Sony just announced its financial results for the quarter ended on December 31st, 2013 contrary to what many expected they are in the black.

The company earned 22.979 billion dollars in net sales, generating an operating profit of 860 million dollars and a net income of 257 million dollars. The year-over-year increase in sales was 23.9%.

That said, the game division earned 4.207 million dollars in net sales with a year-over-year increase of PS4 Pushes Sony’s Earning in the Positive: Hardware Sales 4.2 Million, Software 9.7 Million, +64.6%, while the operating income was 172 million dollars.

The upturn in earnings was mostly attributed to the successful launch of the PS4 in North America, Europe and Latin America, alongside the positive exchange rate between yen and dollars and good sales for smartphones.

Regarding the core businesses, strong hardware and software sales of the PlayStation 4, which was introduced in the current quarter, were recorded in the Game segment. The mobile business, which includes smartphones and tablets, had a significant year-over-year increase in sales and a significant improvement in operating results, and has been contributing to profits since the first quarter of the current fiscal year.

In Game, the PS4, which went on sales outside on Japan in November 2013, got off a strong start, selling 4.2 million units of hardware consoles and 9.7 million units of software titles in the six weeks after launch. There was also a dramatic increase in the number of members of PlayStation Plus, Sony’s subscription-based network service. Moreover, Sony is pursuing the diversification of profit drivers, including the announcement of the launch of PlayStation Now, a streaming game service that utilizes cloud technology.

According to the presentation slides the 4.2 million units sold before the end of the year is confirmed, and 9.7 million software units were sold for the new console.

Counting the total of home consoles Sony sold 7.8 million systems, while 2.0 million units were sold for PlayStation portable systems. The total sales for software summed up to 126 million units.

The forecast for the whole fiscal year speaks of 15 million home consoles sold, 5 million portables and 360 million software units moved.

Not everything is positive, though. The forecast for the whole fiscal year is unchaged to 7.7 billion yen in sales, but the operating income has been sliced from 170 billion yen to 80 mostly due to restructuring charges and the reform of the PC and TV businesses, bringing the net income in the red by 110 billion yen.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/02/06/sony-posts-financial-results-for-the-third-quarter-of-2013/

This is great news! I hope we get some great games soon from Sony

Maybe they will even perhaps invest some of that into saving the Vita?

2 millions between Vita and PSP is worse than the WiiU+Wii and on its third holiday season

Great news, seems like it's possible for Sony to recover. With PS4 selling pretty well, and unprofitable divisions being sold, they should stay in the black. But portable numbers look pretty pathetic. I wonder if the Vita can be saved. Personally, I don't think so.

Great for Sony.

They won't be in the black for the full fiscal year ... they are forecasting another $1 billion-ish loss for the entire year.

So no, overall PS4 did not "save" them from another year of huge losses. 

5 million portables for 2014 when it were only 2 million for 2013? Am I reading something wrong?

Ah ok I read it wrong.

Most likely true, but this was a better quarter and you take the good news where you can, right?

This forecast is due the restructuring costs due the cut of PC business and the creating of new division for TVs... 5000 jobs will be cuted due that too.