If there's something positive to say about Sonys financials, it's that despite the heavy losses on PS3, Sony as a whole, was profitable. Who would have believed that a year ago. The gaming division losses were smaller than expected, which of course is a good thing, but since the reason was smaller than expected sales of PS3, it will take longer to get profitable and this will also have negative effect on game sales for christmas.

@Diomedes: LOL

Does anyone know overall what Sony has made with its game division since the PS1 came out in 94? All i could find is stuff that goes back a couple of years.

News is News and even if this thread is negative news for Sony and the PS3, its still a legitimate topic. It is a bit hard to swallow, but if you don't like it, either don't post in it or report it to ioi, stof or benkenobi. It doesn't help the situation either when you to come into a thread like this to brazenly defend Sony and the PS3 in stark opposition to irefutable facts, because in doing so you're making it just all that more evident that they in fact do need defending and are in that bad of a predicament. Take the high road and ignore threads like this.

Also, no matter how individuals will try to rationalize it, the PS3 is not the PS2 and trying to draw parallels between the two in an effort to feed hopes that the PS3 will somehow emerge victorious is both a transparent and farsical gesture:

- The PS2 was $300, the PS3 is $600-$400.
- The PS2 doubled as a DVD player back when most people didn't have one yet and demand was high for them, the PS3 doubles as a Blu-Ray player which there is no real market for yet.
- The PS2 expanded upon the third party support it inherited from the PS, the PS3 chased away most of the third party support it inherited from the PS2.
- The PS2 has only released one other SKU in its seven year reign, the PS3 has had four SKUs in its first year alone.
- The PS2 endorsed backward compatibility as the future of gaming, the PS3 is phazing out backward compatibility.
- The PS2 allowed for the continued growth of Sony, the PS3 has plunged the company into economic turmoil forcing them to liquidate assets and strip parts out of the PS3 to sell it cheaper.

That said, the PS3 is what it is, this will be a hard road for Sony, and if you truly support them you're just going to have to stick it out with them. If you're truly satisfied with your choice in the PS3 and Sony then you should be content in that alone and not worry about topics like this, ignore them, they're just going to be a headache for you anyway. Take pride in the console you've chosen and stick it out, but if you can't take the good with the bad, then you're going to be in for a rough ride this generation.

For those who are wondering what's the impact of this loss on overall performance of the gaming division, someone at beyond3d has compiled the fiscal results all the way from 1997:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1081426&postcount=17

I haven't verified the numbers, but based on that:

From 1997 to 2006, Sony's gaming division made 652 billion yen. Since then, in 2007 they lost 232 billion yen. In fiscal 2008, they're losing 126 billion so far.

Halo 2 was Vista-only, and the vast majority of PC gamers still run Windows XP.  Of course it bombed.

Even so, you're right, we can't compare TOB on 360 to Halo 3 on 360, since the 360 is not the primary platform for TOB.  Last I checked this site doesn't show any sales tracking for TOB on PC, and even if it did, it would only track retail sales, not Steam sales.  So we really have no idea how many units TOB is selling.

To put NJ5's comments in perspective:

"over the past nine/ten years, Sony's game division has contributed a net of 652 billion yen ($5.5 billion) in positive operating income to Sony's bottom line.

Since then we have the '07 results for the gaming division, which were -232.3 billion yen. So far in fiscal '08, the total inclusive of the most recent reported quarter has been -126 billion yen.

That's a loss of -358.6billion yen so far in '07/'08, which is more than 1/2 of what the gaming division has made in the previous ten years. Actually the PS3 drain is bigger than 358.3 billion yen, because all the these figures are inclusive of PS2 and PSP profits which partially cover the loss due to the PS3.

PS3 losses are likely to be over 500+ billion yen. Fiscal year ending in March 06 includes profits of only 8.7 billon yen. Q1 was -5.9, Q2 was 8.2, Q3 was 67.8 with a -61.4 for Q4 with the losses put on the shoulder of the PS3.

So the PS3 is costing Sony over half as much as they have made in profit since they entered the console business, and PS2 sales and growing PSP sales in the same perion are not helping moderate the losses."

If these numbers are indeed correct (and they seem to be as they are derived from http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/ , from Sony's own financial reports to eliminate error and spin. (by Carl B @ Beyond3D)). I'd be extremely spooked if I was a Sony shareholder. Sony needs the rest of '08 to show a dramatic change. They better hope the B/C issue doesn't bite them in the rear too hard (and I believe it will).

If Ninty did indeed use their newfound money to buy a 3rd party that matters to Sony (Square Enix, Bandai Namco, Konami, Capcom just to name a few) they could devistate the PS3's chances of a comeback.

Now on the other hand, remember these numbers are nowhere nearly as bad as MS, but they are headed in the same direction. M$ lost 4 billion on xb1 and I'm pretty sure this is the first quarter they actually showed a profit. So Sony IS doing bad financially with ps3, but not as bad as MS ... yet.

It all happened on the same day because the same companies supply all the news channels with the same information. I'm talking Reuters, the Associated Press: they all supply all the major news stations.

Wow. This is the most accurate thing I've read about the parallels (or lack thereof) between the PS2/PS3 ever. Kudos to you, Onimusha.

""" The PS2 was $300"""

ARE YOU SURE ?

the release price was not 400$ ? (just a question)

Great post by Onimusha12....you´re right,what matters is to decide,on your own,if you´re happy with the PS3...don´t let others decide for you.