Sony Game Revenues Up 10 Percent On Reduced Loss

Sony’s second quarter financial results for the three months ending September 30th show a 70 percent drop in overall profits -- however, the company’s games division has actually seen a 10 percent increase in revenues over the previous year. Net income for the group as a whole was down to just ¥20.8 billion ($200m). Revenues were down 0.5 percent to ¥2.07 trillion ($19.9bn). Such results were within expectations, though -- Sony warned earlier this week that the strength of the yen and the global economic downturn were having a severe effect on its business. The news for Sony Computer Entertainment was also relatively good, with revenues up by 10.3 percent to ¥268.5 billion ($2.76bn). The games division still saw a ¥39.5 billion ($405m) loss -- albeit a far more moderate one compared to ¥96.7 billion ($992m) at the same time last year. Increased sales of PlayStation 3 software were the driving force behind the improvements, as well as hardware cost reductions. 2.43 million PlayStation 3 consoles were sold worldwide over the three months, an increase of 1.12 million on the same period in 2007. PSP hardware sales saw an increase of 0.60 million units to 3.18 million worldwide. PlayStation 2 sales though were predictably down, decreasing by 0.78 million units to a still impressive figure of 2.50 million. In terms of software sales, though, a declining market for both the PS2 and PSP could not be offset by improvements on the PS3. PSP software sales fell by 0.8 million units to 11.8 million, with PS2 software sales down 14.9 million to 23.1 million. PS3 software sales more than doubled compared to the previous year, up by 10.7 million units to 21.1 million. This figure was still less than the PS2 though, for which increasingly few new titles are now being released.