Nice.

Actually, how revenue translates to profit is very straightforward, there are very simple formulae depending on the accounting standards the company complies to.

Also, it's not statistics that hide important information. It's just that there are many people that are unable to understand and interpret the numbers.

Shouldn't be too surprising. There's a reason that Sony jumped on board the pay to play online service model, despite many fans predicting they never would. It prints money. And now even Nintendo is following suit, though late to the party but also offering a much better (but lower, which impacts these numbers) price.

So they're all raking in money from their storefronts and Sony is selling more consoles, which means more gamers, which means more PS+ subs, which means more money than the others.

Ehm, not really understanding your point here...

If Company A has a revenue/turnover of 100K and 10K costs & Company B has a 100K revenue/turnover and costs of 90K then Company A is in a muuuuuch better position (90K profit) than Company B (10K profit), even though their revenues are the same.

So 'translating' revenue to profit has nothing to do with a formula, but on subtracting your costs... Unless by a formula you mean Revenue - Costs = Profit, in which case I agree. Though that would suggest that you misinterpreted my use of the word 'unknown' in my previous comment. It is not because I don't understand this basic principle but that we only know PSN's revenue, not it's costs, and therefore not it's profit, and therefore the we're stuck with the mini-skirt...

Unless my understanding of the word revenue is incorrect, in which case I apologise in advance :)

Yeah, those are the figures that matter. Having a revenue-measuring contest is kind of pointless imo...

In 2012 Amazon had a revenue of 61 billion & a profit of... -39 million...

I don't see hw that applies here or maybe you are mixing up the whole GAS thing.

This is sony revenue generated from services such as PSN....etc. So basically even sales on the PS store count towards this along with PS subscriptions.

All that is very different from GAS. And as for subscriptions, sony is obviously against multiple subscriptions existing on their platform. Its why we dont have EA access.

What you're saying makes complete sense, what we need to know is profit of the entirety of PSN for this to even mean much.

Does anybody know if we ever get net profit or operating profit for PSN specifically in Sony's Financial Reports? The Feb. 13th is when we should get that info if it's included. 

Though, my guess is it was still more profitable, but I don't mind being proven wrong. 

No, revenue is far from a unimportant figure.

Sure, Amazon loses money regularly. Netflix maybe too. But their revenue keep growing, showing that they lose money but expand their business, their customer base, their reach. It's a strategy for some companies to sacrifice the profit for the growth.

Profit is important, of course, but revenue allows you to see the "size" of the company. Surely some small online shopping companies have a better profit than Amazon, but does that mean that Amazon is losing to them? No. 

Both are important and go together, you can't say "this one doesn't matter, give me the other one".

1.  This shows why Sony's gaming division just had it's most profitable year.  Digital has much higher profit margins than physical.  

2.  This also shows why Gamestop has been in trouble.  Their alleged allies are competing against them.  Normally a console maker and retailer are partners in sales.  Not anymore, because Sony and Microsoft have their own online stores (and to a lesser extent Nintendo).  If Gamestop were smart, then would look for ways to gradually focus more on Nintendo and less on Sony and Microsoft.  The latter two are just throwing Gamestop under the bus anyway.

Would love to see an assests vs. liabilities graph too..