Three years in a row, and it's the most successful division by a long shot.

I wasn't trolling though. There's was an article about Sony "selling" 70m PS3's and people were saying stuff like "PS3 is now 6 million ahead of the Xbox360" and "PS3 is the highest selling console" etc. etc. I was just educating them... but the truth hurts, I guess.

I think it needs to be pointed out that when Sony sells assets they are not in fact toxic. The only reason that Sony is able to sell these assets in the first place. Is the simple fact that they are indeed profitable. They actually make Sony money, but not necessarily the amount of money that Sony needs here and now. People don't buy businesses that are losing money. In a very real sense Sony is actually running out of stuff to sell as is, and as such Sony will have to start either selling assets below their appraised value, because they cannot be sold as is, or Sony is going to have to do the unthinkable. Namely going after the divisions that actually generate the greatest profits in the company.

I seriously doubt that the investment community would tolerate the latter. They might stomach Sony selling a big factory at a ten million dollar loss. They would go nuclear if Sony started to go after the heart. Anyway selling off assets in the past was a stop gap that never really worked. They as in Sony always ended up coming up short year after year. No matter how much of their own stuff they had sold off.

When Sony gets down to assets that cannot be sold as is, or are already outright toxic. Then they are going to go into a diminishing returns scenario. Where they have to sell more and more to get the same out. While the act of selling at a loss will actually drive down the total value of the company at a ever increasing rate. I think that is part of what the investment agency is relating to in all of this. The fact that Sony is just about drawing dead. There really aren't a lot of ways for Sony to get off the track it is on, and most of those revolve around Sony coming up with a surprise hit.

I actually mentioned that Sony's largest division was Financial Services like a couple or three pages ago, when I posted, but I'm not sure how many people actually read my post or not.

That PM.....made me twitch a couple times lol.  Welcome to my world

People only see what they want to read. So, you need a chart or 2 so they can't miss it.

Can't Sony loan money to themselves? That way, they make profit from interest even if they lose money.

Everything you said, whether true or not, doesn't matter if it's not profitable in the end.

@everyone
Could someone post the chart with the yearly Playstation profits (losses) from the PS1-PS3 era ?
I hope you know which one I mean (The same was also available for MS and Nintendo consoles). I can't find it at the moment.

Well, at least they can't go any lower.

Not a fan of Sony at all, but I feel sorry for them. This is a really bad situation and is not good for Sony or the game industry. (Do we really wants to see just Nintendo vs MS? I know the chances are still low, but this market needs at least 3 players).

Does it?  Does it really?

I've gamed ... well, forever.  There was only one gen where there were three relevant players that I owned 3 consoles and that was last gen, with the PS2, Xbox and GC (and 4 if you count the DC).  While it was wonderful because exclusivity meant nothing to me, it also meant I either didn't have time or money to play a lot of games that were deserving or I didn't give the ones I did play the proper attention.  This gen I have one console and, crazily, the same things applied.

Now we have smartphone/tablet gaming too.  There's ample choice out there, but there is also the reality that it's excessive.  Because it is.

I feel bad for Sony (I was a Sega gamer, so I know where this could lead too), but they created a lot of this themselves.  Hubris is always self-defeating.  Always.