Sony's PlayStation Division Is Firmly Back In The Black.

Perhaps slightly soured by the PlayStation Network situation, but not to be sniffed at in the slightest. Sony has recorded a whopping ¥35 billion profit for the PlayStation division through its March 2010 fiscal year (ending March 31st, 2011).

Operating profit was at ¥35.6 billion (£266.9 million/$435.3 million) with sales up to ¥1,572 billion (£11.7 billion/$19.2 billion).

The PlayStation 3 only just fell short of Sony's whopping 15 million unit target, shipping a very respectable 14.3 million units across the fiscal year. That's up on last year's tally by 1.3 million. As expected, PSP sales were down at 8 million units from ~10 million the year before, and PS2 sales were down 1.1 million to 6.4 million units. Those PlayStation 2 numbers are insane to us whether they are down or not.

Sony's expecting another big year for the PlayStation 3, putting a 15 million units target on the system for a second year running. We suspect a price-drop will occur at some point before Christmas. The PSP and PS2 are expected to drop to 6 million units and 4 million units respectively. The NGP wasn't mentioned.

In terms of software, PlayStation 3 also got a substantial boost. The system was up from 115.6 million to 147.9 million. Surprisingly PSP software sales also increased from 44.4 million to 46.4 million. Naturally, PS2 numbers were substantially down.

Despite the downturn of both the PSP and PS2, Sony's sales reports paint a very positive picture for the PlayStation division. With NGP still to come, we've just got our fingers crossed that the recent PlayStation Network data breach doesn't harm the company too much.  After all, it's nice to see the PlayStation division firmly on the rise again after a couple of disappointing years.