The closer I have payed attention to sales of Video games lately, I seem to keep running into a the concept that says Sony didn't make a whole lot of profit from PSone and PS2 domination of the market.

With their brands being everywhere, and the sheer amount of titles, it almost seems ridiculous to think Sony didn't profit --significantly-- from the two systems.

I've heard rumors and rumblings about Sony barely scrapping into the black with their two systems, and yet I've never been able to find any articles or facts about this claim.

Can anyone help me out on finding information on this? It would be much appreciated.

Just read the Annual Reports on sony.com. Also, a good chance for me to peddle one of my graphs again:

Reverie,

               Thanks a bunch.

I tried to access the annual reports on the website, but I couldn't find it them. Could just be me being inept, but their investors link always timed out on me. 

Now to find out how much they made on the original Playstation...

2 bil, thats it.

 seems like its not worth it almost.

 Hus, we are in agreement on that.

If they only made 2 billion on  110 + million units plus, insane amounts of software...I think PS3 could be in big trouble. 

It explain why they are alot more serious about 1st aprty games this gen, why get $10 from a game sale when you can get $50

 PS3 will be responcible for Br success, they will make their profits that way. 

 how long did they lose money on Ps2 hardware ? 

No doubt Sony has learned that first party titles can be an ace up the sleeve when it comes to pulling in the profits.

I'm not sure on how long Sony has lost money on PS2. At $130 aren't they still losing money? Perhaps with the refinements due to the slim it has been lessened, but I was under the assumption they still took a loss on the consoles.

No doubt that Sony will make money in other markets, which is why I don't like the fact that Blu-ray is being strapped to gamers backs. As I’ve said before, Sony wants gamers to be the under-laborers for them to plow the fields for profits in -other- markets.
 
The more I learn, the more it seems that Sony has a difficult time making money exclusively in the gaming industry. Without the pseudo-multimedia machines, they can't seem to squeak a profit.

I'm sure Sony makes a profit on PS2 hardware by now. Although at $130, maybe not a huge one. They've got to be dirt cheap to manufacture.

The PS2 business should be pure profit, profitable hardware and should be lots of software with 100 million PS2's sold. So the fact Sony's game division is currently losing a lot of money just highlights how much PS3 must be losing, to offset PS2's profits.

But yeah, if they only cleared 2bil on PS2, the most succesful console ever, it really does call into question how much MS and Sony can ever hope to profit on these cyclical ventures. Of course, both companies hope to use game consoles as trojan horse set top boxes where you download movies, etc, as well.  So I guess in a way, profit can be looked at as gravy.

BTW, it's really looking like Blu-Ray is not going to win the format wars anyway...HDDVD has been coming on really strong lately. Today there was news that Wal Mart has ordered 2 million $299 HDDVD players for this fall. That's just another blow to Blu-Ray. 

I do think it's interesting if you look at the five year performance of the big three, Microsoft and Sony are nearly the same price while Nintendo is up over 100%.

yeah that's why Nintendo has to make money on the hardware, the only way Sony does well if there is alterior ways of making money, so the blu-ray in alot of ways was important to Sony. It was no longer just a source of revenue but it was ensuring the success of the rest of the company's endeavors. That's the only reason to take such a loss. microsoft too, they knew that x-box was simply going to lose them money, that was their ticket into the living room which they felt was the future, so they felt like having a stake in it was worth it.