PlayStation Division Loses 2.8 billion Dollars

[Hadrian]

Sony today have reported more losses for the company this time its their PlayStation division. They blame the Thai floods for the loss of 2.8 billion dollars. Also reported is that hardware sales of the PS3 are down.

http://kotaku.com/5909140/playstation-division-loses-28-billion

Still its just like Sony to copy Nintendo... that's just a joke (and a bad one too), they lost money way before Nintendo jumped on the bandwagon. Personally I reckon company fuck ups and mismanagement are to blame. It also should be noted that PS Vita is sold at a loss as well and the game sales that make up those losses haven't really being that great either. Its a shame for me as they have done well with the games for PS3, some nice exclusives that you won't see elsewhere.

I wonder if people will start saying "SONY ARE DOOMED" like they do with Nintendo? Out of the big three, they seem the least promising to hang on not like I'm saying they're going to die but unless the PS4 can win those that took to the PSX/PS2 I can't that they'll be in the lead again.

 

[FAST6191]

If I am bored I will look deeper into it (I would not argue against company screwups but I have to wonder if this is also a bit of accounting trickery- you can carry losses forward and other such fun things) but interesting- Sony's financial woes have been fairly plain to see but their games division seems to have been held up a bit higher than their other departments that build mass market consumer goods and deal in IP.

Personally if it carries on this way maybe it is time for the unified console.

 

[Hadrian]

Yeah I didn't expect this, they had hit games, sales of PS3 seem to be doing well and its no longer being sold at a loss.

To me Nintendo were doing the worse but they've only lost just over $533m.

So far Microsoft are doing better but have still lost $229m, though that's their "Entertainment & devices" division which covers other things as well as Xbox.

As for a unified console...man that would be boring. I don't see that happening, you can even have the impossible circumstance of Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft joining up for one console but with two consoles out of the way another company would see it being less of a risk to do their own and suddenly you might have others appear.

 

[Alaude]

If I am bored I will look deeper into it (I would not argue against company screwups but I have to wonder if this is also a bit of accounting trickery- you can carry losses forward and other such fun things) but interesting- Sony's financial woes have been fairly plain to see but their games division seems to have been held up a bit higher than their other departments that build mass market consumer goods and deal in IP.

Personally if it carries on this way maybe it is time for the unified console.

the idea of a unified console is amazing!. but that will only happen when the companies are ready to shed their EGO!

 

[PolloDiablo]

This really sucks....
Selling the Vita at a loss (same goes to the 3DS) is like if they had to rush the console using modern and expensive technology in order to beat the competition without caring if the hardware cost was too high. Instead of doing that, why don’t they wait a little longer?

I know that by this time almost everyone has a DS (excluding me xD) and maybe a PSP. So... why not keep developing games for that consoles until the they find the right time to manufacture a new console and sell it without losing money?

At first I thought that the 3DS thing was just simply BAD PLANNING from Nintendo. But now the same happens with the Vita.... maybe the technological race is turning the whole industry into something not profitable.

 

[lostdwarf]

SONY ARE DOOMED

trololol

 

[Hadrian]

I know that by this time almost everyone has a DS (excluding me xD) and maybe a PSP. So... why not keep developing games for that consoles until the they find the right time to manufacture a new console and sell it without losing money?

Companies need to stay ahead in the game. If Nintendo relied on just the DS they would have posted more losses.

Also game sales for DS & PSP are on the decline, a new handheld by both was needed. Even though the 3DS is selling at a loss the games sales are making up for it and Iwata has even said that production costs for it are lowering so it will be sold at a profit pretty soon anyway.

 

[Clydefrosch]

the general problem is that people seem to be afraid to develope games unless its sure that they will make a profit with them.
at the same time, the larger part of the potential buyers will only buy a console once there are definitely great games available in a certain number AND with price drops already for both, console and games.

so what do we get: not enough games and not enough people buying.

both nintendo and sony got their fanboy sales in. and apparently, both those fanboysales were not deemed enough by the game developers...


also, of course they blame something like a flood. a flood sounds like a one time only problem to investors and stuff

 

[RupeeClock]

The Thai floods would have had a negative impact on everyone, not just Sony's playstation division.

I would chalk up their 2.8 billion loss to other things instead, maybe largely the continuing difficulties of the PS Vita.

