well, the division posted a profit last xmas quarter. Most likely due to the PSP and PS2. So i guess it will be interesting to see what happens now with diminished PSP sales and much increased PS3 sales.

In all reality the profit could go down form last year, its still a mystery how much theyre losing on each PS3 or ho wmuch theyre making on the PSP. So it should be an exciting end of january to see.

I believe that's a personal best, yes.

Can someone post their last financial report? Thanks in advance.

Sounds realistic, I agree.... coming to think of it, why would Sony lie anyway? okay, so I believe it's true. it's a big business they dont wanna lie cuz it could hurt their future produtions.

they might not even be losing money on any ps3 PS3 Slim costs Sony $100 on every sale?
Aug. 20, 2009 (5:34 am) By: Matthew Humphries
With the introduction of the PS3 Slim Sony has given gamers what they have been requesting for a long time – a price cut. It went further than that though offering a smaller unit that also saves owners money with reduced power requirements. With news previously that Sony had managed to cut the PS3 manufacturing costs by 70% things were looking up with the company supposedly having a cheaper, profitable console.

That may not be the case, however, if a report on Japanese news show Pipitto! is to be believed. The show had a segment covering why Sony had introduced the revised machine at the new lower price. To aid in the explanation a representative from the Daiwa Institute of Research was on hand with graphs of sales and pricing information. The surprise came when she suggested that the new PS3 Slim is actually costing Sony $100 more to manufacture per machine than the selling price meaning Sony is still making a loss on every sale.

The stream of the show is available to watch on the TV Tokyo website, but unfortunately everything is in Japanese making it difficult to follow unless you speak and read the language.

Read more at Andriasang.com

Matthew’s Opinion

I’m not sure how accurate this report is in terms of getting the manufacturing price right based purely on what we have heard about cost reductions in the PS3 manufacturing process. We first heard about a significant reduction in cost back in January when iSuppli said Sony had seen a 35% reduction meaning the fat PS3 was costing $448 to make. Then at the end of July Sony stated during an investment call that manufacturing cost had dropped 70% to just $210 per machine.

What the Daiwa Institute are therefore suggesting is that the PS3 Slim has increased that manufacturing cost by almost double. That’s the bit I find hard to believe. Reducing the size of the machine does mean using new parts and there may be an initial higher cost because of that, but I doubt it would add $190 to the price.

Even if Daiwa has got it right that cost should come down pretty swiftly as more machines are shipped and ordered. Sony must also be saving money on shipping costs due to the reduced weight and being able to fit more consoles into the same space.

source http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/31/ps3-manufacturing-costs-down-70-percent-strange-it-doesnt-fee/

edit: this is the source: http://www.geek.com/articles/games/ps3-slim-costs-sony-100-on-every-sale-20090820/ though the other one is good too

I have no idea. Probably a lot is due to the huge ad campaign they've put on lately. I think after the holidays they should cut back on advertising a bit. Like I'm seeing a PS3 commercial several times a day

Yeah sony were losing money if we had considered the previous year's Q1-Q4 periods. The console couldn't compete with it's price-tag and this really had hurt the it's h/w division of gaming. Now the profit making is slowly surging to the desirable limit with their current console and S/w line-up. Most of the credits go the newly re-designed PS3 slim with a competitive price. This would be one console this gen that really would be rising to make so much profits after suffering huge setback thru poor sales in the initial stages. The consoles sales from now on will never go below 200-220K.

In 2010 they might not lose money on each each system sold but they have lost so much money that they may never recoup the losses

We know they're still losing money overall. Given how much they make in software, that means they must be losing a hell of a lot on the hardware to still come out negative.

But they also said they plan for the hardware to become profitable sometime next year, which also seems strange. They can't be losing TOO much, or there wouldn't be any possibility of this kind of catch-up. Is it possible that the software is not as profitable as we've been led to believe?

when a company manages to come out with the sentence "people will get a second job to buy one" and products like the PSPGo, you are surprised they lose money???

it's called bad management.

I find it much more troubling to understand why studios like EA lose money when they have their annual cash cows in sports games...

Or how studios can go down with the failure of one HD game...well no, that last one, I know what it is... stupid descision making.!..