PlayStation hardware, software sales decline in Q1 2009

Here's a brief summary of the financial figures featured in Sony's Q1 sales report: Everything went down. The company sold 1.1 million PlayStation 3 units and 1.3 million PSP units during this year's first quarter -- a sheer drop from Q1 2008, where the company moved 1.6 million and 3.7 million units, respectively. Overall sales for the PlayStation sector (which includes Viao PC sales) were down 37.4 percent year over year, reaching ¥246.8 billion ($2.571 billion) in sales. Sony chalked up the decline to "lower game and Vaio PC sales."

Software sales for the two systems also took a substantial hit -- Sony's PS3 software only sold 14.8 million units; a large drop from the 22.8 million first-party PS3 games sold in the same time period last year. PSP fared no better, falling from 11.8 million sold in Q1 2008 to 8.3 million sold in 2009.

The only exception to the aforementioned summary was PS2 hardware sales, which increased from 1.51 million units sold in the first quarter of 2008 to 1.6 million units sold in Q1 2009. Unfortunately, the wheels fell off the PS2 software sales wagon this year, with game sales falling from 19.3 million in Q1 2008 to 8.5 million in 2009.