What do you say to people who claim PS3 is turning a profit?

[binary solo]

It all depends on the context of your conversation. If you are talking about since launch then anyone who says PS3 hardware has made profits for Sony is in lala land. If you're talking more recently well who knows? Personally I think PS3 has turned the corner and is selling at above cost. However selling at above cost does not always translate into profits.

When you actually look at Sony's Q1 financials and think about the numbers for half a minute you will realise that there is no way in the world that PS3 HW sales can account for even half of the loss coming from the networked division (even independant estimates put the loss during that quarter to, at most, $45 and having shipped only 1.1 million of them thats $50 million negative revenue out of a total >$400million negative revenue). Therefore it's entirely possible that the PS3 HW sales have accounted for none of the negative revenue. Since there are massive losses happening elsewhere if PS3 is selling at a very small amount above cost then it's not going to compensate for the losses happening elsewhere.

In fact if you compare to the 2008 Q1 (with positive revenue), and if you accept the common wisdom that the per unit loss from PS3 is less in 2009 than it was in 2008, then it stands to reason that PS3 HW sales has almost nothing to do with the dismal Q1 financials.

Also are you talking about PS3 console sales being profitable, or the whole PS3 package: console, peripherals, games, PSN? There's quite a difference. And it's fairly plausible to assume that despite the console now selling at near or above cost the PS3 stable is losing money, along with other parts of the networked division.

May be the PSN is a money pit and it's dragging everything down with it.