Sony is a profitable company for the first time in half a decade.
The Japanese conglomerate reported total revenues of $72.3 billion for its fiscal year that ended March 31. That is up 4.7 percent from the previous year. The company also generated $435.7 million in profit, which is up significantly from a loss of $4.6 billion last year.
This turnaround is due to favorable foreign exchange rates, which have hurt Japanese companies over the last few years. It’s also due to Sony getting costs for its LCD television and Sony Mobile businesses under control.
The PlayStation, however, did Sony no favors in fiscal 2013.
Sony’s PlayStation home video game console business was down 12.2 percent year-over-year, with revenues at $7.2 billion, down 12.2 percent compared to the the last annual period. It’s operating income (its profits after taking out expenses) was down a massive 94.1 percent to $17.2 million.
Sales of the PlayStation 3 were down from 18 million in FY2012 to just 16.5 million in 2013. Handheld sales were up slightly from 6.8 million to 7.0 million, although the company didn’t delineate between PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita numbers.
Software wasn’t any better for Sony. Across its home consoles, the company sold 153.9 million pieces of software for the year. That is down compared to 164.5 million in FY 2012. Vita and PSP software also took a hit, dropping from 32.2 million to 28.8 million.
Sony doesn’t expect much from PS3 or Vita in its next fiscal year. The company believes it will sell 10 million home consoles and 5 million handhelds.
Clearly, they are waiting for the PlayStation 4 launch to reinvigorate the PlayStation brand.