Sony posts £235m loss: PlayStation plummets

By David Carnoy on 31 July 2009, 10:04am

Sony's latest earnings show that it continues to be hammered by the worldwide recession and strong yen, suffering a net loss of ¥37.1bn -- the equivalent of £235m -- in the quarter that ended 30 June.

The bright spot was Sony's movie division, which saw a 6.5 per cent boost -- largely attributable to the relatively strong showing of Angels & Demons at the box office. But almost everything else, including TV, videogame and computer sales, dropped like a stone.

A report in the New York Times highlighted the 37.4 per cent year-on-year slump in gaming and Vaio computer sales. The article noted that sales of PlayStation 3 game consoles were "particularly sluggish" and games sales had dropped.

According to the report, Sony said it sold about 1.1 million PS3s and 1.3 million PlayStation Portables in the latest quarter, compared with 1.6 million PS3s and 3.7 million PSPs in the same period a year ago.

The wane in PSP sales is particularly brutal, although part of that slowdown may have been due to rumours earlier in the quarter that Sony would release a new PSP later in the year. (And sure, enough, the PSP Go was unveiled in June at E3.) The constant speculation over the potential arrival of a new PS3 Slim certainly hasn't helped sales of the current console.

Sony can be consoled (ha) by the fact that sales are also heavily down for the Wii, as Nintendo reported a 66 per cent fall in quarterly operating profit due to "slowing demand for its Wii console and a stronger yen".

Nintendo sold 2.23 million Wiis in the quarter, compared with 5.17 million the same quarter a year earlier.

Nintendo still posted a profit of £269m and is forecasting that it will sell 26 million Wii consoles before year's end -- along with 30 million DS handhelds, which, by the way, is seeing increased competition. Nintendo didn't mention the PSP as the rival in its earning call, but rather Apple's iPhone.

What do you think? Is the PlayStation franchise in serious trouble or will it pull out of its funk this Christmas with a fresh slate of games and a probable new model? And does Nintendo need to cut the price of the Wii so it's once more the cheapest console?