The game division, however, posted a 16.8% year-on-year sales increase, resulting in an operating income for the division of ¥5.4 billion or US$51 million. This is compared to a ¥29.2 billion loss the group posted during the same period last year. The company cited improvements in the performance of the PS3 as the primary factor in this change, though PSP hardware sales were also a factor.
Sony’s financial release show that the PS3 and PSP markets are growing healthily as the PS2 market is contracting. The PS3 sold 1.56 million unites for the quarter, an increase of 0.86 million over the previous year; the console also noted software sales of 22.8 million units, a whopping 18.1 million increase over the same period year-on-year. PSP hardware sales grew by 1.59 million year-on-year to 3.72 million for the quarter, resulting in 11.8 million units of software sold. This is 2.0 million units over the Q1 2008 period.
The PS2 mustered 1.51 million in unit sales, a decrease of 1.15 million. 19.3 million software units were moved for the aging platform, a decrease of 11.8 million. The company mentioned in the release that this significant shrinking of PS2 software sales meant that overall software sales decreased for the company; hardware sales, on the other hand, increased.