As many of you probably know, Nintendo and Microsoft recently reported their 2007 Q4 (calendar quarter) financial results, which were quite positive - $1.2 billion Net Income for Nintendo and $357 million Operating Income for Microsoft's gaming division (Microsoft as a whole posted $4.7 billion in net income).

In about 9h30m, it's Sony's turn to reveal their own results, and this is a pretty big deal. Here's a forecast of their results from some analysts:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/sonys-quarterly-profit-seen-rising/story.aspx?guid=%7B126E2D1D-4254-450E-829A-DD2C381F4BEB%7D

The average prediction from three analysts is that Sony as a whole will have $1.73 billion in net profit.

Regarding the game division specifically, here are the relevant quotes from the article (emphasis mine):

1- Sony [...] is expected to report Thursday that net profit grew by double digits in the October-December quarter on strong sales of electronics and smaller losses at its game division,

2- Attention will also be focused on the performance of Sony's game division, its second-largest by revenue. The business has been pulled deep into the red on development costs for its PlayStation 3 console launched in November 2006

3- Analysts are increasingly pessimistic that Sony can meet its target for 11 million PS3 units sold this fiscal year through March, forecasting sales of 8 million to 10 million units instead. But they say the game division as a whole may have turned profitable on a quarterly basis for the first time since 2005.

4- "We think the segment is on its way to becoming a solid business," said Nomura Securities analyst Eiichi Katayama in a report.

5- This is in strict contrast to rival Nintendo Corp., whose cheaper Wii game console was also launched in November 2006 and has proved wildly successful.

My predictions:

Sony will show a high loss in the gaming division, due to a big price cut in Europe during the quarter, and smaller (but significant) price cuts in USA and Japan. If they lost less than $300 million I'd be quite surprised, and I wouldn't be surprised if the loss was as big as $800 million.

Software sales are still not enough to recover the high development costs of Sony's 1st/2nd party games, which won't help their bottom line either.

Regarding Sony as a whole, I'd take the other analysts word for it since I don't follow Sony's other business sections as closely as I follow their games division.

The numbers will be interesting. I expect them to post a loss for the gaming devision and report slightly higher than expected PS2 sales. I think we will also know whether sony has a chance of hitting their 11 million target for the PS3. The anticipation is building.

@NJ5

how is a million for uncharted, 700K for Hs & R & C not enough for 1st party titles costs...??

They don't have a chance of hitting that target. It's only for the current fiscal year, which added together with last year's result would mean that they'd need to have shipped 14.5 million PS3s by the 31st of March 2008. It's just not going to happen, probably not even if they launch MGS4, GT5 and FFXIII tomorrow morning.

Depends on how many copies of those are bundled, and you're not accounting for titles which flopped or titles in development right now (like KZ2), which all weigh down on their bottom line.

@NJ5

I though LAIR was the quarter before...

anyways...KZ2 shouldn't bring it down by so much...

PS3 & PSP sales have got to account for something..

You're right, I edited my post, forget about Lair. PS2 and PSP should contribute, but if they weren't enough to bring SCE to profitability in the past year, I doubt they'll be enough in this quarter. We'll see pretty soon though!

@NJ5

I agree with your latter point

but last year SONY was taking More loss on PS3's sold, were they not..

+ PSP has sole more this holiday season////

anyways in around 9.12334 hours we'll know...

NJ5 is rubbing his hands in joy just knowing there will be a loss on the Sony side.

Anyway my shot will go somewhere between 300 mill and 800 mill.

Let's see if Sony finally decides to change their PS3 shipping forecasts.