One thing I'm noting about this yen depreciation thing here is that people are pretending like Sony is only making profit because of the yen. I read in another article the same thing "Sony's sales increased 17%, but had the yen not changed, they would have slipped 3%". And "oh, it's funny to see Sony fans pretending like the yen impact had nothing to do with this"

I feel like people are really failing to take into consideration that the previous USDJPY was NOT normal. Pre 9/11, the yen was 144 to the dollar. That's almost 50% better than it is today. In ten years, the yen grew 64 cents on the dollar, from 144 to the high 70s. Now people are saying "it's only because the yen is slipping that Sony is profitting". No, you have that backwards. It's only because the dollar TANKED the past ten years after 9/11 that Sony was ever in trouble. Imagine running a huge multinational like Sony, whose primary product is luxury high end technology with low margins, and then imagine all you revenue now being worth 50% less. Of course Sony is having a hard time.

Now you might say, "oh prof, you [clever roundabout way of saying fanboy], maybe that makes sense in your world, but Sony would have still had trouble with their competitors. In the end, it was smart competition from Samsung and LG and many others who put the nail in the coffin for Sony."

*rolls eyes*

Let's take a look at why Samsung is able to price the way they do.

12 months average 1109
10 year average 1096
highest in 12 months 1163
lowest 1061

Highest ever 1707 (1998)
lowest ever 669 (1989)

Now let's look again at the yen

Average last 12 months 86
Average last 10 years 100
High last 12 months 100
Lowest last 12 months 78

Highest ever 358 (1971)
lowest ever 76 (2011)

So what can we read about this?
Well, granted that my point about the Korean Won should be already apparent, The yen has been steadily getting stronger over the years. From 1971, the JPY has fallen 250% from what it is today. In the last gen of consoles, it has fallen to a low of 30% for almost a full 3 years, that's nearly half the gen.

The average yen during ps1 was 112
During the ps2 era, the yen was 114
During the ps3 era, the yen was 94

That represents a 20% drop in revenue.
I don't have time to go through the past 7 years and add 20 percent to their revenues and find a true representation, nor would I be able to compromise for the fact that the yen allowed for a stable economic korea to move in with cheaper products.

The point is, let's be a little bit more professional about how we understand our information. There are far too many people masquerading as analysts who really need to put some perspective on the industry as a whole. The yen is but a small part of it, which, as I've demonstrated, has accounted for more than 20% of missed revenue, missed revenue that accounts for margin, missed revenue that could've been a major difference this past gen. Don't get me wrong. Sony is slimmer and faster and more well equipped than it's ever been, primarily due to the yen hurting the company so much. This just means that once the yen returns to normal, Sony is going to be in a much better position. So, there was some good that came out of it. But let's stop pretending like Sony prays to the Currency gods to make profit. Their entire business model was strangled by the world economy for a solid 10 years.