Sony's game division finally turns a profit -- sells 4.9M PS3s in Q3
By Thomas Ricker 
posted January 31st 2008 2:18AM
posted January 31st 2008 2:18AM
After bleeding red for months, Sony's games division finally turned a profit last quarter. Sony sold 4.9 million PS3s last quarter after slashing console prices, boosting game titles, and cutting production costs internally. Of course, we're sure Wii shortages aren't hurting Sony's bottom line either. Sony did lower its annual sales goal of PS3s from 11 million to 9.5 million (citing a slow start) while increasing PSP projections to 13 million from 10 million as originally expected. Sony's fiscal year ends in March. Overall, Sony's profits rose 25% for the quarter. Welcome back to black Sony, it's been a long time coming.
This is good news. The PS3 really is a great piece of hardware. With Haze/Killzone 2/MGS4/Little Big Planet/etc all coming (fairly) soon, I think this year just might be the year of the PS3.
I read these comments about the PS3 all the time, "PS3 doesn't have many good games" I'm not sure how many of you are under 18 year without a real job/life (not bashing at all, just making a point) but I can't really focus my attention to more than one or two games at a time anyway. Like right now even though I have about 8 games and no desire to buy any new ones, all I play is COD4 and Guitar hero3 and I don't really even get to play those as much as I really want to.
Having a job and not enough time to play games is not a very good justification for the PS3 having a couple good games and nothing else. I'll admit that the selection is getting better, but is still far behind the 360.
I think you are all missing the point: it turned a profit in Quarter 3 of 2007, that does not mean it is profitable as a console overall. They still have to make up for all the bad quarters they have had before it. Also the 40 gig and 80 gig versions are still on the old 90nm process, meaning costs have not come down that much.
Also, the consoles themselves are probably not profitable yet, considering 1) the processors and 2) the new, smaller blu-ray modules are not out yet. Once both of those combine, the consoles will be profitable. I think the main reason for profitability was sales of accessories (PS3 labled HDMI cables, controllers, games and Blu-Ray movies).
Like someone else mentions, this says nothing about the PS3 being profitable, just the Games Division (so royalties on games and such, like I mentioned above, could've drove this).
I still expect it to be quite some time before all the losses incurred to get to this point are made up for. The Xbox 360 at least has Xbox Live to keep itself in the black, that division has by itself been profitable for some time I bet, just the consoles themselves hold Xbox back.
And to $100 made on the 80 gig PS3: bullshit. Original costs on 90nm processors exceeded that of the sell price of the console by over a hundred dollars, I doubt even with internal cost cutting that the console is now profitable, given the price slashing we have seen.
Also, this seems to be a statement about just the US division, considering I seem to remember reading someplace that Xbox 360 shipped 1.2 million devices in Europe in January, and PS3 sold 1.3 million.
What I mean by that is that the 4.9 number would only be US, wouldn't it? Ah god, im all high right now aren't I?
And for those of you that are saying that the PS3 is leading the 360 in worldwide sales...
XBOX 360 - 17.7 million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Sales
PS3 - 10.49 million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3#Sales_and_production_costs
atta boy Sony!. Now all that remains to be done is just to add the dualshock3 controller and drop the price.
The games DIVISION turned a profit. That does not mean it was because of the PS3. Reduced production costs of the PS2 (which outsold the PS3) probably contributed heavily.
@alok1228 (Tried to reply directly to him but site wouldn't let me.)
They are not saying the PS3 has passed it (yet), but what they are saying is the PS3 over the past three to five months have been outselling the 360 on a worldwide scale. Q4 Sony sold 4.9 Million PS3's to Microsoft only selling 4.3. The PS3 is now less than a million away from the 360 in Europe and I'm not going to mention Japan. The only place where the 360 is still having great success is the US.
i own both a ps3 and a 360. Whilst the ps3 might be a loss to sony, it is brilliant for a gamer nethertheless.