• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Sony: "Unlike PS3, we are not planning a major loss to be incurred with PS4 launch"

C

Canis lupus

Member
"Unlike PS3, we are not planning a major loss to be incurred with the launch of PS4," said Sony CFO Masaru Kato during an earnings call that ended moments ago.

"At the time we developed PS3, we made a lot of in-house investments to develop the chip, the Cell chip. Development of the chip saw the silicon processing and all the facilities invested by us ourselves. But this time, yes we have a team working on chip development, but we already have existing technology to incorporate and also product investment and all the facilities will now be invested by our partners, other foundries, so we don't have to make all the investment in-house."


Sony didn't offer a sales forecast for PS4 for the year ending 31st March 2014, nor did anyone ask - the fools!

Sony turned a profit a year after a record loss - not a bad result for Kaz Hirai's first year in charge. He didn't necessarily work miracles, but he did reorganise and streamline the company, cutting thousands of jobs and getting back to black by selling expensive office buildings in Japan and America, plus Sony's stakes in DeNA and M3 holdings. Doing so enabled Sony to splash out and acquire Gaikai last summer.

Sony's annual profit was 43 billion yen ($458 million) - roughly what was expected.

In the Game segment, sales were down 12.2 per cent and operating income down 94 per cent to $18 million, whoopsie daisy.

Combined PS3 and PS2 sales were down to 16.5 million from 18 million the year before, whereas combined PSP and Vita sales raised a whisker to 7 million from 6.8 million the year before. But a PS Vita price cut in Japan undermined the extra sales, bringing in less money for Sony.

In the year ahead, "Sales are expected to increase significantly," Kato said, "primarily due to the planned introduction of the PlayStation 4 in the fiscal year ending 31st March 2014.

"Operating income," however, "is expected to be essentially flat year-on-year primarily due to an increase in research and development expenses and marketing expenses related to the introduction of the PS4, offset by the impact of the above-mentioned increase in sales."

Sony expects PS3 to sell 10 million units this financial year - a figure I can confidently report because PS2 sales have been removed from the year-ahead forecast.

Sony believes a combined 5 million PSP and PS Vita units will be sold this financial year, which is considerably down on this year - not a good sign for Vita.

Nevertheless, smartphone sales were up for Sony, and continuing to turn those around, plus transforming TV sales, was described as "a must" for the company this year. The other segments are relatively stable by comparison.

A positive step for Sony, then, which is now a more lean, mean, profitable machine.
Click to expand...
EG
 
M

Man

Member
Nothing new. Keyword being 'Major', there will be some loss.

No crazy Cell chip and no new disc format like BD.

I'm still bit weirded out that the PS4 has component out when even the Wii-U has HDMI only [edit: apparently that's not the case, has a multiport]. Seems like it would be an opportunity to save by removing it.
I mean, the PS4 doesn't play music cd's because they don't want to pay the license.

Dat 8GB GDDR5 probably has a high cost though.

Expecting:

$399 for barebones SKU.
$499 for (barebones SKU) + Game, PSEye and one year of PS+.
 
M

metalslimer

Member
Well this means nothing considering Sony was losing over 200 dollars per console at the PS3 launch so who knows what they consider major. It's probably not going to be 399 though
 
S

Striek

Member
Nothing about the new PS4 or Xbox (rumors) suggest they'll be expensive tbh. Far less impressive tech than their predecessors, relatively.
 
V

Violater

Member
$399 = Instabuy day one
$499 = Will wait for the games to justify purchase.
$599 = Lol will wait for price drop and wide selection of games also on sale
or income tax return
 
H

Hoo-doo

Banned
399$ would be a dream price.

After everyone expecting the Vita to be 400+ dollars after the first reveal, they somehow managed to launch it at a price that surprised everyone. (Too bad about nobody giving a fuck about hightech handhelds though)

I hope they can do the same with the PS4.
 
M

Man

Member
Enter The 36 Chambers said:
Sony are in for a shock this holiday when they find out people dont want dedicated games machines as much as they used to.
Click to expand...
They will sell out whatever they release in 2013. If you are correct then they wouldn't discover that before springtime.

And no, seriously doubt you are right. The handheld market bombing was seen by all but the dedicated console market will still be healthy for many years.
 
S

shandy706

Member
Has the supposed cost of GDDR5 come down a lot?

I always thought that was one of the most expensive parts of my GPU purchases.

8GB of GDDR5 would make one believe the system has to be pretty expensive...how can they not take a pretty good loss starting out?

Nevermind! I found approximate cost sheets from Nvidia and AMD.

Wow at how cheap RAM is to companies. A couple GB is only like $30. I had no idea graphics cards were marked up so much. LOL...wow

I'd guess it's safe to say that 8GB of GDDR5 is probably less than $120 for Sony. I was thinking it would be hundreds of dollars. I wouldn't be surprised if the PS4 costs $300 or less to Manufacture (obviously not counting R&D and such).
 
N

neptunes

Member
Hoo-doo said:
399$ would be a dream price.

After everyone expecting the Vita to be 400+ dollars after the first reveal, they somehow managed to launch it at a price that surprised everyone. (Too bad about nobody giving a fuck about hightech handhelds though)

I hope they can do the same with the PS4.
Click to expand...

I think they offloaded any losses incurred by the Vita to their memory cards where I'm sure they're making 150% markup.
 
Raven77

Raven77

Member
This is a smart strategy. Blu-ray disc drives and cell chips were not cheap at the time of the PS3 launch and they made the right move incorporating the hardware in the PS4.
 
O

orioto

Good Art™
Sony believes a combined 5 million PSP and PS Vita units will be sold this financial year, which is considerably down on this year - not a good sign for Vita.
Click to expand...

Sony thinks Vita is dead ?
 
K

KorrZ

Member
I'm expecting:

$399.99 for gimped PS4 (e.g. 20GB PS3)
$449.99 for for the real deal PS4.

Pls Sony.

Computer said:
Those prices you're all mentioning are insane. I won't buy it if it goes over 200 €.
Click to expand...

I reckon you won't be getting a PS4 for awhile then..
 
M

MikeE21286

Member
"Major" probably being the key word.

I'd expect them to sell it (hopefully) at a slight loss. If not it's probably going to be prohibitively expensive at launch to compete with Xbox 720.
 
The Elite

The Elite

BOSS
I've been aiming for $499 with the cash I've been putting aside and I think that's exactly what we are going to get.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
Acheteedo said:
Expecting $499, perfectly happy with that price. No need to break the bank Sony, we're hungry for the PS4.
Click to expand...

$499 is about on point if they want to minimize loss at launch of the PS4. While I'd like $499 to the be the top tier, I'm guessing $549 will be the premium sku this time around with a much larger hard drive and PS+ subs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Remedy reports 22% revenue decline, €28.6 Million Operating Loss in 2023, expecting AW2 sales to increase profit in 2024
News Business 2 3 4
161
7K
Negotiator101 replied
Rumor : CNBC: Sony to release a PS5 Pro this year
2 3 4 5 6
263
15K
Roronoa Zoro replied
Sony Says Big PS5 Price Cut Would Be 'Very Difficult'
News Business Hardware 2 3
123
8K
Mooreberg replied
Bandai Namco Will Refocus Game Development on Quality Following Declining Financial Results
Business Game Dev
4
610
Shake Your Rump replied
Sony Interactive Entertainment will not release “any new major existing franchise titles” before March 31, 2025
3 4 5 6 7
304
15K
Gambit2483 replied
Top Bottom