It has not been a good fiscal year for Sony as the company's gaming division posted an operating loss of $45 million. This has been attributed to the PlayStation's hardware line sales dip.
In the first fiscal year, which ends on June 30, 2012, Sony's gaming division posted revenues of $1.49 billion (¥118 billion) ; which is down 14.5 percent year-on-year. This decline was partially worsened by the strenght of the Yen, though overall sales were still down 10 percent on a constant currency basis.
As a whole, the gaming segment had an operating loss of $45 million. Sony claims that further losses from the lower than expected sales of the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable were "partially offset" by revenu from the PlayStation Vita.
Following these reports, Sony has reined in its full-year forecasts for its gaming sector.
Primarily due to the lowering of the annual unit sales forecast for portable hardware, sales are expected to be significantly lower [for the Game segment] than the May forecast…Sales are expected to be essentially flat and operating income is expected to decrease significantly year-on-year.
In regards to actual hardware sales, Sony sold a combined total of 2.8 million PS3s and PS2 units, which is down from 3.2 million units in the same timeframe last year. Its portable line — the PSP and PS Vita — sold a combined total of 1.4 million, again a significant drop from the prior year's quarter of 1.8 million units for the PSP alone.
Software sales also saw a decline, with 20.1 million units sold across the PS3 and PS2, which took a dip from 27.6 million year-on-year. Portable software sales also saw a dip as it only managed to pull in 5.8 million units across both the PSP and PS Vita, while it was at 6.6 million last year despite the PS Vita not being released in the same timeframe.
Overall, as a company, Sony posted revenues of $19.18 billion for the quarter, up 1.4 percent from the same period last year. The firm made a net loss of $312 million, which is significantly more than the loss of 15.5 billion Yen in the pror fiscal quarter.
Interestingly enough, Sony only posted combined sales numbers for its console and hardware lineup, instead of separate totals for each platform. Yep, I'm plainly wondering how the PSP and PS Vita sales segmentation is.
How successful or unsuccessful do you think Sony's PS Vita has been? Granted, it hasn't been out that long, but the company witholding exact sales figures is a little worrying, no?
Source: GamesIndustry
