This is why reading the financials is fundemental to understanding.  Sony specically states that the Game division LOST 7.7% in a 3 month period and 9.6%  in a 6 month period, both ending Sept. 30, 2011 (30/9/2011).  Granted, the loss that SCE suffered was the least of the Consumer Products and Services division, but their loss was greater than half of the total revenue of the Professional Device and Solutions division, and it could completely erase all of or the majority of the Music and Pictures divisions revenue.  So it IS a substantial loss.

Sony is the one who attributed their losses to the price cut.  Sony is stated that they suffered losses in related to their gaming business in their financials.  This has nothing to do with anything being taken out of context, it has to do with facts. 

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/11q2_sony.pdf (Page 20 of the PDF / Page F-8 of the document)

Thismeintiel doesn't even understand the meaning of impossible, and you expect him to swallow this?

Again, wrong!  Read my response to thismeintiel. 

1.  You didn't search Sony's financial statement.  If you did, you didn't actually use the right criteria or actually look through the document to find the information.  It's there, as I posted.  Page 20 in the PDF of F-8 in the document.

2.  There was a 7.7% loss for the quarter (attributable to the price drop as per Sony's financial outlook) and a 9.6% loss for the year up to that point (two quarters in Sony's fiscal year).  A loss cannot offset losses in other divisions, it only adds to them.

Why did this thread turn into people talking about financials?

That is an excellent question, actually.  I can only speculate as to the answer.

I think Sony feared that if the Xbox 360's success in North America continued unabaited it would lose any hope of capturing the hearts and minds of buyers.  Not to mention, at the time, there was considerable talk that Microsoft would lower their price by $50 - $100.  I think Sony's price drop was not only pre-emptive, but was done to ensure relevancy with consumers. 

I'm not saying that PS3 sales would have whithered away to nothing, just that it may not have been able to have as strong of a finish as it would have wanted.

I don't think sales goals are as big of a deal to corporations as they are to fanboys.  The latter use them as rallying cries, the former as an expectation based on market conditions at the outset of the financial calendar year. 

For whatever reason, Sony put unit sales over profit.  My guess is to do something like that, especially when you've just began earning profit on that system, was a major decision.  They saw something they didn't like, not that they really wanted to reach 15 mil. in unit sales. 

It's the continuation of the core/casual debate that started the derailment a couple of pages back.

One more week... the gap will end at ~200k (PS3 favor).

The discussion turned from being about whether or not the Xbox 360 will overtake the PS3 in 2011 world-wide sales, to the PS3 wins, to me putting that "win" into perspective.  That is, if Sony wins it ends up being a hollow victory at best because they're losing money on every PS3 sold due to the price cut that is driving sales.

It's called changing the goal posts to suit ones arguement.

It's fact.  It's reality.  Whether someone understands it or not doesn't matter.  It exists.  If they decide to try to comprehend it, accept it, and embrace it, life will be a lot easier.