I believe 2013 overall was profitable but it's operating income was negative

can someone make a graph? Do you have these number on spreadsheet?

The numbers for both Sony and Microsoft are incorrect.

In fact even the Nintendo numbers are wrong which shouldn't be possible given their numbers are easily found via their investor relations site. 

Neither Sony or Microsoft report revenue and profit figures solely for gaming.

/thread.

There's so much accounting voodoo in effect with modern corporations that EVEN IF the ONLY things MS and Sony did were gaming, it would STILL be hard to get a totally accurate view of P&L, Assets, Depreciations, various holdings, debts, and investments (CDS, CDO, etc). It gets even more confusing with Mark to Market accounting, which basically can 'predict' accounting values for the purposes of taxation and disclosure, but can be incorrect if market conditions and other corporate realities don't follow what was expected (this is somewhat hilariously known as 'FAIR VALUE' accounting, and is arguably a key component of the subprime mortgage crisis).

I'm not even kidding. Even with the SEC and other regulatory bodies, along with tens of thousands of pages of laws and regulations related to corporate finance, fiduciary procedure, etc, true transparency is the last thing on the minds of your average CFO. The name of the game is manipulation.

The best we can hope for is generalizations, and the worst can be MUCH much worse : hiding huge losses, gambling on the market with shareholder equity, criminal activity, and so on.

Just out of curiosity, what else is included in Sony's G&NS segment? I always figured the "Network Services" part just referred to PSN, PS Now and similar, which I'd consider gaming, but then of course, I just assumed so, I don't really know.

why does it stop at 2011? we re in 2015 now almost 2016.

What was the point of having the chart go all the way back to 1981, if Sony and MS didn't even having real gaming divisions until 95 and 2001, respectively? Although, MS did have some Windows games before that, and Sony used to have Sony Imagesoft, which mainly made NES and SNES games.

Nah mate, game had it's wholly separate segment from it's inception til the end of Fiscal Year 2008. It was then included in a segment called "Consumer Products & Devices" for Fiscal Years 2009-2011, before it got it's own division again in 2012 (and we also got results from the game segment for FY2011), which, at the start of Fiscal Year 2014 was renamed "Game & Network Services". I'm guessing what he means is that "Game & Network Services" includes something else than just Playstation, I'm just not sure what else that is.

MSFT fiscal year ends in June. I know since I used to work there, but it is stated here too: http://www.microsoft.com/investor/InvestorServices/FAQ/default.aspx

But to everyone commenting on the accuracy of the graphs: yes, they are pretty accurate. No, they are not directly comparable for gaming profitibility. 

Nintendo's numbers are pretty much spot on (although inflation over so many years is killer), but Sony's numbers aren't PlayStation specific until recently. They are of the whole division PS belongs to. So yes, the losses/gains probabily indicate losses/gains for PS during those years, the actual amounts could differ greatly since other departments could be bouying/weighing down PS. MSFT is the same Sony, but even their new numbers aren't Xbox specific.

Things we CAN take from this chart: Nintendo made buckets of money, Sony and MSFT aren't hemorraging money lately. Each is a win.

This thread was necroed from 2011 :p