 

[FAST6191]

As for a unified console...man that would be boring. I don't see that happening, you can even have the impossible circumstance of Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft joining up for one console but with two consoles out of the way another company would see it being less of a risk to do their own and suddenly you might have others appear.

Are far as I am concerned at this point (and for quite a while now if not almost from the start) the PS3 and 360 might as well be the same thing (and the Wii U does not look to be radically different either) with a different controller and online services neither of which are a hardware limited thing and it is still quite feasible for the companies to make their own controllers, implementations of the box* and although I guess it would risk consumer confusion then online services (especially if they were paid) but this being said there are MMOs with their own services).

*realistically I fail to see how it is any different from a DVD player at this stage in the game.

A pretender to the would be crown... possibly although at best I can see it being Android for TV (some of the samsung stuff is already heading that way), Steambox/some cut down PC or something like onlive (maybe with a bit more local processing). I can not really think of too many companies that have the juice and ability to get developers in place to compete on the higher end like this.

 

[FireGrey]

(don't blame vita...don't blame vita...don't blame vita...don't blame vita...don't blame vita...)
umm... how does someone simply lose $2,800,000,000?
I would gladly have the money that they lose!

Spoiler

I blame vita.

 

[FAST6191]

I did some reading when waiting for a client to get back to me and as such I am calling suspect (read very much amateur hour) quoting and reading on Kotaku's part. Consider this is also 2.8 billion US style (2803 million).

http://www.sony.net/.../er.html#block1 seems to be the link of choice (nice PDF available).
Picking things
General
"Sales were 6,493.2 billion yen (79,186 million U.S. dollars)"
Operating loss of 67.3 billion yen (820 million U.S. dollars) was recorded

Consumer Products & Services (not exactly the gaming division* but presumably the source of the numbers).
Page 5
(Billions of yen, millions of U.S. dollars)
Fiscal year ended March 31
2012 Change in yen (from previous year) 2012
Sales and operating revenue
¥3,136.8 -18.5% $38,253
Operating income (loss)
10.8 (229.8) - (2,803)

*the very first paragraph mentions TVs, cameras, PCs and games.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Selling the Vita at a loss (same goes to the 3DS) is like if they had to rush the console using modern and expensive technology in order to beat the competition without caring if the hardware cost was too high. Instead of doing that, why don’t they wait a little longer?

The Vita isn't selling at a loss, it would just be easy to presume that it's not selling at a massive profit either.

 

[heartgold]

Let alone that playstation division loss, Sony as a whole has lost $5.5B as announced today. The company is seriously leaking money.

 

[triassic911]

Wow, more losses for Sony... I would hate for them to suddenly drop out of the console market because of continuous losses. I don't use my PS3 much, but it has great exclusives that cannot be ignored.

 

[Hadrian]

*realistically I fail to see how it is any different from a DVD player at this stage in the game.

If it would be as simple as a DVD player where you put a disc in, and it plays as it would on any DVD player...then awesome, companies can focus on games that play on one unified format and that'll be best for us all.

Of course it could turn out like mobile phones or even PCs where you get many manufacturers who need to do something different to sell there project...so they use different chips, some of theirs may be more/less powerful than others and then developers end up spending a lot of dev time having to make sure that their game works on the others or to save time just do something that while may generally work on most...won't work AS well on others so we have to get patches, updates, delayed versions for certain makes...I mean I can't be doing with that, I might as well be a pure PC gamer and lets face I probably will JUST be a PC gamer because most of those devs will do a PC version anyway.

 

[ZAFDeltaForce]

My heart aches for Sony. Hopefully Hirai will turn this around

 

[Alaude]

being a successful company for decades, the company must have gone through a lot difficulties before as everyone knows. so we just have to believe in Sony on how they will counter-attack on the loss and find a solution to it..

 

[Deleted member 194275]

It is not Sony's fault. People are spending less with entertainment, Video Games are not the only affected industry, also they (Sony and Nintendo) developed many things on fiscal year of 2011.

When a company spends a lot with R&D and sell less than was expected, the result is not good. 2012 will be tough too, I think, but 2013 the expenses with R&D probably will decrease (PS4 and WiiU will be released until 2013, right?), and I hope to see VG industry selling a lot.

EDIT: Android and iOS will not kill "regular" gaming yet. I saw many gamers saying that, but I don't see Nintendo or Sony blaming mobile gaming.

 

[The Catboy]

Hate to see Sony going down like this, but I doubt even the PS4 would drag them out of this hole.