Sony has revealed it’s profits and loss for the first financial quarter of this year, and also revealed to their investors that PS4 production costs is a key reason behind the decline in profits.
In the three months ending June 30 2013, Sony has shown that they generated sales of 118 billion yen (£789m / 1.2bn), which is essentially a carbon copy of their profits shown in the same quarter last year.
According to Sony, this figure was attained by a mixture of slowing hardware sales and a rise in software sales. Unit sales of PS3, PSP, and PS2 hardware all fell (unfortunately there was no mention of the Vita here), however this loss was offset a little by favourable foreign exchange rates and increased game sales.
Despite the age of the PS2, Sony bundled together the PS3 and PS2 in their home console sales figures, and also combined the PSP and PS Vita in their handheld sales figures.
The combined PS3 and PS2 hardware sales came in at 1.1 million for the quarter, compared to 2.8 million this time last year, while combined Vita and PSP sales totaled 600,000, which is again down from 1.4 million.
Software sales are more positive though, as sales for all platforms hit 64 million units, which is up from the 43 million units of last year. Despite this increase in sales, Sony’s operating losses increased by 11 billion yen (£75m / $114m), causing them to reach 15 billion yen (£99m / $150m).
According to Sony, this rise in costs was primarily to do with the research and development for the Playstation 4. Despite this, though, Sony’s full year forecast remains unchanged. It expects a combined total of ten million PS3 and PS2 units, five million PSP and Vita systems, and 319 million games.
