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Lobster · May 14, 2008

Sounds like SEGAs bringing the company up but Sammy is dragging it back down :\

FrankT · May 14, 2008

Sony triples profits but PlayStation 3 is still losing money
Sony expects to sell fewer PS3s in the next year, and could be losing $260 per PS3 shipped

May 14, 2008 12:59 PM

Sony has had a good financial year (to March 31 2008) with sales up 6.9% to ¥8,871.4 bn ($84.3 bn). Operating income jumped 421.9% to ¥374.5 bn, with net income up 192.4% to ¥369.4 bn ($3.6 bn). Apparently it did well in digital cameras, PCs and LCD TVs. The PlayStation 3 did a little less well.

The games division lost ¥124.5 bn ($1.2 bn), which was an improvement on last year's loss of ¥232.3 ($2.2 bn). However, the company only shipped 9.24 million PlayStation 3 consoles. This was a big increase on last year's 3.61 million units, but well short of Sony's target of 11 million units.

Premonvision comments:

A dip back into the reds for the Game division could be acceptable, given the nature of this business, and the pipeline that Sony has for the PS3. However, more worrying is the outlooks that Sony provides; From April 2008-March 2009 Sony has a target of 10 mln PS3 sales, which is actually lower than the target that Sony set for last years period (11 mln, but reached 9.24 bn). This means that Sony expects to sell fewer PS3 units for the current period, than what it expected to sell a year ago. Even with the looming economic recession, Premonvision expects Sony to outperform this target. Surely the Game division needs more aggressive targets if it aims to outperform the overall market.

Sony aims to ship 15 million PSPs in fiscal 2009, up from 13.89 million units in the year to March 2008.

Sony pocketed ¥15.6 billion ($148m) from the sale of its share of the Cell processor fab to Toshiba.

(I did the currency conversions at XE where the current rate is 1 USD = 105.298 JPY.)

A thought: On Sony's own figures, the games division made a loss of $130 for each PlayStation 3 shipped. Let's assume that it's making pots of money on the PSP and the PlayStation 2: the PS2 is now hugely profitable and still sells more games than anything else. These two platforms could easily have made a profit of $1.2bn in the year. In that case, the total PS3 loss would have been $2.4bn shared between 9.24m PS3 consoles, or $260 per PS3 -- including any attached Sony games. Hm, is that a reasonable guess or not?

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/05/14/sony_triples_profits_but_playstation_3_is_still_losing_money.html

Miburou · May 14, 2008

Sony had adjusted their 11M forecast to 9.something million some time ago...

womfalcs3 · May 14, 2008

So now it's 12.85m PS3's shipped.

VAIO did well? Since when?

Zombie James · May 14, 2008

So now that all three have released numbers, can we get some LTD comparisons?

test_account · May 14, 2008

A thought: On Sony's own figures, the games division made a loss of $130 for each PlayStation 3 shipped. Let's assume that it's making pots of money on the PSP and the PlayStation 2: the PS2 is now hugely profitable and still sells more games than anything else. These two platforms could easily have made a profit of $1.2bn in the year.

Were there any big changes/differences between those 2 fiscal years with PS2 and PSP? I know that PSP Slim came out, but besides that, were there anything big that happend? Is there a chance that PS2 and PSP made 1 billion dollars more compared between these 2 fiscal years? I mean, the way i understand this quote is that PS3 lost just as much money compared to the first PS3 fiscal year, but the next fiscal year PS2 and PSP did it so well that thes 2 systems alone made 1.2 billion dollar more in profit compared to how they did the last fiscal year.

Miburou · May 14, 2008

Roughly 24.5M, 19M, 13M as of March 31st.

jarrod · May 14, 2008

Miburou said:
Roughly 24.5M, 19M, 13M as of March 31st.

How about DS & PSP? And what's PS2 finally at (did SCE ever adjust previous production shipment data to align)?

PistolGrip · May 14, 2008

PSP best seller in the PS family.

13.9 PSP shipped for the year not bad:

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/psp-outsells-ps2-and-ps3-368226

With 15 more predicted for this year I can see it reaching Gameboy numbers at the end of its lifetime.

FrankT · May 14, 2008

Also found this interesting quote from the Times;

In its game business, Sony aims to raise its PlayStation 3 sales by 8 percent this business year to 10 million units. That compares with rival Nintendo's plan to boost sales of its Wii console by 34 percent to 25 million units.

"Rather than chasing higher unit sales by cutting prices haphazardly, we plan to put our resources in areas like online services and to focus on profitability," Sony Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda told a news conference.

