Sony Quarterly Profit up 3-Fold on Currency Gains, Sensors

The PS4 has taken a significant lead in the console market, massively outselling the rival Xbox One and Nintendo Wii U, the latter of which has sold just 10 million units. Microsoft refrained from giving actual numbers in regards to how many Xbox One units had been sold specifically, so we don’t know exactly how much the PS4 has outsold the Xbox One by, but suffice to say it’s a significantly large number.

Electronic Arts firmly believes that PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are selling way better than their predecessors Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. These three were mobile, gaming and digital imaging. However, as Apple’s iPhone has increased in popularity and competition in the Android space has soared, Sony has failed to make a dent.

The more bullish outlook for gaming and sensors helped Sony maintain its full-year forecast, and it reiterated its view for operating profit to more than quadruple in the current year through March to 320 billion yen.

Sony is preparing to unleash a brand new campaign called Vote to Play, which lets PS Plus users vote on what games they’ll get for free with their subscription.

“The movie and TV division saw an 11.9% drop in sales and operating revenues to $1.4B”, Deadline.com reports.

The company’s total operating income increase to $160 million, which Sony attributed to PlayStation 4 hardware cost reductions as well as the aforementioned increases. That’s around $188 million. The mobile division has really been struggling with a loss of $184 million, 16% worse than the same period of past year.

Sony said Thursday that sales in its “devices” division, which includes image sensors, rose 35% in the April-June quarter.

“Sony’s position in the games market appears quite stable as its PS4 is generating profits”, said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute. Right now it has Street Fighter 5, Uncharted 4, No Man’s Sky, Ratchet and Clank and the Project Morpheus virtual reality headset all in the pipeline for release early on in the year.