Overall, Sony is not doing very well in 2008. Its net income came crashing down, reaching just about half of what it was one year ago (330 million dollars). Even if the operating costs have not gone up, a combination of competition, strong yen and problems at the Sony Ericsson joint venture have affected profits. The single bright shade in the gloomy picture painted above is the fact that the games division is performing well above expectations.

The company reports that hardware unit sales for the PlayStation 3 gaming console have totaled some 1.56 million units in the first quarter of 2008, which means that they have more than doubled over the same period last year. Sony's console is currently beating the Xbox 360 from Microsoft in sales and the trend will continue even in 2009.

The number of software sales has grown even more dramatically, reaching 22.8 million for the first quarter, which represents an increase of more than 18 million. This is most likely due to a larger installed base for the PS3 and to the quality of the titles that Sony has been offering lately.

Overall, sales and operating revenue created by the game division jumped by 16.7% and reached 217 million. Profit this year is up to 51 million dollars. There's a strong enough games line up for the fall, including titles such as LittleBigPlanet and Resistance 2, to make sales grow even more.

The PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation 2 are also performing well, especially considering the age of the devices. The handheld is dominating the market in Japan while the PS2 continues to get good videogame sales, even if the device is in the last years of its life.

Different Sony representatives have recently said that they expect the PlayStation 3 to be profitable as a product in 2009 and to sell more than 150 million units during its life time, so the good results of the last quarter are surely a sign of even better performance in the future.