Sony posts healthy growth in PlayStation 4 sales for holiday quarter

Sony said tonight that it sold a healthy amount of PlayStation 4 video game consoles during the holiday season and the overall third fiscal quarter ended December 31.

Sony previously announced that it sold through more than 6.2 million PS4 units during the holiday season, bringing the grand total to more than 53.4 million units sold to date. The Japanese company also reported in its earnings announcement that it sold more than 50.4 million copies of PS4 software.

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For the third fiscal quarter ended December 31, Sony reported game and network service revenues of $5.3 billion (617.7 billion yen), up from $5.20 billion (587.7 billion yen) a year earlier. Operating income was $431 million (50 billion yen), compared to $372 million (42 billion yen) a year earlier.

The company launched the PlayStation VR headset during the quarter, which helped contribute to overall sales, but Sony didn’t say how many units it sold. The gains were partially offset by the impact of foreign exchange rates and a price cut for the PS4 hardware. Profits were higher because of cost reductions and the boost in PS4 software sales.

While PlayStation is doing well, the larger corporation had a fairly weak quarter, cutting its profit outlook after taking a big writedown on its movie business. Declining sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs dimmed the outlook. Sony also had damage to its image sensor production related to April earthquakes at Japanese factories.