PlayStation Helps Sony Swing To Profit, But Film Unit Takes Sizeable Hit

There was good news and bad for Sony this morning as it reported second quarter earnings from Tokyo. For the period ended September 30, profit rose to 33.6B yen ($278M) versus a 136B yen loss in the same quarter last year. Sales and operating revenue were essentially flat at $15.8B and operating profit rose to $733M. The upward shifts are down to strong sales of the PlayStation 4 video game consoles which increased 16.5% to $3B with operating income up 9.8% to $199M.

As for the pictures division, it’s a good thing James Bond has turned up right about now. Sales in the quarter were up .9% to $1.53B, but down 14% on a U.S. dollar basis. Losses amounted to $187M, up from $96M last quarter and $10M in the same period last year. Sony said the U.S. dollar decrease was primarily due to “significantly lower” home entertainment revenues, as well as lower TV licensing revenues. The similar period last year benefited from the performance of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Heaven Is For Real. The profit loss also stemmed from the same phenomena along with higher worldwide theatrical marketing expenses with more releases in the current quarter.

Among the titles that Sony released during Q2 were Insidious Chapter 3, Ricki And The Flash, The Perfect Guy and, notably, Pixels. The latter was the biggest title with about $240M worldwide, including $160M from offshore.

Sony does have a hit on its hands with Hotel Transylvania 2 which is currently in theaters with upwards of $315M global so far — it released at the end of September so there was little impact on the quarter. And, it’s got 007 in Spectre which is breaking records in the UK in its first few days of release. Still, the pictures division’s full-year sales forecast was cut by 2% to 1 trillion yen ($8.28B) and the profit outlook was slashed from 64B yen to 35B yen ($289.8M).