Sony posts Q3 profit for games division

Although Sony's third quarter sales suffered, the games division still recorded a small profit.

Following a full year prediction of an extra 30 billion yen loss for the game division, Sony has not posted a loss for the division's third quarter (otherwise known as the holiday quarter). Instead the company has recorded a small 400 million yen profit ($4 million).

This profit still represents a drop from 2007's Q3 profit of 13 billion yen. All Sony's gaming platforms performed worse in the later part of 2008, with the PlayStation 2 dropping 53%, the PSP 12% and the PlayStation 3 only 9%. This represents a drop from 4.9 million to 4.46 hardware sales for the PS3.

It's not all doom and gloom. The PlayStation 3's hardware sales are still up 22.5% to 10.8 million from 2007's 8.85 million. The console also saw a 57% increase in software sales, where the PS2 and PSP experienced drops of 51% and 15% respectively.

As a company Sony posted a net profit of 10.4 billion yen for the holiday quarter, which amounts to an operating loss of 18 billion yen. The company expects to post a yearly net loss of 150 billion yen. Still, it doesn't appear to be the games division that's holding the company down, and so the division shouldn't expect severe cuts.

Source: Sony.net via TheSixthAxis