Sony’s recovery from 2012 fiscal year has continued into the new quarter, as the company has announced that they will post a profit of $35 million for the first quarter of 2013.
Just like Nintendo yesterday, Sony attributes their profitability in part to the recent depreciation of the Japanese yen, which helped boost import profits forthe company.
Despite the better yen-to-dollar conversion rate, Sony says growth this quarter was halted due to declining hardware sales: the PS3 sold 1.1 million units since the beginning of the quarter, while Sony’s handheld systems sold 600,000 units combined (Sony combines PSP and Vita sales numbers in order to avoid divulging specific sales data about the Vita.) That’s less than a third of the PS3 systems and half the handhelds that Sony sold during the same period last year, though the slowdown in sales is understandable, considering that this current generation of hardware is almost over and the PS4 is only a few months away from launch.
Despite the generational shift, Sony says they still expect to sell an additional 10 million PS3’s before the end of the fiscal year next March.
Sony says that research and development on the PS4 was the company’s biggest expense for the quarter, totaling over $149 million dollars. While Sony declined to give any specific estimates for how many PS4 units they planned to ship and sell before the end of the next fiscal year, the company is confident that their new console will have a strong launch, following an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the system at this year’s E3.
