Back in October, it was becoming clear that all was not entirely well within the franchise of Sega Sammy. The company, which makes the majority of its money from pachinko machines, downsized its profit and net sales forecasts for the financial year. Although the official figures, released today, aren’t quite as low as forecast, they’re not far off. For Sega Sammy’s financial year from April 1, 2007, through to March 31, 2008, net sales were down 13 percent over the previous year to ¥458.9 billion ($4.4 billion). Both operating and net income were in the red, with the company’s operating loss hitting ¥5.8 billion ($55 million) and net loss at ¥52.5 billion ($500 million). Sega Sammy pointed out a number of reasons behind the numbers. Its pachinko business in Japan continued to decline, with machine sales falling by 24,000 units to 108,000 units, and it had postponed a number of major pachinko machine titles until fiscal 2008. The minus figures also included impairment losses for Chinese businesses, and a cancellation fee for ceasing development of an entertainment complex in Minato-ku. The company also dissolved Sega Amusements Singapore along with Sega Korea, in order to “increase operating efficiency in the amusement machine sales business.” Game sales were up overseas, but down in Japan–2007 saw the release of Sega titles including Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, and Viking: Battle for Asgard. The company sold just under 27 million games in total during fiscal 2007, an increase of 5.7 million over the previous fiscal year. Nonetheless, only a small amount of these sales came from its home nation. In Japan, 2.6 million games were offloaded onto the public, compared with 12 million in the US, 12.3 million in Europe, and 70,000 in other regions. Sega stated that Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was a best-seller overseas, whereas the third part in the Yakuza action adventure series, Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan, fared well in Japan. Despite the year’s losses, the company remained upbeat about the outlook for fiscal 2008. It believes that the group will return to profitability, forecasting consolidated net sales of ¥470 billion ($4.5 billion), consolidated operating income of ¥15 billion ($143 million), and net income of ¥5 billion ($48 million). Sega Sammy concluded that it expected its game sales to once again “show healthy growth” overseas, although it made no new announcements regarding upcoming games.

Sony has today announced that consolidated sales and net income for its financial 2007 (April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008) broke company records. Consolidated operating income was more than five times higher than the year before, and the second highest in the company’s history. Sales of Bravia LCD televisions, VAIO PCs, and Cyber-shot digital cameras are the products that are selling best for Sony overall, while mobile phones and CRT televisions have seen a fall in sales. Overall, sales and operating revenue was up 6.9 percent to ¥8.871 trillion ($78.5 billion), and operating income was up 422 percent to ¥374.5 billion ($3.3 billion). Income before taxes was up 357 percent to ¥466.3 billion ($3.9 billion), while net income for the whole of Sony was up 192.4 percent to ¥369.4 billion ($3.3 billion). In the games division, sales increased by 26.3 percent over last year to ¥1.284 trillion ($11 billion). According to Sony, the PlayStation 3 saw a “significant increase” in sales, as did the PlayStation Portable, which Sony pointed out probably had to do with the release of a shiny new slim version. Operating loss for the games division was almost halved from last year to ¥124.5 billion ($1.1 billion), an improvement of some ¥107.8 billion ($954 million) over the previous year. Sony sold 9.24 million PS3s in fiscal 2007, bringing the total to just under 13 million worldwide. In comparison, Nintendo recently revealed that it has sold 24.5 million Wiis to date, with Microsoft selling 19 million Xbox 360s since the console’s 2005 launch, according the company’s latest figures. PSP sales increased by 4.36 million year on year, bringing the total for fiscal 2007 to 13.89 million–last week, the company said it sold 34 million PSPs as of end of the 2007 calendar year. Sales of the PlayStation 2 were down by just under a million units with 13.73 million sold worldwide. As for software, PS2 game sales slowed dramatically, down 39.5 million to 154 million, although Sony still sold more games on the PS2 than on the PS3 and PSP combined. PS3 game sales saw an annual increase of 44.6 million units to 57.9 million sold worldwide, and 55.5 million PSP titles left store shelves, an increase of 800,000. Sony forecast that the games division would be back in the black in the next financial year due to hardware cost reductions and “an enhanced lineup of software titles in the PS3 business,” despite falling PS2 sales. Sony believes it will sell a further 9 million PS2s, 15 million PSPs, and 10 million PS3s during its 2008 fiscal year, which began April 1. For games, it wouldn’t be drawn on its platform-specific projections, but said it believes it will sell 250 million units across the PS2, PS3, and PSP.