PS2 sales slump hits Sony financials

A major decline in sales of the PlayStation 2 console has heavily impacted financial results from Sony's gaming division, although sales targets for the full year have been raised as the market awaits the arrival of a redesigned model.

Revenues in the second quarter dropped by almost 26 per cent to 119.6 billion Yen (886 million Euro) as shipments of the PS2 fell to two million units from 6.79 million in the same period last year.

However, the company explained the decline in shipments as being a deliberate move, designed to prepare the marketplace for the arrival of the redesigned slimline console, dubbed PStwo, in November.

Indeed, for the full year the company has actually raised its target for sales of the PS2 by 500,000 units, and now expects to ship 14.5 million hardware units in the year through to March 31st.

Game software sales remained healthy during the quarter, rising to 56 million units - up 12 million over the same period last year. However, a small operating loss of 11 million Yen (81,500 Euro) was reported for the games division overall.

Looking at the bigger picture, Sony's overall group results showed a 62 per cent rise in net profit to 53.2 billion Yen (394 million Euro), despite a small drop in sales - down 5 per cent to 1.7 trillion Yen (12.6 billion Euro).