Thursday, July 26, 2007

Further proof the Sony video game division is a sinking ship

It's reported that during the past quarter, Sony's video game division lost $237 million.

IN ONE QUARTER!

And that number is actually 8% WORSE than it was the quarter before it, when the PS3 was launching! Presumably, that's because Sony was shooting off its final PS2 bullets in that quarter. And those were some nice bullets. What bullets do PS3 boast yet?

To put this $237 million deficit in perspective, as a company Sony recorded a profit of $540 million. Meaning the video game division brought down the company by 33%!!!

Sinking ship, my friends. Unless the new games of the next 4 months truly blow everyone away.

4 comments:

Kyle said...

Once again, missing the facts because it is so 'popular' for web blogs like your to hate Sony. Did you know Sony loses between $200 and $300 per each system sold? And to date they've sold around 4.5 million PlaysStation 3's. And Sony has perhaps the most impressive lineup in the next few months: Lair, Heavenly Sword, Call of Duty 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid 4, many of these are exclusives too, and Sony has been saying since launch, they plan to 'break even' on sales in March 2008, over 8 month away! Sony is a profound company that know what they're doing, they have internal studios which can pick up the load if the 3rd parties start dropping out, Killzone 2 is made by Sony, and is the most likely upcoming game to become a Halo-killer. Sony is not a sinking ship, they boast a "10 year product life cycle" while most Xbox 360's barley last one with the ring of death, and it is easy to say the Wii is going to win because its cheap and an "impulse buy". I think Jack Tretton was right a week ago when he compared the 3 systems with food analogies: "The PS3 is like steak, the Wii is a lolipop, and the 360 is an unreliable cook.

Mike Benischek said...

Actually, Kyle, they lose less than $200 a system, but they've only sold just over 2 million PS3's.

And that 10-year product life cycle is great and all, but why buy a system for $600 now when the true potential of the system will not be unlocked by game developers for another few years?

For now the only thing differentiating itself from Xbox is their exclusive games, which for now are few, and the price, which seems it will be much higher for some time.

I was a giant fan of the PS2, but the decisions made for the PS3 have been arrogant and foolish.

Kyle said...

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6573&Itemid=2

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/808/808656p2.html

Those two articles from reputable gaming sources state that SONY is losing and estimated $200 on each PS3 system and that they have an install base of 6 million, not just over 2 million.

Mike Benischek said...

You need to read the fine print there, Kyle. The 6 million number is global sales (which rarely matter to third-party developers) and they were stated by Sony themselves. Can you really trust that number? Especially after CNN recently reported that number as being over a million less globally?

Also, the $200 hit Sony took on each system was the number at the time of launch, the number has dropped slightly since then, and will become even cheaper with the advent of their cheaper processor (as your links state clearly).

Again, I have nothing against Sony, just to be clear. I'm just stating facts.