Well, now that sources have been posted, I accept those numbers. Still, I find it a bit troubling operating on this double standard. Does MS not give separate comments on it's game division in conference calls? Or do people just not bother to track those down and publicize them like we are doing for Sony?
I'm not sure, but if there's significant discrepancies, they should be rooted out and highlighted if possible. I think a lot of people - understandably - are 'lazy' about looking too much beyond headline numbers.
I think in the case of this quarter, it's the first time such a discrepancy between NPS and SCE was so obvious, the first time we saw how wildly they could diverge. We didn't have any indication of that before, AFAIK.
Also, separate game business numbers are not meant to be officially provided. They do officially provide revenue numbers for Game, but not operating income or net profit or anything. During the overseas investor call someone asked for specific operating income numbers for Game, and they were declined, but I guess during the Japanese call or during a Q+A Oneda was a little more loose.
I don't think there should be any double standard - I think when dealing with either MS home entertainment numbers or Sony's NPS numbers there should be recognition that these aren't accurate reflections of either Xbox or SCE. I think people have made assumptions about their closeness, but those assumptions may not be sound.
Even better, actual numbers. 4 million consoles at -$200 each is -$800 million for the hardware sold in Q1 & Q2. Total recorded losses were $1 billion. Thus sales of software, PS2, PSP, etc. amounted to -$200 million!!
NPS loss for those two quarters was ~1bn.
I have significant doubts in light of Sony's comments about profitability for the FY among the various segments of NPS that SCE accounted for all of this number. For the full year, $75m+ of NPS' loss, at least, has nothing to do with SCE (given the Q4 numbers). From reports quoted above it sounds like the SCE loss for the year was more like ~$540m ('50bn Yen').
If that figure for the year is correct for the games business, then the loss in those two quarter was probably more like 600m, maybe 700m tops (assuming small profit in Q3/Q4).
During the overseas call they discussed the aspects of the game business wrt profitability. PSP and PS2 are both positive, but are declining. PS3 is obviously a negative. PSN...I don't think they said if it was a positive or negative contributor, just that they wanted to improve profitability. Then R&D, specifically 'future platform' R&D was the last factor they thought was notable, which is obviously a negative. Perhaps an increasing one as the generation wears on.
Shuffle those factors, and the numbers - at least that 50bn yen one - start to seem more plausible/believable.