I wonder how long they mean to go this route? No price drop this year? I would expect at least one by the holiday, but this makes it iffy.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-sony.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

dionysus · May 14, 2008

On Sony's own figures, the games division made a loss of $130 for each PlayStation 3 shipped. Let's assume that it's making pots of money on the PSP and the PlayStation 2: the PS2 is now hugely profitable and still sells more games than anything else. These two platforms could easily have made a profit of $1.2bn in the year. In that case, the total PS3 loss would have been $2.4bn shared between 9.24m PS3 consoles, or $260 per PS3 -- including any attached Sony games. Hm, is that a reasonable guess or not?

Seems like he is making up the PS2 and PSP profitability numbers. I wouldn't believe a word of this analysis until some proof is presented on the assumptions.

gcubed · May 14, 2008

dionysus said:
Seems like he is making up the PS2 and PSP profitability numbers. I wouldn't believe a word of this analysis until some proof is presented on the assumptions.

yup, and he was also wrong on his comment about Sony's forecast... not much of an analyst i'd say if he cant even get his basic information correct.

FrankT · May 14, 2008

Miburou said:
Sony had adjusted their 11M forecast to 9.something million some time ago...

Aye, 3 months ago to be exact;

The company sold a total of 2.3 million of the consoles in the first three months of this year to take the full-year total to just shy of Sony's target of 9.5 million units. Sony had originally forecast sales in the year of 11 million units but three months ago revised to the more conservative target when it realized it wouldn't make its original estimate.

http://www.itworld.com/Tech/5051/sony-misses-playstation-3-target-080514/

test_account · May 14, 2008

Miburou said:
Roughly 24.5M, 19M, 13M as of March 31st.

What are these numbers?

Atreides · May 14, 2008

test_account said:
What are these numbers?

Wii, 360 and PS3 shipped hardware numbers, respectively.

test_account · May 14, 2008

Atreides said:
Wii, 360 and PS3 shipped hardware numbers, respectively.

Ah ok, thanks for the info

Zombie James · May 14, 2008

Miburou said:
Roughly 24.5M, 19M, 13M as of March 31st.

Only a (roughly) 6 million unit difference between the PS3 and 360? That's a bit surprising.

jarrod · May 14, 2008

PistolGrip said:
PSP best seller in the PS family.

13.9 PSP shipped for the year not bad:

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/psp-outsells-ps2-and-ps3-368226

With 15 more predicted for this year I can see it reaching Gameboy numbers at the end of its lifetime.

Game Boy Color numbers maybe... the 70-80m territory of GB or GBA seems a bit too far out of reach. I'm also not sure what's in the pipe that's actually going to cause an increase for sales on the year it had Slim, GOW and FF7CC?

_leech_ said:
Only a (roughly) 6 million unit difference between the PS3 and 360? That's a bit surprising.

Why? Isn't the 6m gap basically what's it's had since last year?

FrankT · May 14, 2008

jarrod said:
Game Boy Color numbers maybe... the 70-80m territory of GB or GBA seems a bit too far out of reach. I'm also not sure what's in the pipe that's actually going to cause an increase for sales on the year it had Slim, GOW and FF7CC?

Why? Isn't the 6m gap basically what's it's had since last year?

Give or take, although maybe more importantly they have forecasted only an 8% increase year over year. MS haven't given any forecast in awhile, but one could assume at least that much.

Opiate said:
The farthest distance according to financial reports was roughly 7 million. So the PS3 is closing the gap, but not particularly quickly (if we do more precise estimates, the PS3 has made up around 750-800k units). Christmas time would be the time to make up big ground.

Not anything if it is like last Christmas. The ground gaining from here is only going to get tougher.

Zombie James · May 14, 2008

jarrod said:
Why? Isn't the 6m gap basically what's it's had since last year?

I thought it was 8.5million+?

Opiate · May 14, 2008

_leech_ said:
I thought it was 8.5million+?

The farthest distance according to financial reports was roughly 7 million. So the PS3 is closing the gap, but not particularly quickly (if we do more precise estimates, the PS3 has made up around 750-800k units). Christmas time would be the time to make up big ground.

JoshuaJSlone · May 14, 2008

X360/PS3/Wii worldwide shipments, by date.

Opiate · May 14, 2008

JoshuaJSlone said:
X360/PS3/Wii worldwide shipments, by date.

Thanks, Josh. I'd forgotten about that Christmas-time channel stuffing in 06.

speculawyer · May 14, 2008

This is a post from another thread but it got closed before I could post it.

