I can't believe that you made a topic like this on a forum that is known for its user knowledge on the meaning of sales and numbers in this industry.

If we objectively look at revenue, it tells how much money the market is willing to spend on your product(s). It helps a lot to define the "sweet spot" (the pricepoint where sales are high and total profit maximises), but in this particular case (the PS3), where Sony practically forced to sell their product at as high loss as possible to ensure console sales (in number of units) for future 3rd party support, and of course 1st party gamesales, the "sweet spot" becomes meaningless, since the isn't any.

The PS2 definately made profit, but you have to remember that the platform is dying. I believe we saw PS2:s last big christmas, so in order to offset the declining PS2 profit, Sony have a lot of work to do with PS3 and PSP.

But, for Sony, the high revenue isn't a bad thing. The high loss is.
FY 09 will be interesting on PS3:s part, since Hirai is targeting for profitability, but in the same time, Sony needs to drop the price to keep selling consoles.

Just wanted to highlight this again, because it's such an excellent point. Whenever a company starts touting "revenue" in their press statements, that means that the product is in trouble. This is not particular to Sony either; you see this in all markets and with all sorts of devices.

Whats amusing is that this topic was posted in a forum dedicated to sales numbers. That means its filled with people who generally know what sales numbers mean and what financial statements mean and who can sniff out an ounce of bullshit from a mile off.

Did you really expect us to congratulate Sony on their 'revenue'?

Is it just me or is Jandre002 getting burned really bad in this thread. He thinks the PS3 has made profit on the hardware.

This thread is a failure.

I think that's why he hasn't replied in awhile.

Really, this thread is hilarious.

I just ran a calculation based on VGChartz' sales numbers for December.

I assigned a cash value to each system, based on what it sells for currently in-store. I marked the Gamecube at $50, and the Gameboy Advance at $40 (as neither has a definitive price-point in-store anymore). Note: No matter what, the GBA + GCN prices didn't affect results. I could have given them $0 values and the results you see below would have still ended up the same.

Each system that is on the market at this point in time, I marked at the price you'll find it in-store. The PS3, as there are two different SKUs, I marked at $450, since there's no discerning which sold better - the 40GB or the 80GB.

Resulting calculations:

Sony - total revenue of PS3, PS2, and PSP = $1,804,143,850
Nintendo - total revenue of WII, NDS, GCN, and GBA = $2,091,270,320

As my calculation gave Sony over $1B more than they stated in their release, I'm definitely off with something. However, these calculations DO bring up a very... curious... question. What the heck is Sony doing here, and where are THEIR numbers coming from?

Note: My numbers are also inaccurate due to different costs of each system in the various regions, but I doubt the varying prices affect it that drastically.

Note 2: If I adjust values more in Sony's favour, with the GCN and GBA cut entirely out of the calculations, and with the PS3 having a firm $500 price-point, here are the numbers that result:

Sony -  1,924,005,750

Nintendo - 2,076,358,770

And that still leaves Nintendo quite some distance ahead. 

no one is confusing revenue for profit.

It still could be possible that Nintendo has more revenue and profit.
But they apparently don't.

We all know what revenue is. And the fact that Sony has the most revenue is not surprising.

If the cost of production was extremely low (for the PS3)- Sony would be more profitable than Nintendo.
But we all know that will never be the case.

@thetonestarr
The numbers in the report are from Sony's PR spin after the NPD report, so you would only look at NA sales.