Sony's profits have more than tripled year-on-year in the April to June quarter (PDF link), thanks to strong sales of camera sensors and the PlayStation 4, which has now sold 25.3 million units globally to date. The company's overall net profit rose to ¥82.4 billion yen (£425 million, $664 million), significantly surpassing market expectations.
Sony moved three million PS4s during the quarter, while peripheral and software shipments also increased, leading to the division's 12.1 percent increase in sales to ¥288.6 billion (£1.4 billion, $2.3 billion), and an operating profit of ¥19.5 billion (£100 million, $160 million). The PS4 has taken a significant lead in the console market, massively outselling the rival Xbox One and Nintendo Wii U, the latter of which has sold just 10 million units.
Sony's devices division—which makes the camera sensors in high-end phones from Samsung and Apple—continues to grow. The unit saw a 35.1 percent increase in sales to ¥237.9 billion (£1.2 billion, $2 billion). Sales to external customers—i.e., those high-end phone makers—increased 41.2 percent year-on-year.
takyon: Ars also notes that 3 million PS4 consoles were shipped from April through June, compared to an estimated 1 million Xbox One consoles (Microsoft reports Xbox One and Xbox 360 sales together), and 470,000 Wii U consoles.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday July 30 2015, @11:47PM
Looks like Sony isn't selling them as a loss leader like they did with the PS3. I'm not too familiar with the newest generation of consoles, but since the Wii U is so gimmicky with the fat controller and the Xbox One is aiming to be a media center, maybe the PS4 is winning simply by being a regular gaming console. Sony is also doing some deep integration with their Vita and Vita TV/PS TV consoles. Indeed, their "Vita as a PS4 controller" is miles better than the Wii U's tablet controller concept.
Sony actually has a pretty good track record, "winning" the consoles wars with both their PS1 and PS2 consoles. As someone who has owned mostly Sony consoles and enjoys the kind of Japanese games they tend to get, I wouldn't mind if they take home another victory for three out of four console generations won. Too bad they're doing so poorly in the handheld market, but portable JRPG/anime girl stripping games are a somewhat niche market.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 31 2015, @01:21AM
Sort of. Instead of building a machine that's really powerful under meticulous and specific circumstances, they built a more generic machine that.. shockingly... isn't hard for developers to crack into. Additionally they dumped some of their "you can get a second job to buy our console"arrogance and went with a very simple product line, for example there's only one hard-drive size. That was a smart move, nobody wants to buy a console, afraid that they went too cheap on it.
As for Nintendo, the Wii-U is a very underrated console. The 'wide' controller is no heavier than an XBOX 360 controller and being wide isn't any particular detriment. I suppose there might be people that find it uncomfortable, but they wouldn't actually know that until they tried it. I'm not quite sure where Nintendo went wrong here, but if I had to spit out a guess I'd suggest that they failed in letting people know that this is an actual console and not some upgrade doohickey for the existing Wii system. In other words: They should have given it a new name.
I don't have any first-hand experience with the XBONE so I have little insight to offer.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 31 2015, @01:24AM
Looks like Sony isn't selling them as a loss leader like they did with the PS3. I'm not too familiar with the newest generation of consoles, but since the Wii U is so gimmicky with the fat controller and the Xbox One is aiming to be a media center, maybe the PS4 is winning simply by being a regular gaming console.
Sort of. Instead of building a machine that's really powerful under meticulous and specific circumstances, they built a more generic machine that.. shockingly... isn't hard for developers to crack into. Additionally they dumped some of their "you can get a second job to buy our console"arrogance and went with a very simple product line, for example there's only one hard-drive size. That was a smart move, nobody wants to buy a console, afraid that they went too cheap on it.
As for Nintendo, the Wii-U is a very underrated console. The 'wide' controller is no heavier than an XBOX 360 controller and being wide isn't any particular detriment. I suppose there might be people that find it uncomfortable, but they wouldn't actually know that until they tried it. I'm not quite sure where Nintendo went wrong here, but if I had to spit out a guess I'd suggest that they failed in letting people know that this is an actual console and not some upgrade doohickey for the existing Wii system. In other words: They should have given it a new name.
I don't have any first-hand experience with the XBONE so I have little insight to offer.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1, Troll) by jasassin on Friday July 31 2015, @12:28AM
Why not just have a cellphone WiFi tv wireless controllers and play all your shit from your phone. Its just a matter of time.
If they had a cell phone that could play video and games and support wireless controllers I'd buy one. I'm do not own a cell phone, so maybe they do. Do they?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday July 31 2015, @01:35AM
Game consoles can't play AAA titles at 60 FPS. The phones will fare worse.
However by the end of the console cycle (early 2020s?) the phone may be ready to replace the desktop (Ubuntu Edge style) and consoles in some capacity.
Consoles will probably be getting mid-cycle refreshes to upgrade the hardware and add better 4K [extremetech.com] support. Newer 8-core AMD APUs will make their way into the consoles, to boost power efficiency if not performance. If VR catches on, expect Microsoft and Sony to chase after that too... although the framerates and resolutions that most VR companies are looking at are only within in reach of the desktop, or with lower detail on phones simply because the panel resolutions are so high and you can strap them to your face with cardboard.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @02:48AM
That's every smartphone with bluetooth made in the last like 6 years.
(Score: 2) by khedoros on Friday July 31 2015, @04:56AM
If they had a cell phone that could play video and games and support wireless controllers I'd buy one. I'm do not own a cell phone, so maybe they do. Do they?
The phone in my pocket is more powerful in every technical way than the PC that I bought 10 years ago. There are a number of game ports that have been converted to touch interfaces and/or support USB or bluetooth game controllers, and original software written to run on mobile devices that equal the graphics of PC games from just a few years ago.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Saturday August 01 2015, @12:42AM
Can you plug it into HDMI T.V.?
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 2) by khedoros on Saturday August 01 2015, @01:45AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @04:43PM
never forget, never forgive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sony_rootkit [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @06:30PM
Don't forget their recent theft from their customers [wikipedia.org] either. Too many Sony apologists say the rootkit fiasco was so far in the past that it doesn't matter, but them stealing from their customers is recent enough to show that they're still the same scumbag company as always.