Sony has actually done better than I thought they would. Cutting the price from $599 to $399 within a year was very impressive (although it was extremely necessary).

And they've finally got a great slate of software out there now with Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, Gran Turismo Prologue, GTA IV, Rock Band, etc.

And their firmware has greatly improved over the original firmware at launch.

And Blu-Ray victory should start helping them in the coming years.

For a while there I was starting to think it had the chance of becoming a dead console . . . but it is kicking butt over the 360 right now. At the current prices, it is a much better value that the 360 due to Blu-Ray, wireless included, and free online service.

B-Rad Lascelle · May 14, 2008

speculawyer said:
Sony has actually done better than I thought they would. Cutting the price from $599 to $399 within a year was very impressive (although it was extremely necessary).

Would have been nice to see what would have happened at they launched at $399 instead of rapidly dropping to it and burning early adopters in the process. Thankfully Sony fans are extremely forgiving, but that decision crippled a lot of momentum potential outside of the hardcore.

For a while there I was starting to think it had the chance of becoming a dead console . . . but it is kicking butt over the 360 right now.

It is kicking butt in Japan and non-UK Europe.
You live in Silicon Valley, California.
How is the PS3 "kicking butt" over the 360 where you live on a hardware/software sales basis?

PistolGrip · May 14, 2008

JoshuaJSlone said:
X360/PS3/Wii worldwide shipments, by date.

how can I get PSP numbers?

jarrod said:
Game Boy Color numbers maybe... the 70-80m territory of GB or GBA seems a bit too far out of reach. I'm also not sure what's in the pipe that's actually going to cause an increase for sales on the year it had Slim, GOW and FF7CC?

It has done Xbox WW numbers in just two years:

fiscal 08 = 13.89
fiscal 07 = 9.77
_______
23.66

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/PSP/PSP+news/news.asp?c=6840

according to this poster PSP was at 17.03 million for end of fiscal 06:
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=8498&page=2

>40Mil PSPs out there. With 15M projected for fiscal 09. If you dont think they can reach 70-80Mil then you are just fooling yourself.

Elios83 · May 14, 2008

PistolGrip said:
how can I get PSP numbers?

>40Mil PSPs out there. With 15M projected for fiscal 09. If you dont think they can reach 70-80Mil then you are just fooling yourself.

PSP it's at 37.42m LTD right now.
If their forecast is correct they will be at 52.42m with PSP by the end of March 09.
It will easily reach 70m-80m lifetime, the platform is going to stay on the schelves for many years and it will probably get at least an other hardware revision.

JoshuaJSlone · May 14, 2008

PistolGrip said:
how can I get PSP numbers?

Old PSP numbers can be accessed on the shipment line graph creation page, but since Sony changed the way they report shipments and hasn't provided an LTD shipment number for PS2/PSP, it's been impossible to say the total numbers for those systems for the last year or so and they're not included.

Jammy · May 14, 2008

PistolGrip said:
how can I get PSP numbers?

It has done Xbox WW numbers in just two years:

fiscal 08 = 13.89
fiscal 07 = 9.77
_______
23.66

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/PSP/PSP+news/news.asp?c=6840

according to this poster PSP was at 17.03 million for end of fiscal 06:
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=8498&page=2

>40Mil PSPs out there. With 15M projected for fiscal 09. If you dont think they can reach 70-80Mil then you are just fooling yourself.

There's by far less than 40 million PSPs out there. I think the actual number is south of 35 million actually. The NPD and Media-Create numbers just don't add up to anywhere close to that, not to mention PSP has been just a blip on the radar to Europe for nearly two years now.

Elios83 · May 14, 2008

JoshuaJSlone said:
Old PSP numbers can be accessed on the shipment line graph creation page, but since Sony changed the way they report shipments and hasn't provided an LTD shipment number for PS2/PSP, it's been impossible to say the total numbers for those systems for the last year or so and they're not included.

If it can help Sony stated last week that cumulative PSP LTD sales were at 34m by the end of December. Sales for the last quarter were 3.42m. So LTD at the end of March08 is 37.42m.

PistolGrip · May 14, 2008

Jammy said:
not to mention PSP has been just a blip on the radar to Europe for nearly two years now.

We dont get Euro numbers so how do you know this? Is this a guess based on software charts?

Elios83 said:
If it can help Sony stated last week that cumulative PSP LTD sales were at 34m by the end of December. Sales for the last quarter were 3.42m. So LTD at the end of March08 is 37.42m.

Cool thanks.

