Sony posts hefty losses, although its PlayStation business is not the problem

Sony posted significant losses for the last fiscal quarter, although the company's PlayStation business was not the problem. It was a 176 billion yen ($1.59 billion) impairment charge of goodwill against its mobile business that primarily caused these losses, as the company found that the fair value of its mobile business had decreased. Sony's game business actually saw decent increases in both sales and operating income, as the PlayStation 4 hardware continued to contribute to Sony's bottom line. For the first time since the PS4 launched last year, Sony included separated sales figures for the console -- usually the company combines PS3 and PS4 hardware sales together. The PS4 sold 3.3 million units to retailers during the quarter ended September 30, up compared to the 2.7 million it sold during the first quarter. The company also broke down past quarters, stating that the PS4 sold 4.5 million in its opening quarter, and 3.0 million in the fourth quarter of last year. That means that, in total, the PlayStation 4 has now shipped 13.5 million units worldwide. The PS Vita didn't fare so well. Sales of the Vita combined with PSP sales were 700,000, down from 800,000 year-over-year. Across all PlayStation platforms, Sony sold 106 million software units, up from 95 million year-over-year. For the quarter ended September 30, 2014, Sony's PlayStation business posted revenues of 309.5 billion yen ($2.78 billion), up 83.2 percent year-over-year, and operating income of 21.8 billion yen ($196.5 million), a swing from 4.2 billion yen ($37.9 million) losses. Overall, Sony recorded revenues of 1.9 trillion yen ($17.2 billion), up 7.2 percent year-over-year, and losses of 136.0 billion yen ($1.2 billion), compared to 19.6 billion yen losses ($176.7 million) year-over-year.