Sony game unit aims to be profitable this year

This is why I don't understand how gaming consoles still exist from a business perspective. It has been 6 years since the PS3 launched and the Sony game division still isn't profitable yet. And yet they are already going to sell another expense machine that will put them back in the red. Is Microsoft's gaming division profitable yet either? I don't see how the money they get from software can even come close to covering the billions of dollars the companies have lost over the last several years.

Well any profit they make will be squandered away by the ceo into other divisions like medical equipment, smartphones, mobile media (all of these things announced this year) as well as trying to save their tv business which they lost billions (bravo anyone?) of their core business ps3. 

See the way I have seen sony is that before the ps1 they were the rockstars of electronics, brick and mortar businesses, and the Apple of music, movie devices. The old guard ceo.'s hated the stigma of being just a video 'game' maker a, niche industry they perceived, and had no problem wasting any profits made in the video game division to get back on top of the electronic, movie, media industry where they believed was the real core business - not some kid game sideline product like the playstation.

Well time and history has proved them outdated like so many others who look to the past and not the future. They greatly reconstructed management that is more focused on digital media and games early this year, tossed out a lot of old executives have made plans to isolate the video games division from being bled by other divisions. 

Sadly at the cost of 10,000 and counting regular hard working souls.  

Unfortunelly their plans late this year to try and break into the medical equipment, and emerging markets is iffy - which i can only speculate they will have to go into huge debt or once again skim off that useless kid division 'video games'. 

coulda swore sony said that when the slim launched.

Aim to be profitable?

Funny...

"Sony game unit aims to be profitable this year" that's a loser statement.

Oh, I support Playstation, just not Sony in their dairy-farming-like ploys, such as 'OH, LOOK, guys! I found this new, slightly-improved variation on the comparatively ubiquitous console you finally compromised to buy after six years--but it will cost you!'

I want a red PS3!

Well I'll give them my backing, because lets face it.. the gaming world as a whole would be screwed without the competition of Sony.

I'd even support Micrsoft in a time of dire need.. and that's saying something.

I'm a gamer, and the companies need us as much as we do them.  World would be a sad sad place without video games!

I can't beleive I'm saying this but if Sony wants me to buy the latest model of PS3 they should have taken away my ability to just upgrade the hard drive in my current slim model.  I mean hell at this point I'd pay extra just to get ps2 compatibility back.

Your welcome Sony that one's free and your an ass if you take me up on it.

That's nice, but their profits are going to shoot right back down with the PS4 unless the PS3 achieves PS2 status (as in, having crazy sales even into the next generation).

In other news, Gamespot has officially run out of actual news and has turned to stating obvious facts about companies that make video games. More details to come soon.

Lol the headline is sort of chuckle worthy. Is this news? A company trying to make profits! Say aint so joe! Congrats Sony you are attempting to achieve the basic objective of all companies! I hear Microsoft and Nintendo are copying this winning Idea, what rip-off artists. Sorry for the sarcasm ;p but seriously Gamespot this must have been a slow news day.

Aim for the stars, Sony! Follow your dreams!

The title of this article made me laugh so hard.

...Why do I get the nagging feeling that that translates to 'Sony will be milking consumers this year??'

You mean they weren't aiming to be profitable last year?!!!  /facepalm

I think it's common sense that ANY company "aims" to be profitable this year. So this article is pointless to say the least.

this would be a good time to upgrade my console . I have a 6 year old controller that is crapping out and my PS3's HDD is 10GB away from being full , plus I want assasin's creed 3 . the 500GB bundle is perfect .

No doubt Sony is looking to cost optimizations (read: a cheaper, slimmer PS3) to drive these profits, but they often leave money on the table by not taking advantage of other opportunities to create a good ecosystem of games, music, and video.  Sony has a major presence in all of these areas, and yet they price older properties too high (e.g. $10 for Tomb Raider?!?) and make it difficult to purchase content and use it across systems thanks to lots of DRM and activation requirements.

It's probably too late for them to catch Apple in the music / video market now, but if Sony had taken these steps back in 2004, we might be seeing a line around the block to buy the PS Vita rather than the iPhone 5.

um

what else are they gonna make money off of?

move?

vita?

Aiming to make cash is always the wrong way to go about it.

The PS3 is still in third place, Despite having the Superslim out now that is not going to change anything. Sony will not return to profits on a redesign.

The fact that the PS3 is still not profitable shows how much of a failure the console was. I have nothing against Sony as a company but they really screwed up this gen and lost a huge portion of the market share they had established so solidly with the PS1 and the PS2.

Great news, as they are one of the companies making plenty of 1st party high quality games for gamers.

I think this new slim is for 3 purposes:

1.) People that dont have a ps3 yet

2.) Techophiles that need the latest everything/people replacing old models

3.) Mainly? to confuse parents/grandparents into chosing, "hmmm.. does timmy want the new nintendo? or the new playstation? hmmm" ;)