Jammy · May 14, 2008

PistolGrip said:
We dont get Euro numbers so how do you know this? Is this a guess based on software charts?

Yeah, pretty much. I don't have the NPD LTD figures for PSP in front of me (I'm sure someone will post them tomorrow when we get the April NPD), but PSP just hit 9 million in Japan.

Vinci · May 14, 2008

B-Rad Lascelle said:
It is kicking butt in Japan ...

It - it is??

I obviously need to read the latest Media Create Sales thread, 'cause last I looked, the PS3 was pulling sub-10k numbers.

Jammy · May 14, 2008

Vinci said:
It - it is??

I obviously need to read the latest Media Create Sales thread, 'cause last I looked, the PS3 was pulling sub-10k numbers.

It pulled another ~7,000-8,000. I believe he was comparing that to 360's sales over there, too, though.

Vinci · May 14, 2008

Jammy said:
It pulled another ~7,000-8,000. I believe he was comparing that to 360's sales over there, too, though.

Yeah, but 'kicking ass' is bit overstating it. It's like saying that a car outran a 3-legged dog or something; it certainly isn't impressive.

jarrod · May 14, 2008

Elios83 said:
PSP it's at 37.42m LTD right now.
If their forecast is correct they will be at 52.42m with PSP by the end of March 09.
It will easily reach 70m-80m lifetime, the platform is going to stay on the schelves for many years and it will probably get at least an other hardware revision.

Their forecast isn't correct... PSP had a banner year, but it was highlighted by a new model release and their highest profile killer app which has been hyped since before launch. Unless we get something similar scale this year (PSPhone rebranding? FF7 remake? Below DS pricedrop?), I don't see how they'll sustain these sales frankly.

Software sales have essentially dried up, and 3rd party support largely with it, even in the west, most multiformat games are conspiciously skipping PSP release now and the release schedule is barren... it's shelf life is very much in question imo, especially if retail has no games to sell with it.

In comparison to the Game Boys too, it's worth pointing out that GBC managed it's ~50m sales in just 4 years. Same for GBA and it's ~80m sales basically.

test_account · May 14, 2008

I thought PSP didnt really need many games to sell well, or is that i Japan only?

Kadey · May 14, 2008

Sykra · May 14, 2008

Kadey said:

:lol :lol

PistolGrip · May 14, 2008

jarrod said:
Their forecast isn't correct... PSP had a banner year, but it was highlighted by a new model release and their highest profile killer app which has been hyped since before launch. Unless we get something similar scale this year (PSPhone rebranding? FF7 remake? Below DS pricedrop?), I don't see how they'll sustain these sales frankly.

Software sales have essentially dried up, and 3rd party support largely with it, even in the west, most multiformat games are conspiciously skipping PSP release now and the release schedule is barren... it's shelf life is very much in question imo, especially if retail has no games to sell with it.

In comparison to the Game Boys too, it's worth pointing out that GBC managed it's ~50m sales in just 4 years. Same for GBA and it's ~80m sales basically.

PSP still has 149, 129, 99, 75 price ranges. I would guess another hardware rivision and a telephone version. GPS and tv services. GTMobile, and the fact that a lot of Japanese companies are now shifting more focus to the PSP. As far as I'm concern its just getting started. Wouldnt surprise me if it reaches 100mil after its expected 10 year life cycle.

What you will see is lower budget games as Companies take fewer risks.

avaya · May 14, 2008

Sony's ADRs finished up ~8% today on the guidance for the rest of the year.

OldJadedGamer · May 14, 2008

B-Rad Lascelle said:
Would have been nice to see what would have happened at they launched at $399 instead of rapidly dropping to it and burning early adopters in the process. Thankfully Sony fans are extremely forgiving, but that decision crippled a lot of momentum potential outside of the hardcore.

I'm getting my PS3 at Christmas time this year and after watching the system since it launched, I am very happy in the fact that I waited. I feel bad for the early adopters though, out of all the systems that ever launch, I think the day one PS3 guys got burned the most.

Mefisutoferesu · May 14, 2008

PistolGrip said:
PSP still has 149, 129, 99, 75 price ranges. I would guess another hardware rivision and a telephone version. GPS and tv services. GTMobile, and the fact that a lot of Japanese companies are now shifting more focus to the PSP. As far as I'm concern its just getting started. Wouldnt surprise me if it reaches 100mil after its expected 10 year life cycle.

What you will see is lower budget games as Companies take fewer risks.

