I operated based on what information I had to hand at that moment. If they sold off some of their stock in between, it probably made them a bit of money, too - SE's stock price, according to Bloomberg (I believe it's tracking Square's price before the merger) was around 2500 yen, and if they sold stock anywhere between late 2003 and late 2008, except perhaps a few months in mid-2006, they'd have made a net profit from the sale. Also keep in mind that there was more than a year of pure Squaresoft dividends to add in.

And if SE's stock is dropping pretty steadily, then it's either a good time to try to buy up more stock, or time to get out entirely. The question is, is SE going to make a strong recovery, or are they crashing? If SE aren't going to recover in the short-to-medium term, Sony probably made the right call - after all, Sony's financial position is such that short-term gain is important, for their own survival. If SE are going to keep posting losses, and their stock price is going to keep dropping over the next year or two, then Sony made the right choice, in my opinion. They can re-invest in a couple of years, if their financial position improves and SE start recovering.

$47 million dollars? Seems like chump change for a international corporation. Strikes me that Sony is continuing to trim the fat and is in the "business of selling".

Just as you made that graph I can make a graph of the ps vita needing to "re-establish itself in the handheld market and yes nintendo did lose millions with the 3ds in the beginning but  they made that up also ,3ds doesn't have to sell as much as ds to make a profit because 3ds is sold at a higher price than the ds ....3ds is a beast number 1 in hardware and software in 2013 so that money they lost in the beginning is definitely a profit now because the price to manufacture the 3ds cost is down..so every 3ds sold is a profit ....my point both companies have a product that is doing well and one that is not doing as well.....for every playstation 4 profit you have the vita losing millions and for every 3ds you have wii u losing millions ....so both have to work on their products ..lets not make it a one sided affair ....and at the end of the day hardware sales doesn't matter as much because the most money is made in software ......

I didn't make that graph, it's from VGC ^^ But you're completely missing the point. Nintendo have always used their handheld division to sustain them when their home consoles are doing poorly. With the handheld market rapidly shrinking, by this time next gen it won't be able to sustain them at a level comparable to where they are now. Hence they need to re-establish themselves in the home console market, which is where things have thus far remains stable.

As i said, neither are doomed. Both are in-fact currently doing fine. I'm merely pointing out that Nintendo's reliance on the handheld market isn't healthy in the long run. The handheld market is the one shrinking, not the home console one. Being dominant in the sustainable market is considerably more favorable than the shrinking one :P

Nintendo need to either re-establish themselves in the home console market by next gen, or watch as their profits dwindle further from a failing handheld market. Even with the PSP Sony have never been big players in that market (the PSP sold a lot of hardware, but not much software). It's of little concern to them what happens to that market. Their cards are sitting with home consoles, and in that respect things are going perfectly.

I got money in the Bank...show me what you drank...
Shoutouts G-Unit. LOL