Sony’s Games Division Gets Into the Black

After hemorrhaging money for nearly a year, Sony's games division is finally earning money, and says it sold almost 5 million PS3s in the last quarter of 2007.

After losing money for the better part of a year, Sony’s games division looks like its finally earning its parent company some money. According to Sony, the company managed to sell 4.9 million PlayStation 3 gaming consoles during the fourth quarter of 2007, after reducing prices on the expensive console, cutting internal production costs by using less-expensive components and eliminating backward compatibility with earlier PlayStation models, and being able to offer a wider selection of game titles for the console.

Sony is lowering its overall forecast that it would sell 11 million PS3s by March of 2008 to a total of 9.5 million; however, the company is also increasing its forecasts for PSP sales, saying it believes it will sell 13 million PSPs by March, rather than the 10 million it previously forecast.

Overall, Sony’s income rose 25 percent in the final quarter of 2007, with a total sales increase of 9.6 percent, and net income reaching ¥200.2 billion (about $1.9 billion U.S. dollars).