Sony profits dip, games division way up

OK, Sony fans, there's good news and there's bad news, which do you want first? ... Bad? OK. Sony's profits from April to June dropped to ¥34.98 billion ($326.9 million), which is about half as much as it made during the same period last year. (Ouchers!) The problems came from the lack of a big summer hit like Spider-Man 3, poor performance from Sony Ericsson and other factors.

So what's the good news? Well, the video game division (earnings dead weight for quite some time) actually battled back to put up ¥5.4 billion (around $50 million) in profit after PlayStation 3 shipments rose to 1.56 million, a far cry from what we were hearing last October. It ... lives!