Sony sales slip 10%

Earlier today, Nintendo reported its financial results for the April-June quarter, and made headlines with a drastic $80 price drop for the 3DS. At the same time, primary competitor Sony was releasing its own financial results, though the news to come from it was significantly smaller.

For the three months ended June 30, Sony brought in revenues of $18.46 billion, down 10 percent year-over-year. The company also posted a quarterly net loss of $191 million, compared to a net profit of $289 million the year before.

Sony said its sales were down mainly due to the Great East Japan Earthquake, "as well as the deterioration of the electronics business environment." However, Sony added that the recovery process is proceeding more quickly than it had first anticipated.

Sony only briefly acknowledged the PlayStation Network security breach and outage in its results, saying only that it resulted in unexpected expenses being incurred, such as security enhancement measures. The PSN has apparently emerged from the embarrassing security lapse no worse for wear, as Sony said user logins in North America "have returned to a similar level as before the cyber attacks."

Revenues in the consumer products division (of which PlayStation is a part) were down nearly 18 percent for the quarter to $9.04 billion. However, that shortfall was primarily attributed to the company's TV and home computer businesses. Sony also provided a sales update for the PlayStation 3 and PSP, saying that both systems sold 1.8 million units during the quarter.