Game Division Disappears from Sony's Report

PlayStation sales take a dive.

Posted by Staff
Kaz Hirai.
Kaz Hirai.
Sony's first quarter report for 2009/2010 is in and it's dark news. First up comes the fact that the company has stopped reporting 'Game' as a division on its own following its wider corporate restructuring earlier in the year; it is now simply part of Kaz Hirai's Networked Products & Services, along with music players.

In terms of figures for what was the Game division overall, there is a breakdown that shows that 'Sales and Operating Revenue' from 'Game' products fell by 48.6% from the same period last year.

PlayStation 3 sales were down: 1.1 million units were sold this year compared to 1.6 last year. The PSP's decline is even more steep with 1.3 millions PSPs sold into retail this quarter compared to 3.7 million last - bear in mind that last year saw a huge PSP win with the Monster Hunter Freedom 2G bundle, leading to it outselling the DS for a while in Japan.

The divisional streamlining enables Kaz Hirai and his deputy, Kunimasa Suzuki, to control spending and R&D across a range of products. This could, possibly, enable Sony CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, to finalise his plan for a company in which division speaks unto division.

See the report here.
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Comments

Cayal 30 Jul 2009 12:25
1/7
They restructured and removed the game division

http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=3056
LOL 30 Jul 2009 17:53
2/7
God, you're a f**king moron. They're restructuring the departments.
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Baffled... 30 Jul 2009 18:29
3/7
Your a freakin moron...
research? 30 Jul 2009 19:55
4/7
you really are an idiot. how can you write an article on subject matter you clearly have no knowledge on? why are you employed? sony announced this restructuring back in february. non journalists know this because they can read. you should be embarrassed.
Ada Wong 30 Jul 2009 22:59
5/7
Gaming Journalism, seriously, pathetic.
name 31 Jul 2009 13:41
6/7
so what your saying is sony has lost money in there gaming division, and because of that there closing that division and leaving the game industry?
yea sure they spent millions developing and making the ps3 to quit after a few years, if you believe this you need a serious noggin checking.
pigs fly to ya know.
TimSpong 31 Jul 2009 16:04
7/7
name wrote:
so what your saying is sony has lost money in there gaming division, and because of that there closing that division and leaving the game industry?
yea sure they spent millions developing and making the ps3 to quit after a few years, if you believe this you need a serious noggin checking.
pigs fly to ya know.


Nope, what we're saying is that Sony had re-jigged its divisional structure and this is the first report it has folded its gaming figures in. Many people were not aware that Kaz Hirai handles more than gaming now - or that the division is attempting to consolidate and streamline its purchasing. Therefore it is of interest that as a single entity, the Game Division has disappeared. Also interesting is that PS2 figures (still a sales success - embarrassingly) are missing from Sony's own Earnings report. We also posted that, if you want to read it it's here.

Nowhere do we say that "Sony is leaving gaming". We also note elsewhere that having folded its gaming in to this new division, even it is no struggling to show analysts how the money is actually working with the new accountancy practises when compared to the same time last year when the Game Division was not relegated to being simply part of a wider internal department.

And that's not us saying so, if you read this story, and follow the link that we included in it (unlike other sources who would lead readers to believe that this stuff mysteriously appears out of the magical gnome hats) you can also hear Sony's own management getting confused.

In short, every single thing we've written about Sony's current position, we have sourced to the original material - not quotes about quotes from someone else making a quote but from primary sources. Nowhere have we said, "Sony is quitting games". In fact, on the record, it would be a crying shame if Sony did quit games. I would see that as a very bad thing indeed.

It's not, however, my noggin that needs checking when it comes to Sony's transparent failure to make money at the moment.

Tim
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