Sony profits double despite deeper video game losses

Tokyo (Japan) - Sony posted strong sales figures for its first fiscal quarter of the year, but only because its electronics division offset a winding loss in the Playstation brand.

Sony’s quarterly net profit rung in at 66.46 billion yen ($557 million), doubling the 32.3 billion yen it posted last year for the same period. Total revenue climbed 13% year-to-year, with 2 trillion yen ($16.78 billion), while operating income tripled to 3.3 billion yen ($27.7 million).

Unfortunately for the company’s esteemed Playstation brand, none of this profit came from Sony’s games unit. In fact, that division showed an operating loss of 29.2 billion yen, which is even more than last year’s 26.8 billion yen deficit.

Sony made up for that in a big way with its core electronics division, though. 1.42 trillion yen in sales were attributed to things like LCD TV sets and digital cameras. The division posted 84.1 billion yen in operating income, a 77% year-to-year increase.

Finally, Sony Pictures had a big year-to-year turnaround with operating income at 3.3 billion yen this quarter. Last year for the same period it posted a 1.2 billion yen loss.

Nintendo’s most recent quarter showed profits up four fold from last year, while Microsoft took a $1 billion loss in announcing and extended warranty to three years and retroactive service charge refunds for the Xbox 360.