Chris Kohler
Culture

Hirai's Hopes For PlayStation 3 Profitability

Sony hopes to make the PlayStation 3 business profitable in its 2008-2009 fiscal year, SCE president Kaz Hirai told Reuters after Sony’s CES press conference. We want to get to the positive side of the equation as quickly as possible… The next fiscal year starts in April and if we can try to achieve that […]

Hirai_reutersSony hopes to make the PlayStation 3 business profitable in its 2008-2009 fiscal year, SCE president Kaz Hirai told Reuters after Sony's CES press conference.

We want to get to the positive side of the equation as quickly as possible... The next fiscal year starts in April and if we can try to achieve that in the next fiscal year that would be a great thing. We are going through the budgets right now. That (profitability) is not a definite commitment, but that is what I would like to try to shoot for.

Hirai said that great games for PlayStation 3 and declining component prices would be strong drivers in moving towards profitability for the PlayStation 3 business and the console gaming division overall.

In May of last year, Sony announced that its PlayStation division had lost $1.9 billion, which it blamed primarily on production costs of PS3. Today's comments all but confirm that we will also see a loss on the balance sheet for the current fiscal year, which ends in March.

Sony's Hirai eyes PS3 profit as costs decline [Reuters]