Compared to the same quarter last year , the gaming division's profits are only down by.....97%. Great news !!!!

some people are dumb ^^ such as blue lady, with the 45nm RSX and CBE on the way, the 80gb version will soon break even, the 160gb version already makes Sony a small profit, the PS3 will break even at around end Feb, so with the release of KZ2, the bundles on KZ2 will probably make Sony no money loss or profit when sold, but in the end the royalties of games/movies will make them profit per console sold.

Some people on these boards are REALLY delusional...to say the least. Glad to see sony fanboys finding positive notes in THIS report, because 95% drop ain't good...however you slice it.

Maybe ps3 sw+hw already profitable. Consider this, operating income for game division went from -39.5b yen in Q208 to 0.4b yen in q308, an improvement of 40b yen ($444m) but as you can see from the table below there was no change in ps2 hardware shipments. psp and ps3 hardware are up 2m, software ps2 gained 7m, psp 4m and ps3 20m.  It looks to me that the gain in ps3 software is the main contributor to the $444m, since it is almost 2/3 of the software increase and ps3 games are priced higher than ps2 and psp.  The contribution from 2m psp hardware is probably not that significant.  So if 20m software gain was able to offset the loss in the extra 2m in ps3 harware loses,  it is likely that the total 40m ps3 software also offsets the loss of the 4.5m ps3 hw sold. For instance, if each ps3 loses $100, then the aditional 2M ps3 lost $200m and the software combined must have gained 200+444=644m, and 20m ps3 software should be more than 2/3, that is $500m. If this is right,  the total 40m ps3 software gained $1b and the 4.5m ps3 hardware lost $450m which is a $550m gain for ps3 sw+hw.  If each ps3 loses $150 the gain for hw+sw will be lower, but still positive.  

What you think?

Yes and hopefully pricecuts.

I pray for a ps3 pricecut, since it will finally put to rest this anticipation that seems to be building. Somehow, sony is going to have to look long and hard at chopping $100 per system, when they are losing so much on each, already.

Fixed

and a closer look at all the comments there, and it seems like for the calendar year of 2008, the PS3 and 360 were both neck and neck....with the 360 only slightly outshining the PS3.

It's not as gloomy as some have predicted. I am enjoying the negative spin on this. Did Sony announce the closing of the games division or the massive layoffs in the games division, or will we have to wait until next quarter?

/sarc

I really expected the games division to add to the loss. There are positives and negatives in this report.