Sony has revealed today its financial figures for the first quarter of 2012, and the prospects could not look worse. Besides a huge slash in the overall profits, one of the last lucrative Sony divisions, the gaming division (or Playstation) showed losses for the quarter.
Many times branded as one of the hopes of the giant Japanese corporation to return to its former days of huge success, the Playstaion division didn't live up to the expectations, making Sony reduce the overconfident predictions of selling 16 million portable consoles to 12 million for 2012 fiscal year (that comprises April 2012 - March 2013). The six-year-old Playstation 3 and the seven-year-old Playstation Portable could not keep the rhythm of the sales of the past years, while the brand-new Playstation Vita failed to capture the audience with the lack of substantial games released for the platform.
Sony may blame the current state of economy and the expected seasonal decrease of hardware and software sales, but, at the same time, its main competitor on handheld marketing, Nintendo, managed to sell about 2.5 million consoles, while combined sales of PSP and PS Vita were 1.4 million. Besides, Vita is already a lot behind his direct competitor, Nintendo 3DS, with estimated sales under 3 million against 19 million of its main competitor.
Meanwhile, Sony executives keep saying that both Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita are incredible gaming platforms. However, everyone knows that people doesn't buy gaming consoles for the impressive hardware, but for the software and the price. The same arrogant posture from the last years that they have the best products, so people will naturally buy them. Incidentally, Sony is accumulating financial and market-share losses for a long time.
The spotlight is over the giant Japanese corporation and everybody is wondering if Sony has a strategy to return to the former days of Playstation and Playstation 2 dominance of game market, or if they will drag along with the same failed strategy of the last five years and let Playstation be a brand of the past.
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