As many of you probably know, Nintendo and Microsoft recently reported their 2007 Q4 (calendar quarter) financial results, which were quite positive - $1.2 billion Net Income for Nintendo and $357 million Operating Income for Microsoft's gaming division (Microsoft as a whole posted $4.7 billion in net income).
In about 9h30m, it's Sony's turn to reveal their own results, and this is a pretty big deal. Here's a forecast of their results from some analysts:
The average prediction from three analysts is that Sony as a whole will have $1.73 billion in net profit.
Regarding the game division specifically, here are the relevant quotes from the article (emphasis mine):
1- Sony [...] is expected to report Thursday that net profit grew by double digits in the October-December quarter on strong sales of electronics and smaller losses at its game division,
2- Attention will also be focused on the performance of Sony's game division, its second-largest by revenue. The business has been pulled deep into the red on development costs for its PlayStation 3 console launched in November 2006
3- Analysts are increasingly pessimistic that Sony can meet its target for 11 million PS3 units sold this fiscal year through March, forecasting sales of 8 million to 10 million units instead. But they say the game division as a whole may have turned profitable on a quarterly basis for the first time since 2005.
4- "We think the segment is on its way to becoming a solid business," said Nomura Securities analyst Eiichi Katayama in a report.
5- This is in strict contrast to rival Nintendo Corp., whose cheaper Wii game console was also launched in November 2006 and has proved wildly successful.
My predictions:
Sony will show a high loss in the gaming division, due to a big price cut in Europe during the quarter, and smaller (but significant) price cuts in USA and Japan. If they lost less than $300 million I'd be quite surprised, and I wouldn't be surprised if the loss was as big as $800 million.
Software sales are still not enough to recover the high development costs of Sony's 1st/2nd party games, which won't help their bottom line either.
Regarding Sony as a whole, I'd take the other analysts word for it since I don't follow Sony's other business sections as closely as I follow their games division.
My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957
