This news interest me very much. This new is about playstation3 that sony made.

Sony's games division is haemorrhaging cash because the PlayStation 3 console
cost so much to develop and make that the company will find it difficult to
recoup its losses.

It is not unusual for consumer electronics
manufacturers to pour money into research and development, sell at a loss when a
new product is released and make up the deficit with high-volume sales in
subsequent years.

However, the magnitude of Sony's PS3 losses, and the
length of time it will take to recoup them, have startled games sector analysts.

Sony's admission that clawing back the cash will have a negative impact
on the group's financial results for some time came to light in its most recent
filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Form 20-F
filing, which is mandatory for non-US companies with US-based shareholders,
revealed losses in the year ending 31 March 2007 (the first financial year in
which the PS3 figured) of ¥232.3bn (£1.09bn).

Although this figure is
high, a substantial loss is to be expected. R&D costs for the relatively
simple PS1 launched in 1996 were estimated at close to $500m (approximately
£350m then).

But the PS3 was a far more ambitious product. Sources close
to the company estimate that each PS3 console cost $800 to manufacture when it
was launched in 2006, let alone multi-billion dollar R&D costs.

That
production bill will have reduced as Sony refined the manufacturing process. But
losses for the year ending 31 March 2008, by which point over nine million PS3s
had been sold, were still running at ¥124.5bn (£585m).

The PS1 and PS2
will have paid back their R&D and early manufacturing costs because they
sold in such high volumes over a long period of time.

While this
business model has been standard among consumer electronics firms, the problem
for the PS3 is that product cycles are becoming shorter as competitors leapfrog
and customers become more demanding.

This leaves fewer years to recoup
R&D losses with high-volume sales.

Howard Stringer, chief executive
at Sony, stated last week that returning the games division to profit is a top
priority for Sony.

Sony will look to recoup losses on sales of consoles
and software. Currently PS3s are on sale for between £310 and £350, depending on
which games the retailer has bundled with the console.

Popular PS3 games
sell at between £30 and £40, and less popular titles as low as £15. After
retailers and distributors have taken their cut, Sony is likely to make anything
from 40 to 75 per cent margin on these sales.

At this rate, the PS3 may
never be anywhere near as profitable as earlier PlayStation models.

However, with every console sold Sony is also seeding homes with Blu-ray
players for which it can sell Blu-ray DVD movie titles at much higher margins.

Thus, while the games division loses money on PS3s, the benefits to
other parts of the Sony empire may outweigh the losses.

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