Sony’s gaming division has announced that last quarter it turned a profit, after several of losses. In fairness, many of those quarters were dragged down by the research and development costs involved with the PS3. Even more to the point, didn’t the Xbox division of Microsoft just recently turn a profit? So, what’s the news about Sony?

Of course Sony lost money with the introduction of a new console. Most console developers do. In fact, many game developers actually lose money or have substantially cut profits with the introduction of a new console as sales slow and research costs go into developing next generation game engines. This isn’t anything new, and in fact what has been new is Nintendo’s recent profit bonanza with the introduction of their sales crazy Wii. Traditionally game companies take substantial losses on the early years of a console’s life in order to get the hardware to market and then reap the profits from game licensing, which partly explains why Nintendo was so angry back in the 8-bit days at companies for bypassing their licensing.

So why is Sony making a profit a year after introducing the PS3 such news? Well, it isn’t. At the very least, it isn’t the shocking news that some media outlets have made it to be. Sony’s fortunes have turned on a dime as of late. First there was the apparent win of its Blu-Ray disc format over HD-DVD, and now this news. When taken in context, all of this seems to show that Sony was never as bad off or off-base as many would have liked you to believe.

It’s easy to get caught up in hype, but the facts are that Sony is far from dying a painful death in the gaming industry. The PS3 worked its Blu-Ray magic, and now it appears it will do the same for Sony profits. All that remains is Sony scaling the sales charts. Anyone got a pickaxe Sony can borrow?

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1. Toshiba to drop HD DVD support
2. How Sony got their groove back
3. E3 2008: Sony press conference review
4. Sony’s mega secret title and why it really matters
5. Sony confirms Xbox 360 looking Blu-ray

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