I'm not too knowledgable on hand helds, but they seem to be more profitable with the device itself... did Sony lose a ton with just the handhelds as well?  Also, 10 years ago was after the PS1 age, so if that incurred any losses, this 5 billion loss wouldn't include that.  Either way, I can't imagine just the PSP and the Vita lost MORE than 5 billion, so the PlayStation 2 and 3 must have never made money either.  And given how much more money goes into the consoles, I gotta imagine Sony lost the majority of their money with the consoles. 

Regardless... Sony can't handle billions of dollars in losses.  They don't make any money, they are in debt.  Microsoft on the other hand, makes more and more money every quarter/year it seems.  For them, I think, Xbox is just something to hook people into the Microsoft world so they end up getting a phone or surface or office, or the cloud later on.  It's just advertising for them.  But still, they can afford it and Sony and Nintento are both going downhill fast economically.

Yeah, Sony needs to cut the fat, starting with their mobile division. Thankfully, the PS4 hardware is already making a profit in itself, so at least Sony doesn't have to worry too much from its Playstation division. If Sony just keeps their divisions that make money, then they should do fine. The problem is that Sony gets too attached to certains things like television during the PS3 days and now, smartphones.

Uh yeeeeeah, that's why they've lost so many billions over the last half decade and continue to hang onto money sinks?

I would argue at certain points Sony are reckless and don't care about profit. Look at the PS2 era, they had a majority share, selling incredibly well, but cut $100 the PS2 when it didn't need it.

As a result they hardly made any profit that generation depsite selling 100m~ units of hardware and 2 billion software units (Nintendo actually made more money with GBA and Gamecube) Then there is the PS3 money sink.

If Sony are about making money they've got a funny way of showing it?

That was done to attempt to monopolize the market. It failed, in the end, but it had a purpose to it.

Everything they've done has had purpose. PS3 was an attempt by their other departments to push blu-ray and Cell into the mainstream through their games and the playstation brand. It was a risk to greatly increase their profits.

Electronics are big portion of what makes up Sony.  Of Sony's 140,900 employees - 101,700 work in the Electronics business segment.

As for what effects the restructuring will have it's hard to say.  They have already sold off the Vaio PC business and spun of TVs but what else are they going to do?

If you look at Panasonic's restructuring they have returned to profitability by moving towards industrial products and pursuing more corporate clients rather than focusing on consumer products and segments.  

Panasonic also cut their workforce from 384,586 in 2010 to 271,789 in 2014 (-112,797 employees), albeit a lot of them were from overseas and Panasonic is still Japan's largest publicly traded employer.  Sony has also made cuts too, 167,900 - 140,900 (-27,000 employees) in the same time frame.  

Though with Sony being so electronics focused it's difficult to say what major changes it can and should make to regain profitability.

First Quote: So, if Sony continues to downsize and let's say cut phones, and cameras.  That leads me to believe they rid themselves of a ton of employees, as well as two struggling sectors, right?  Wouldn't that have a positive effect?  I mean, sure it sucks for those employees, but if the ultimate goal is to save Sony, they've gotta do it (should've done something awhile ago too).

Second quote:  Yes, they sold off Vaio and spun off the TV's, however, they are still paying quite a bit for those two divisions (salaries and warranties, if I remember correctly), and will continue to until after the 2015/16 fiscal cycle ends, right?  So, we won't truly know how they're doing until the reorg is complete (unless I got my info wrong, of course).

Doopooooom!