I can tell you this much - I reckon Sony have been profiting with the PS3 in Australia since launch, the greedy pricks :)

The PS3 msut be doing better, simply by the fact that PS2 and PSP are in the crapper, so even if it's not making a dime, it's still not losing a butload. Sony's following M$ and rolling their gaming business with other devices makes it harder to discern the truth, especially given how well Viao were reported to have performed this season (All PCs did well because of Windows 7, btw).

I looked in several sites and it isn't clear whether the 6cent/dollar losses are only in USA or WW. But even in the worst case, normal cost reduction pace should bring it to profitability in a quarter or little more. In the best case, this means WW profitability even right now, as EU sales are quite close to US ones and EU retail price minus VAT is roughly 20% higher than in US, so largely exceeding 6%.
Right now I wouldn't expect anyone amongst Ninty, MS or Sony to cut prices in the short term, sales are good for all, considering the dead season, and imminent big releases can only better them. And only Ballmer could understand a cut just to try to damage Sony, shareholders wouldn't. Not to mention that cutting XB360 to dirt cheap price and still not only being beaten by Wii sales, but possibly just tying with the much more expensive PS3 would horribly damage XB360 image and "burn" one of the few cuts still available, that could be instead much more effective if wisely timed.

Sadly I think it's too late in the thread for that.

I know i'm too lazy to do the real legwork on that.

Well I don't think there is any 120 vs 250 ratio out their anyway is their?

In my store we probablly sold 10 120gb per every 250gb. I know it might not mean every store was like this but we only had 4 or 5 250gb for black friday and they were still there for about 2 weeks after. The 120gb we had probablly about 10 and they sold out within the hour of the door opening.

...funny thing. Going by my stores ratio it would still be about $18 per console. And now after the holiday season its probablly closer to a 20:1 ratio... since... we have only been getting 120gb and no 250gb in stock since around christmas.

Except it's 6 cents a dollar for EVERY console sold.

Such an analysis is ignoring Europe, Australia and Japan where prices vary.

Nowhere is US implied.  It is only infered by the dollar figure... which is only a natural figure to use when talking to a US investment newspaper.

Basically you'd need to use the shipment numbers... divide it by the areas they were shipped in, and the prices that were charged in each area (an unknown since some people claim retialers profit on console sales in europe unlike the US.)

It really depends mostly on whether the "markup" in europe and Australia are due to Sony or due to retailers.

I dont understand... how is it about 17 dollar loss for the 120gb and then for the exact same machine but with just twice as much space which would only cost a few dollars extra for sony but they sell it for 50 dollars more take now a 20 dollar loss... makes no sense.

If the hardware losses as implied are this low, then they must be losing money on something else. There are only 3 areas where they have big enough expenses to really lose all that money.

1. Advertising? They must be spending a lot here.

2. Game development? Face it, all HD publishers have been making losses and I doubt that Sony is any different.

3. Research and development? If they're spending heavily here, it means Console number 4 is inbound sooner than you think.

Advertising is a sink hole for dollars. HD publishers arent first party. I doubt Sony loses much here considering they get a good chunk of the money compared to third party. And R&D is very possible. Ps4, PSP 4000, Ps3 slim, PSP Go 2000 are all logical to assume are being woorked on.

They have almost as many developers as Ubisoft but they had 1M fewer sales for the month of January than them. They are infact a large publisher so they need a lot of sales to keep their teams fed, especially as they have had a stable workplace for a long time, with promotions, raises etc it costs a lot of money. In addition to this they spend a lot on technical development as well. They'd need almost as many sales as Ubisoft by comparison, and Ubisoft has the advantage of being able to release for two to four platforms.

R+D is an ongoing cost, it ramps up when they start paying other companies for technology but as a base I don't think it really diminishes as I haven't heard of layoffs going on. Im not sure what they're doing in relation to the PSP2, but they're probably working on a replacement and nearing release for this year or next year. They probably don't want to be beat to market by the DS replacement either, especially as the DS next will have a strong media capabilities as its rumoured to contain a Tegra 2 core.