8. Sony

FY08 Revenue: $12,945 (includes hardware), +50% (Rank: 2)
FY08 Operating Profit/Loss: -$1,255 (Rank: 20)
FY09 Revenue Expectations: Revenues down, but positive operating profit
Titles in Global Top 100: 6 (Rank: 5)
Units in Global Top 100: 6.1M (Rank: 8)
Review Average: 78% (Rank: 2)
 

Explanation for Ranking: Since Sony's publishing business is buried within its Games segment, the reported revenue and operating profit/loss are of limited value. A quick check of Sony's software figures just in the U.S. for the past year shows a revenue in excess of $3 billion. Unfortunately, several of Sony's efforts in FY07 were less successful than anticipated, especially on the PlayStation 3. The Games division as a whole (which includes hardware and software) lost over $1.25 billion, most attributable to losses on PlayStation 3 hardware production and sales.

Sony bet on new IP with the first year of the PlayStation 3 and it came up short on a commercial level. Although the effort is to be commended – especially in an industry where sequels are so common – the new properties have almost all failed to ignite the fire that might have added much-needed momentum to Sony's flagging hardware sales.

Yet it was titles like God of War II, a sequel on Sony's last-generation platform, that put Sony on the charts. New titles like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Lair, Heavenly Sword, and Folklore sold weakly to existing users, much less to new potential customers, and some may even have contributed to the company's loss. Only Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall of Man (a launch title) could be considered true first-party successes in Sony's first year with a new system on the market.

Despite these difficulties, Sony has blazed new trails as a publisher on its own platform, the PlayStation Network. Free to publish even large games online, Sony has sold Warhawk both in retail stores and through its PlayStation store, directly to system owners. (Gran Turismo 5: Prologue was the second such release in April 2008.) Furthermore, Sony has selected several unique titles like Everyday Shooter and PixelJunk Monsters for publication exclusively through its online store. (Everyday Shooter also later appeared on Valve's Steam service for Windows computers.)

Going forward, Sony itself has said that it expects a positive operating income for its Games division in FY09, despite a $1.25 billion operating loss for FY08. It bases this expectation on hardware cost reductions but also on an “enhanced line-up of software” for the PlayStation 3.