So we can all agree the PlayStation 3 has swallowed the most money out of our pockets for a gaming unit. Sorry PCs you don’t count. One would think then, Sony would be rolling in the dough.
Think again. Turns out Sony has actually lost money, in the billions of dollars, for the past two years since the PlayStation 3 has been on the market. In 2007 it was $2.16 billion dollars in the hole and in 2008 a mere $1.16 billion.
The PlayStation 3 has cost Sony over three billion dollars and thanks to the slow uptake due to the initial high price of the console, Sony doesn’t look like it is recouping the loss as quickly as it would like.
The majority of the money was lost in research and development. In order to create a machine which could last for years, give developers mountains of power to work with, and distinguish itself from the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, Sony had to fork over huge amounts of cash in order to create the the game console we know as the PlayStation 3.
"In the past, large-scale investment relating to capital expenditures and research and development for the manufacture of key components, including semiconductors supplied for [PlayStation 3] was also recorded within the Electronics segment."
Ultimately, it will probably be worth it but this is just another example of how financially negative introducing a new product to a competitive market can be.
[Via Kotaku]
