I am sorry, it was a general comment & not directly to you

PS: That "Ouch!!!" wasnt needed in the title. Since from the graph they rapidly improving. Anyway just a thought

-200 Billion Yen to ~ 50 Billion Yen in just 2 1/2 years?
Not bad. not bad at all.
Roll on April year end report and perhaps some tasty profit!

What i liked about the article, was its notion about the PS3 lacking interesting titles. Although, that's only half of the truth, since it does have interesting titles in similar fashion with 360, but the price difference of the two comes a factor there (but in relation to Wii, lack of interesting titles is very much the truth).

I read the GAF thread too and the best post was the one stating WSJ a casual publication.

Looks like they will be profitable next year though.

3.5 billion in 2.5 years, don't know how that is "not bad."  Wiping out 8 years of profits of the playstation brand at its peak is "not bad."  Doesn't include the PS2 and PSP profits that have been helping, it's quite grim.

the graph shows things getting better and it was until the exchange rate went bad.  The exchange rate is quite a lot lower than it was when they last reported i think they last reported at 105 yen to a dollar if i remember correctly.  It's now at 90 (it floated around 117 in 2006) so that's gonna hurt pretty bad.  They're only getting 36,000 yen for the sale of a playstation in the US instead of 42,000 like they did last quarter where they took a 350 million dollar loss.

Unfortunately it's completely out of their hands, that is why the stategy that Sony has been using is so flawed.  Even though they lowered the price of the PS3 the exchange rate lowered the value of the dollar to yen by 25% since 2006.

Holiday quarter will see a bump in PS2 and PSP sales which will help but the exchange rate should kill all of that profit.  If it ever does bounce back though things will look pretty good.

I didnt read the article but the graph looks promising. If sony can keep up their sales they will be able to start making some of the lost cash back! Its good that they had a few good years to save up for the not so good :) but sony may have been better of not joining in this generation, they would have been more profitable as a company that way.

From the graphs its easy to decipher that the SONY's game division has been the goose that lays the golden egg. It contributes to as much as half of the profits when it performs. '09 looks like the year when PS3 will finlly bear some profit. which is great because once it hits black they'll have more confidence to fight back. good fer you SONY

P.S. notice how the PS2 launch barely affected SONY's resources as compared to the PS3 launch. Blu ray was a bad choice after all

Yup. I won't hold my breath though lol.

BTW, when is the next quarterly release due - I must check quickly but I think it's around Feb?

Edit: Q3 results scheduled for 29 Jan 2009

I really don't understand how they are trying to make things sound bad in this artical. It starts off with a graph that shows the games division is on track to being profitable, and goes on to say that weaking sales for cameras and TVs are hurting Sony. Followed by the biggest line of crap that still plagues the PS3. Get over it, the system has games, and the library is agruably neck and neck with 360's.

Sony made a move for profit this holiday, and unless some kind of black magic is on them they will obtain it. Selling a $400 PS3 this holiday with a smaller CPU, and a Blu-ray drive that has become considerably less expensive over the year puts them in a good situation even with the Yen issue they are facing. They also had the 160GB this year that is extreamly less expensive to manufacture than last years 80GB motorstorm bundle which still included a memory stick reader, and PS2 B/C. The PS2 has been even furthur refined as the US now has the brickless version seen in EU/Japan last fall, and to round things up they have the PSP-3000 which should be making stightly better profits per unit.

Add all of the positives up, and consider that they made nearly 100M in profits from SCEI last Q3 and it seems pretty obvious were things are heading this year. If you want to continue to look at positives. This year they have finally started seeing some income from Home. They have a video service up and running. Little Big Planet, Resistance 2, Motorstorm, and Singstar are all selling decent. Plus Little Big Planet contiunes to bring in money as they release new constume packs every week.

Sure Sony will most likly never be able to take 1st this gen, and even second is looking like a tough goal to obtain, but the PS3 is far from out of the race. The system has a strong enough base right now to make many dvelopers very happy with the sales they can get from the system. Why would EA or Konami want to stop selling on the system win games like Madden, Fifa, PES, and Metal Gear all sold well over a Million this year? Remember folks the marketing growing, and it is becoming one of the most profitable buisnesses in the world. We are getting to the point this gen were the big guys are getting their feet back on sold ground, and it will only get better from here on out. PS3 is well on its way to selling 50M units, since when was that the sign of a dead system?

some magic like the dollar falling in value 20% against the dollar since last holiday season and ps2 sales being down 30% since last year (software is probably down even more than that)?  Seriously the graph paints a pretty picture of Sony going into profit but it's completely ignoring what has happening in the last few months.