"The Japanese electronics and entertainment giant's stock closed up 2.6 percent at 6,630 yen after climbing as high as 6,750 yen, a level last seen in June 2002. The benchmark Nikkei average closed down 0.17 percent.

Sony expects its game segment to post an operating loss of about 50 billion yen ($414 million) in the year to next March, down from a 232 billion yen loss in 2006/07, Senior Vice President Takao Yuhara told a group of reporters on Thursday."

Reuters

For last year Sony's group net profit rose slightly to 126.3 billion yen (up 2.2%).

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/viewer/06q4/

Imagine how succesful they'd be if they dropped gaming.

That's 2.3 billion in gaming losses over2007-2008 fiscal if their projection for 08 holds. 

@ Sharky

I don't agree, I think despite initial PSX and PS2 losses, Playstation products are now crucial to the company's performance and prospects for the long run. The PS3 probably even more so due to for instance having a positive effect on HDTV sales and Blu-Ray penetration for the short and long run.

its true, the gaming devision has done wonders for Sony in the past. The playstation has effectively helped market Sonys name. The PS3 is now, as MikeB said, going to help sony take a lot of the HD market and give them the advantage in the Hi-def wars :P

Smells like cognitive dissonance if you ask me...

I think sony should just leave the gaming market all together.