Friday 8 August 2014

Sony's earnings boosted by PlayStation 4 success, but company still on road to $468 million loss

Due to strong PlayStation 4 sales, Sony has managed to make a small profit during the second quarter of the current fiscal year. This is good news for the Japanese company but still not enough to pull the company out of the red.

According to Sony, its video game business saw revenues double year over year, which is mainly due to the successes of the PlayStation 4 and the amount of revenue gained from PlayStation Network subscriptions.

Sony believes that its video game business will yield better performance this year, thanks to the ever strong performance of the PlayStation 4, and a decrease in cost to build hardware.

During the second quarter of this year, Sony managed to sell 3.5 million PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 consoles combined, along with over 750,000 PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Portable handheld consoles combined.

Despite the good news, Sony still stands to lose $468 million for the financial year, ending in March 2015.

Compared to Sony, Microsoft could only ship 1.1 million Xbox One and Xbox 360 home consoles combined, a sure sign that Sony is well ahead of the software company and may never get caught.

Sony's race to success began in 2013 when it first announced the PlayStation 4 ahead of E3 and Microsoft. This forced Microsoft to announce the Xbox One earlier than expected, and that announcement immediately placed the console in a terrible light that up to this day is still haunting.

At E3, Sony nailed Microsoft's coffin down when it shared the $399 price tag of the PlayStation 4 with gamers and the gaming press. From there, it was clear that Sony would have crushed Microsoft, especially since multiplatform video games perform best on Sony's cheaper console.

Can Sony be stopped?

We doubt Microsoft will ever catch up to the might of the PlayStation 4. Despite being on a level playing field where price is concerned, the Sony gaming console still wins out on performance and graphical fidelity. Furthermore, gamers mindset are still set on the Xbox One in a negative light, and it will take Microsoft years to make things right.

However, there's one ace in the hole for Microsoft, and that's China. If it can convince Chinese gamers to give the Xbox One a chance, then there is a possibility Sony might not turn out to be the victor in this generation.

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