Sony’s Consumer Products and Services division suffered an operating loss of ¥229.8 billion ($2.8bn) for the fiscal year ending March 2012, compared to a small profit of ¥10.8 billion ($429 million) in 2011.
The division, which covers the PlayStation business, PCs, digital cameras and the costly LCD TV sector, was troubled by poor sales that dropped 18.5% to ¥3.13 trillion ($38.2 billion) as well as reduced profitability. Sony singled out low PS2 sales and the PS3’s price cut for reasons why they games business had a worse year than the previous one.
PS3 sales dropped from 14.3 million to 13.9 million, while PSP sales were down from 8 million to 6.8 million and PlayStation 2 sales dropped from 6.4 million to 4.1 million.
However, there was a slight spot of good news as software sales for the PlayStation 3 managed to increase from 147.9 million to 156.6 million, although PSP software sales dropped from 46.6 million to 32.2 million and PlayStation 2 software sales fell from 16.4 million to 7.9 million units.
Sony doesn’t expect this year to be that much better either, with combined sales of PlayStation 3s and PS2s predicted to reach 16 million units compared to the 18 million sold in the closing financial year. Packaged software sales are forecast to remain around the same number, at 196.7 million units.
[Via]
