PlayStation 3 Sales Follow Sony Plummet

Sony has announced its third-quarter (October to December 2008) financials, part of which included news of PlayStation sales. None of it makes for uplifting reading.

Let's deal with the worldwide gaming division numbers first:

Hardware
PS3: 4.46 million unit sales. This is 440,000 units down on the same period last year.
PS2: 2.52 million - down 2.88 million units year-on-year.
PSP: 5.8 million - down 680,000 units year-on-year.

Software
PS3 software sales up 14.8 million units year-on-year to 40.8 million units shipped.
PS2 software sales down 31.2 million to 29.7 million.
PSP software sales down 2.8 million to 15.5 million.

Operating income for the division was down a staggering 97% compared to the same period in 2007 - and this was despite reduced costs of manufacturing for the PS3. According to Sony, "Overall hardware sales decreased as a result of the impact of the appreciation of the yen against the US dollar and the euro, in addition to a decrease in unit sales of PS2, PSP and PS3.

"(Software) Despite an increase in PS3 software sales, overall software sales decreased as a result of the appreciation of the yen against the US dollar and the euro, in addition to a decrease PS2 and PSP software sales."

All this contributed to the parent company's quarterly net profit of ¥10.4 billion (£81.3 million). That's down from ¥200.2 billion (£1.5 billion) - that's a 94.8% downturn year-on-year. All up, the company is expecting an operating loss of ¥18 billion (£140.6 million) compared to a profit of ¥236.2 billion (£1.8bn) in the same period in 2007.

Looks as if Sir Howard Stringer and his management wouldn't have had much cash to pay their bonuses with in the first place. Let's hope the restructuring works out.

^{Sources:
Sony
Economic Times
Forbes
Reuters}