Record PS4 Units Shipped, but Sony Profits Down By Half

PS4 hardware continues strong sales.

By Wesley Copeland

Despite a strong outing from the PlayStation brand, Sony’s profits are down for Q3; October 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016.

From a PlayStation perspective, things look very rosy. For the period, 9.7 million PS4 units were sold, an increase from 8.4 million for the year prior, and the best-selling three months for the console in its history. Sony plans to have shipped 60 million units by March, 2017.

Sales increased 5.2 percent year-on-year, while Operating Income for the Games & Network Services sector increased to 50 billion yen ($431 million). The reason for the increase, per Sony, is due to the lower PS4 price-point, PS4 software in-store and via the PSN, and the recent release of PlayStation VR.

However, overall Operating Income for Sony plummeted 54.3 percent when compared with the same period last year (year-on-year). That’s a decrease of 109.8 billion yen, leaving the Operating Income total at 92.4 billion yen ($796 million). To explain the drop, Sony points to the impairment charge of goodwill in the Pictures segment (i.e. spending above the asking price for certain film assets).

If financials are your thing, we covered Nintendo’s latest earlier this week, which showcases a strong performance on 3DS thanks to the success of Pokémon, but a less than stellar outing for the now-deceased Wii U.

Wesley Copeland is a freelance news writer who writes excellent bios. For more obvious statements and video game chat, you should probably follow him on Twitter.

Let's block ads! (Why?)