Sony profits down, but PS3 sales up

PS3 still Sony's main attraction

By James Sherwood • Get more from this author

Posted in IT Channel, 29th July 2008 16:00 GMT

Free whitepaper – eDiscovery best practices

The financial results for Sony's first quarter of 2008 are out, and things aren’t looking good. However, the firm's PlayStation business will be smiling because PS3 and PSP sales increased.

For three months ended June 2008, Sony only brought in ¥35bn (£163m/$326m) – representing a 47 per cent drop from the ¥66.5bn (£312m/$618m) it generated during the same period last year.

But Sony’s PlayStation business was the jewel in its crown and the division shone through with 1.56m PS3 console shipments worldwide during Q1, which is more than double the 700,000 units it sold over the same period last year.

Earlier this month, Sony said it aims to sell 150m PlayStation 3 units worldwide by the end of the console’s lifecycle.

Global PS3 software sales for the Q1 totalled 22.8m, an increase of 18.1m over Q1 2008.

Despite a Sony executive recently admitting that the UMD format has been less than successful, the company still managed to ship 3.72m PlayStation Portables (PSP) during Q1 – up from 2.13m during Q1 2007.

PSP software titles sales also increased by around 2m, representing total sales of 11.8m titles for Q1 2008.

The humble PS2 was the only console of the three to see a sales decline, but Sony still managed to shift an impressive 1.51m of the consoles worldwide.

Free whitepaper – Why email fails