Ben-DutkaWell, they warned of big losses. But the good news is the reversal of the PlayStation division.
Sony has reported their financial numbers for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011, and they are close to the results the company recently projected .
Sony suffered a loss of ¥259.6 billion ($3.17 billion) on revenue of ¥7.18 trillion ($87.78 billion). In comparison, the company lost ¥40.8 billion ($498.59 million) on revenue of ¥7.21 trillion ($88.11 billion) last year. As the biggest factor in this year's outcome, Sony cited deferred tax assets in Japan, which cost the electronics giant ¥360 billion ($4.4 billion). Plus, the terrible earthquake was an issue, and sales were down in every department except for two- the Consumer, Professional & Devices segment (HDTVs and other electronics), and the Networked Products & Services Division, which includes Sony Computer Entertainment and PlayStation.
The results were so positive in the latter that Sony credits that division with helping bring the company's overall operating income from ¥31.8 billion ($387.94 million) to ¥199.8 billion ($2.44 billion). This division's operating income enjoyed a spike, jumping from a loss of ¥83.3 billion ($1.01 billion) last year to a gain of ¥35.6 billion ($434.23 million) this year. …that's quite the turnaround. One of the reasons for this reversal is the lowered production costs of the PlayStation 3, of which Sony sold 14.3 million units during the year. This is just shy of their goal of 15 million and up from 13 million units in 2010.
On the downside, PSP sales fell from 9.9 million to 8 million, and PS2 sales fell from 7.3 million to 6.4 million. But the mere fact that the latter machine is still selling at all – even after nearly 11 years in the market – is pretty amazing. Lastly, increased software sales helped out, as there were 147.9 million PS3 games sold, which is a significant increase over the 115.6 million sold the year before. Even PSP game sales rose from 44.4 million to 46.6 million.