Could've fooled me...

thorns · May 14, 2008

How many did MS plan to ship for the year?

womfalcs3 · May 14, 2008

avaya said:
Sony's ADRs finished up ~8% today on the guidance for the rest of the year.

They were up over 10% at one point. I have it in my portfolio so I was excited.

Then a research firm released their recommendation from a buy to a hold for the stock. That seemed to have caused the stock to go down by about ~1.6%.

Well... Sony did say it was going to double production of Bravia TV's due to high demand; their TV's are their biggest sales I believe ahead of cameras. I'm sure it will make a good amount from blu-ray and PS3 as FY 2009 progresses. I say PS3 because MGS4 should significantly improve sales across all global regions.

So they'll make more money from games, accessories, and online content.

the thoroughbred · May 14, 2008

AniHawk said:
On the topic of software sales:

GBA: 376.66m (4.644 tie ratio)
NDS: 369.61m (5.235 tie ratio)

GC: 208.47m (9.589 tie ratio)
Wii: 148.44m (6.071 tie ratio)

Essentially there are more people buying games for the DS than there were on the GBA, but there are less people buying games for their Wii.

If for every Wii one Wii sports was to be put into the tie ratio, what would it be then? Just out of curiosity. Not trying to insinuate anything.

avaya · May 14, 2008

womfalcs3 said:
They were up over 10% at one point. I have it in my portfolio so I was excited.

Then a research firm released their recommendation from a buy to a hold for the stock. That seemed to have caused the stock to go down by about ~1.6%.

Well... Sony did say it was going to double production of Bravia TV's due to high demand; their TV's are their biggest sales I believe ahead of cameras. I'm sure it will make a good amount from blu-ray and PS3 as FY 2009 progresses. I say PS3 because MGS4 should significantly improve sales across all global regions.

So they'll make more money from games, accessories, and online content.

The decline was session sell-off lead by the contagion effect of Apple, RIM, Google tanking when the VIX approached historic lows on the CBOE, wiping out pretty much all of the the session's CPI based rally across all indices.

I don't know why people put so much emphasis on SCEI when it comes to Sony earning's. Counts for pittance in sales for them. Their guidance for the rest of the year is based on SEL just turning itself around. No doubt SCEI not leaking money is helpful.

Kurosaki Ichigo · May 14, 2008

Koei results
http://www.koei.co.jp/html/financial/pdfs/20080513tanshin.pdf

Shipments in the fiscal year:
Shin Sangoku Musou 5 （PS3/Xbox360） - 800k
Sengoku Musou 2 Mushouden （PS2/Xbox360） - 400k
Bladestorm （PS3/Xbox360） - 300k
Gundam Musou （PS2/PS3/Xbox360） - 600k (880k LTD)
Musou Orochi （PS2/PSP/Xbox360/Win） - 500k (1060k LTD)

FrankT · May 15, 2008

Just to follow up on what I had found earlier in the Times I took a look through the earnings transcript today and profitability certainly sounds like the name of the game this fiscal year.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Colin Sebastian with Lazard.

Colin Sebastian - Lazard

Thanks for taking my question. I guess as a follow-up to Evan's third question, I was hoping you could maybe provide a little more detail on the linearity of sales of the PS3 on a quarterly basis, assuming that the production level is pretty stable at around 800,000 units a month, just looking at the implied guidance. And related to that, to achieve profitability in the game segment, is it necessary to maintain the current retail pricing?

Nobuyuki Oneda - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes, we don't give the quarterly information, but I could give you some guidelines. The game business itself is pretty much the seasonally affected business. So therefore the second half of the fiscal year, we would sell more quantity than the first half. And the pricing itself, basically we don't disclose any pricing strategies for the coming year, but as I said that the... we don't aggressively adjust the price for the coming year. And to maintain the 10 million level of the quantity this year, I don't think that we really have to adjust the pricing so much.

Colin Sebastian - Lazard

Okay. But it sounds like on balance you are favoring the profitability over unit sales and market share, is that a fair characterization?

Nobuyuki Oneda - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes.

Colin Sebastian - Lazard

Allright, thank you.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/77322-sony-corp-f4q07-qtr-end-03-31-08-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo&page=5

I think that sums up their position for the year nicely. Profitability first, which at least feels eerily similar to MS atm.

Pachael · May 15, 2008

Lobster said:
Sounds like SEGAs bringing the company up but Sammy is dragging it back down :\

Not quite - from that document Sega's arcade/amusement business lost about $90m and so did their consumer business (game software/publishing etc), another ~$80m. So Sega's being Sega, despite the success of Sonic & Mario at Olympics.

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