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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

Slowing PS2 Dents Sony Profits 34

Posted by simoniker from the only-a-scratch dept.
Thanks to BBC News for their article discussing the fall in Sony's quarterly profit by 25 percent, blamed partially on "feeble sales in many products - most notably games hardware." The article points out: "Sony's game division, which produces both hardware and software for games, saw its sales fall to 161bn yen in the third quarter, from 250bn yen a year earlier", and a Reuters article adds analysis, pointing out the 91 percent operating profit reduction was partly down to "...additional research and development cost for next-generation microchips", as Sony ramp up R+D for the PlayStation 3. But although an analyst commented that "...the game division was hit harder than we had anticipated", the company will still be making a nearly $1 billion overall profit for the year, with PS2 by far the most popular, currently best-selling worldwide console.
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Slowing PS2 Dents Sony Profits More

Slowing PS2 Dents Sony Profits

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  • uh huh suuuure (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nocomment ( 239368 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @03:04PM (#7293593) Homepage Journal
    That had nothing to do with Nintendo's price drop huh? I'm not buying into it.
    • This is for the entire quarter. The Cube price drop was too recent.

      It's more like they're reaching a market saturation point.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Because its not. The drop in the Gamecube's price was too recent to have any real effect on Sony's profit. I am sure it is just because everyone who was in the market for a console already has a PS2. Most people now are getting a second console (since they already have a PS2). So now is the time for Nintendo to shine by outselling Xbox due to the price drop. There are always exceptions to this (someone just has an Xbox, etc.) but Sony's gaming hardware profit will continue to slide until it comes out w
      • *sigh* I guess I shoulda put a winky in there, it was supposed to be funny. :-/ I'm sure the gamecube did affect it somewhat but in barely noticable numbers when compared to the whole quarter. A couple weeks of getting spanked by Nintendo is still nothing compared to the last few months of Nintendo getting spanked, I am aware of this. It's called "joking" people!! come on! this is slashdot!! :-)

  • Not surprising... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bagels ( 676159 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @03:21PM (#7293786)
    Sony's pretty much saturated the market - everyone who wanted to buy a PS2 has had ample opportunity to do so by now, so the attention is now starting to shift towards second consoles like the GCN and XBOX.
    • I still havent gotten a PS2, Im waiting for it to be $99, and then all the games I want to play will be $20. Good times..
    • Consider that:
      1) PSX has ~100 million units since it was released.
      2) PS2 has sold ~50 million units since its release.
      3) Growth curves typically see a decline in growth past the halfway point.

      From this we may conclude:
      A) PS2 has not yet saturated their market.
      B) PS2 unit sales are probably just past their halfway point.
    • This just in: People don't want to pay A$350 for a 3 year old console.
  • Just HOW MUCH shit do corporations expect all of us to buy in the fucking first place?

    You wanna keep your profits from taking a huge dump after some time? Stop trying to get all of us to buy your product the second it dumps onto the market.

    DON'T spend 30 million dollars in marketing and advertising just to skew the natural bell curve.

    If the product is good, people will buy it, period.

    People need to learn a litlte patience and get a fat hunk of common sense and stuff like this won't be news anymore.
  • If the talked about manfacturing cost vs. price numbers for the XBox are to be believed, a slowing in hardware sales of the XBox would BOOST profits for Microsoft.
    • No it wouldn't genius.

      If Microsoft spends $2000 (I'm using false numbers to illustrate a point) to produce an XBox, they are at -$2000. Now, if that XBox does not sell, they remain at -$2000. Let's say they sell it for $500, they're at -$1500. See how easy that is to figure out tough guy? Not hard at all.

  • Didn't I read that the CPU for the next Playstation wont go into production until late 2005?
    That's a loong time in the console industry.

    • Samples of the cell processor are rumoured to be available from IBM now. It will probably take Sony a year to debug the silicon and get the compilers to a level where programs will run at a decent speed. Next comes the fun part of integrating four of those cell processors onto a PS3 motherboard and convincing game devs it won't be a bear to write code on.
    • Developers are working with prototype PS3 hardware right now. I am betting on a release in late 2004.

      • Developers are working with prototype PS3 hardware right now. I am betting on a release in late 2004.

        PS3 in late 2004? Haha, you're funny. You are right in that developers already have dev kits for PS3 (although they might be just software emulation of the expected capabilities of the PS3, not actual prototype hardware), but that doesn't mean the release of PS3 is imminent. A little over a year of development does not a good game make, and Sony probably wants at least one good launch title for PS3, not t

  • Do these sales include the profits gained from "refurbished" PS2s? I donno the mechanics of whats going on with those, but the fact that they're selling repaired PS2s has got to hurt their own sales from freshly made PS2.

    I think this is just an early sign of Sony feeling the heat from Microsoft and Nintendo. The only way you can ignore Microsoft and Nintendo as a factor in this case would be either,

    A) you're a Sony fanboy or
    B) you know nothing about economics.

    • or C) most of the people who buy gaming consoles have already bought a PS2.

      I don't care who "wins", some would probably say the winner has already been decided (as far as sales and profit goes). But to think that Nintendo and Microsoft are a big factor in this and then accuse people of not knowing anything about economics...well, I will refrain from making any insulting comments.
    • I think this is just an early sign of Sony feeling the heat from Microsoft and Nintendo. The only way you can ignore Microsoft and Nintendo as a factor in this case would be either,

      Considering the fact that Sony is still in the lead by a metric fuckload, I don't think "feeling the heat" is the right word here. But Sony is definetly not as dominant in this generation as they were last time. Back then, you had the N64 which had a handful of good first party titles and the PS1 had everything else.

      Now we ha

  • This news erases all doubt in my mind that they're going to drop the price of the PS2 (hopefully to $99) before Christmas. The only people who don't have a PS2 who would ever get one are probably just waiting for the price to go a little lower anyway. :)

    This probably didn't have that much to do with the GC's price drop (espcially since this is about sales for the entire quarter, not just the past couple of weeks,) but sales will not get much better if they continue selling PS2s for almost twice the price

  • Maybe people are starting to realize that it's just not a really good video game system like XBox or GC. That PS2 has a ton on blah titles with only a few really unique, satisfing games.

    Naaaaah....
  • Although they seem to have been kept buoyed up by their successes in the console area, they have a pretty large portfolio of other stuff. However, recently they've been falling behind a bit in a lot of departments, especially in Japan. All the other big home electronics companies are doing pretty well, and I could rattle off some of these other comapnies' new products from TV adverts in Japan, yet all I can remember from Sony is their PS2 ads plus generic corporate "It's a Sony" adverts. I'm sure these ads

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