| HappySqurriel said: According to Sony's own numbers ( http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/08q4_sony.pdf ) the operating loss of the gaming division for the year that ended March 31st 2009 was $529 Million ... I think that it is reasonable to assume that the PS2 and PSP in hardware and software sales are (at least) breaking even, which would imply that after software sales were considered for the PS3 Sony was losing $50 for every console they sold. Even if Sony was profitable at this point in time on combined PS3 software and hardware sales, their numbers alone tell me that they're (probably) still losing a lot on each PS3 they sell. |
Isn't this naive? I mean, you assume that game division=PSP+PS2+PS3, thus if PSP and PS2 are breaking even, then each PS3 is causing a loss?
Actually we know that each PS3 is sold at about $40 loss, thus it brings profit with software and accessories. Hey, if I assume that PSP is breaking even, then it must mean that the PS2 is losing them a lot of money!
But in reality the game division finances are probably weighted by fixed expenses, needed to keep up the whole personnel and service infrastructure, and by development expenses for things like the new digital distribution on PSPgo etc. Some of these expenses can hardly be split cleanly between the consoles: where do you account the PSN or the PSP/PS3 integration? What about the PS3/Mobile one?
The most likely reality is that all consoles at this point are profitable when you combine hardware and software. They're just not profitable enough to cover structural and R&D expenses, with the exchange rate of yen and the declining sales of the PS2 line being the main culprits. Saying that "they are losing a lot on each PS3 they sell" looks like the result of simplistic and wrong deduction.
