Sony continue their financial recovery and have reported a $780 million operating profit for Q1 2015, up 39% compared to last year, much of which is due to the continued success of the PlayStation 4.
The games division was the star performer with profits up 350 percent to $157 million, helped in part by PS4 hardware cost reductions. The Sony Music business and Devices arm, which sell camera sensors, were also well in profit. However, Sony Pictures posted a loss of $94 million but that will probably bounce back when the next James Bond movie is released.
One other interesting point is that Sony’s games division actually lost 15.6 billion yen due to foreign exchange rate fluctuations, which is roughly £80 million pounds just from markets moving about. That’s why your games cost more over here, companies build in a buffer to try and offset market fluctuations. They have to convert your pounds in to dollars or yen or whatever, and as the Sony numbers show, that can have a negative impact.
Source: NeoGAF / TechCrunch
Deezoned
Great to see Sony profits recovering! Hopefully they manage to choose wisely in the years to come and make the right strategic decisions. It’s way to early to stop fighting and the way for the PS5 will be paved. Consoles are no way dead yet.
camdaz
Great to hear Sony are doing well.
I wonder if there’ll be another jump in profits in Q1 next year when Project Morpheus is released…..or will it bomb?
Stefan L
So long as Sony correctly judge the demand and the manufacturing capacity needed to cater to that – it’s better to be sold out than it is to hold a surplus with something experimental and niche like Morpheus – then there won’t be a negative impact. They will have to try and publicly project sales figures and earnings for their investors, and that can mean that Morpheus is still judged as a failure if they don’t reach those targets, but Morpheus’ impact has actually been felt over the last few years in the associated R&D costs.
camdaz
There must be a good market for VR as there are quite a few companies working on them, and as long as it’s priced right I can see PM doing well.
bunimomike
Sadly I don’t think this is the case. Same with how hard they were pushing 3DTV. They’d all love us to embrace the new hardware but, culturally, it appears that not that many are interested.
I can’t see this being any different to the “let’s sell VR” cycle we’ve seen in the past. However, more than happy to see it succeed. :-)
ron_mcphatty
Good news. Having recently seen my VAIO laptop choke on its dying breath and finally come to the conclusion that its construction sacrificed a lot to be exceptional in build and screen quality I’m glad that they’re doing well after consolidating their output. They are a trusted brand with a fantastic association with good quality and I wouldn’t want to see them go under, not least because I love my PlayStations.
hornet1990
Any word on how many PS+ subs they have out of that 25m units sold?
I still figure on about a third which means they’re raking in ~£25m per month (8m x £3). So what the hell are they doing with that money because it certainly isn’t going into improving the network or giving us worthwhile free games…
bunimomike
Kaz Hirai mentioned it being around half of PS4 owners having a PS+ account.
NicholasHeathfield
Sony is actually making money? As in, not losing it as fast as anyone could imagine?
Long live Kaz Hirai!
Andrewww
My first reaction is ‘this is good news’. My second, however, is that it may not be that good for us consumers. I know this doesn’t say anything about MS and the XBox, but I really wish they would do much better, giving Sony a hard time in a competitive environment. Now, that would make Sony improve their service and we’d all have AAA games back in the IGC.