Too bad for Sony.

lol, nintendo thats who

there's a few things i feel like i need to point out, not particularly aimed at 1 person

1. Up until this fiscal year the financials Sony had Playstation on its own, not with vaio and walkman.
2. Last quarter Sony said Walkman was doing well, and vaio was not. Now they are saying Vaio has gotten worse, didn't say much about Walkman. Walkman is still really popular in japan.
3. Before the exchange rate went to crap Sony had already lost nearly 3 billion.

Sony didn't expect the exchange rate to go to that badly, but you can't run a business that will nearly collapse due when something you have no control over doesn't go your way. However, even if the exchange rate stayed how it was they would have been really lucky to break even for the gen. Things could have been better without the bad exchange rate, but they still would not have been good.

The way I see it, a price hike for the Playstation 4 isn't completely out of the question. Considering exchange rates and the fact that PS division makes more revenue in North America and Europe than The Great Nippon, then it may very well be in their interest. I'm not talking just hardware either. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if most PS4 titles were $79.99 at launch.

I like how some of you say PlayStation is the most powerful brand in gaming, and that it would be very bad for Sony to loose the PlayStation brand. I've got to say Nintendo is the most powerful brand in gaming, argue all you want but when it comes to gaming the ball is in Nintendo's court.

Should their be a PS4? Should Sony keep the brand? Maybe a revitalization and a little restructuring is needed. How about using a different brand name? Nintendo never uses the same brand name twice, with the exception of the SuperNintendo which was called the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Just look at the Wii, Nintendo was able to ship millions of units without relying on the GameCube's name.

Also about profitability of Sony's software? I remember hearing that MetalGearSolid4 would have to sell over a million copies launch day just to break even on the launch. I remember hearing later that the game would have to ship millions more for the production and dev costs to be recouped.

As for KillZone2? I remember hearing it had a budget of over 40-million euro's. Now how exactly could the sale of alittle over 2-million copies possibly break the title even? Then of course we have famous titles like L.A.I.R. Or how about Heavenly Sword, I don't know what the budget was for that game but I can guess it was around 20-30 million USD. Heavenly Sword shipped less then 2-million copies, thats again an operating loss on the software side!

Sony's been loosing money hand over fist and the PlayStation brand is at large to blame. Sony thought the brand was far more powerful then it actually is. Some could argue that the PlayStation brand (25-million units) is stronger the Nintendo's brand was last gen (GameCube) but at least Nintendo only saw one dip in profits!

Rol is right I remember Nintendo having a net loss of 30 million USD due to the Yen and some other complications. This just proves that Sony is under bad management. The fluctuating Yen didn't stop Nintendo from earning millions during the GameCube era and today in the recession Nintendo is still making billions in reveniew.

Fact is Sony would be smart to either

A) Stick with the PS3 instead of launching a PS4 next generation. The competition's consoles will not blow the PS3 out of the water visually I can gaurantee that. So instead of wasting billions launching the next platform Sony should just stick with PS3 till 2016.

B) ditch the PlayStation brand, the brand has been diluted and is no longer worth all the effort, Microsoft never used its brand to push the X-Box and Nintendo doesn't use a standard brand for all their products. Maybe a new console name would allow Sony to seperate itself from the falling PlayStation brand!

C) Sony could go third party and ditch the consoles much like Sega did when its hardware failed big time. Just look at Sega their making boat loads of money again all thanks to ditching the hardware market!

Apple, Konami, Tesco's

Sony are investing for the future. Short-term pain for long term gain. Blu-Ray is supposed to be here for a long time. Sony won the HD format war with Blu-Ray and the PS3 might finish second in the 7th generation console sales war.

Right, which is why their cash flow is in the red across the board since last year right?  If MS made so much money I wouldn't have lost so much money holding their stocks. 

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:MSFT&fstype=ii

MS may have lost money but their gaming division brought in profits, which guarantees the continued existence of their Redmond location. Sony lost money too but their heaviest loss is still located in the same department as the PS3. We might think PS3 will be alright, but the old guys who run the board and the shareholders might think otherwise.

Why do some people here believe MS lost money. MS is still an extremely profitable company. Sure stock performance hasnt been great (also dont forget dividends in the equation), but the company still has been blowing the doors off profitability wise.