is selling. They're still boned unless they get the contract with Google to provide the optics for the google cars.

Good on them.

#1 console in the market today folks.

For American users: That's about $4.3 billion.

Though are they still in the red?

God I hope they don't go under. I love my Sony HDTV and it's worked flawlessly for 5 years now.

Hell, we bought a top of the line model Vizio and the remote fucking sucks.

mandatory sony is teh doomed.

lems lied to me again.

Congrats to Sony.

You dedicated one paragraph to talking about Sony and then spend the rest on being butthurt about pc gaming.

There there, it's ok

The Lemmings prophecies continue to be incorrect.

Meanwhile the Xbone is in last place with Microsoft investor's breathing down their necks.

Not to mention the continued inferior multiplats with lower resolutions, even after the continued false sense of hope with DX12.

@inb4uall: most likely they will they are the biggest player in the optics field work 40% marketshare if Google didn't pick then probably apple will.

But apple isn't looking for someone to fill a massive optics contract.

As much as we can complain about the lack of power in these new consoles, it was the right decision by both MS and Sony to make sure these consoles made money from day one. No more OG Xbox + PS3 sinking money like crazy during their first years. In Sony's particular case that was a decision that is really paying off (MS can easily "survive" even if the XB1 doesn't make them any money).

Now, if only I had money to own some stocks.... :P

It's a lot to assume the gaming and network services division is healthy just because it has an $2.9 billion in revenues, as Sony's operating income is marginally razor thin when those revenues get taken into consideration, like only 2.9% last I heard, which means that their operating income on those seemingly high revenues is only $84 million. And, my guess is when that $2.9 billion is taxed, it's gonna be a lot more than $84 million.

There you go - self-owned in your own thread.

Playstation is definitely making Sony money. They're not out of the woods yet, since a loss is still expected.

Self owned? Wut? Just reporting the news Lem.

Looks like it's mainly down to PS4 users been forced to pay to play online.

And LOL Vita.

Anybody else find it strange they're only now delivering a quarterly fiscal report that should have been delivered two months ago?

@cantloginnow: Actually every division is starting to turn profit. If it wasn't for mobile they would be doing great.

with no games lol....congrats sony...shame on everyone else.

Not surprised, lol. I've seen quite of few of his posts. He also tends to White-Knight Sony a lot with walls of text.

Anyway, congrats PlayStation division, Now where is my The Last of Us 2? **** Uncharted.

I'm not trying to sound like a fanboy here, but I'm really glad to hear that Sony might be doing better.

They are a company that makes some pretty great products, while some of them are real duds (like the PlayStation Tv which had so much more potential and instead they shot it in the foot, and the PSPGo! which was a few years ahead of its time for sure.) in terms of features, they certainly don't disappoint in terms of quality.

@inb4uall: Well as far as I know apple started to invest in self driving cars and SONY is there optics provider for iphones so they could pick them for icar too

I knew apple was getting into cars. I didn't know they were doing self driving ones. It makes sense I guess.

PSPgo is one of my favorite Nintendo systems. :D

@Salt_The_Fries: The net loss is solely from a write down in the mobile unit. Overall they are doing much better.

Do you play Nintendo games on your PSPgo?

I have everything that was worth playing on the SNES, NES, GBA, GBC, and GB. Along with PSP and Psone games of course.

I love people who think revenue = profit.

The actual profit is pretty so-so. Not in a deathly state, but not groundbreaking either.

Eventually PS will outlive Sony as a brand