Sony to boost PS3 software to reverse slump: Nikkei
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Sony Corp. (6758.T) expects a sharp  increase in the number of games released for the PlayStation 3  this business year, in a move that should help the game  console&#39;s slumping sales, the Nikkei business daily quoted the  head of Sony&#39;s game division as saying in an interview.
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Sony Corp.  will cut back on  future chip spending and may not produce advanced chips used in  its PlayStation 3 (PS3) in-house, a senior executive said on  Tuesday, in a move aimed at driving the semiconductor unit's  nascent earnings recovery.
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Sony Corp. (6758.T) said on Friday that  losses at its games division in the July-September quarter may  be bigger than its losses for the quarter ended in June due to  a possible increase in valuation losses on PlayStation 3  microchips.
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Sony Corp's (6758.T) PlayStation  3 will double its installed base this year, posting the  strongest growth of any video game console and narrowing the  gap with rivals, research firm iSuppli said on Thursday.
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Sony Corp said on Thursday it would stop  shipments of PlayStation 3 models with 20- and 60-gigabyte (GB)  hard disk drives in Japan this month, focusing instead on the  40-GB model.
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Japan's Nikkei average ended up 0.25  percent on Tuesday, the first trading day of 2005, as core blue  chips including Sony Corp. gained ground on optimism about the  country's economy and stock market.
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Sony Corp  gaming chief Kaz  Hirai hopes to turn a profit on the PlayStation 3 console  business in the entertainment conglomerate's next fiscal year,  fuelled in part by falling costs for the parts used to make the  device.
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Ability to save files directly to Sony's PlayStation Portable handheld gaming device could boost falling sales.
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Sony Corp.  will cut back on future chip spending and may not produce advanced chips used in its PlayStation 3 (PS3) in-house, a senior executive said on Tuesday, in a move aimed at driving the semiconductor unit's nascent earnings recovery.
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Sony is to cut the Japanese launch price of its forthcoming PlayStation 3 console by 20%, the firm says.
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Japan's Nikkei share average returned to  positive territory by mid-morning on Monday as bargain-hunting  lifted bank shares, but consumer electronics firm Sony Corp.  extended losses after its profit warning.
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Price cuts for the PlayStation 3 video game console are among the factors Sony is studying as it seeks to break even in its money-losing gaming business next fiscal year, a company executive said Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Sony's core electronics business more than doubled profits in the last quarter of 2006, but failed to offset price cuts to itsÂ PlayStation 3 game console, leading to an overall profit decline of just over 5 percent, the company said Tuesday. The company said sales and operating revenue increased 9.8 percent to Â¥2.6 trillion ($21.4 billion) while net profit fell 5.3 percent to Â¥159.9 billion. Sony Computer Entertainment, the division responsible for its PlayStation gaming consoles, was the only one of Sony's main business units that registered a loss in the quarter. It lost Â¥54.2 billion primarily due to the retail price of the more expensive of the two consoles being reduced from a planned Â¥62,790 to Â¥49,980 in Japan. The cut was made, Sony said, due to negative feedback from consumers. Sony's electronics business saw profits more than double to Â¥177.4 billion on 16.9 percent higher sales of Â¥1.9 trillion, the company said. The unit had a generally positive quarter with sales of Bravia LCD (liquid crystal display) televisions and Cybershot digital still cameras increasing. Europe saw the biggest percentage sales jump, up 21 percent, thanks to better LCD TV and Vaio PC sales, while tough competition in the U.S. TV market meant sales there increased by just 3 percent. Sony Pictures returned to profitability as sales there jumped 47 percent, but sales in the financial services division fell 9 percent. Underlining the generally positive results, Sony revised its full-year profit forecast upward for the year to the end of March. It now expects to record a net profit of Â¥110 billion for the year, up from its previous forecast of Â¥80 billion, although still lower than the Â¥124 billion it reported last year. The sales forecast was left unchanged. Sony's mid-term business plan has targeted a profit margin of 5 percent for the coming fiscal year. Sony's electronics business is already meeting its part of the target and will continue to do so next year however the games unit needs to improve, Sony's chief financial officer Nobuyuki Oneda said at a Tokyo news conference on Tuesday. He expects to bring the company's games unit closer to break-even in the second half, he said. Sony will target cost savings in the PlayStation 3 by introducing more advanced chips and consolidating components to reduce the overall number of parts, he said. The company is already on the way to the first of these targets, with the recent start of production of a new version of the Cell processor built with a 65-nanometer production process. The chip in current consoles is built using a 90-nanometer process and the upcoming switch will mean a chip that is 40 percent smaller. Costs will fall in line with the size reduction, Sony said. It did not say when the new chip will appear in consoles. Sony wouldn't provide anyÂ PlayStation 3 shipment estimatesÂ for the coming financial year but said it remains confident it will ship 6 million consoles up to March. It also revised upwards its PlayStation 2 shipment forecast from 11 million units to 13 million units. Sony counts shipments as finished consoles leaving its factory for Sony warehouses and distributors. Oneda ruled out the possibility of further price cuts in the near future, but hinted that this could happen in two or three years' time. Â
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Sony Corp. (6758.T) will launch its  PlayStation 3 with an 80-gigabyte (GB) hard disk drive on June  16 in South Korea for 518,000 won ($556), offering the upgraded  version of its latest game console for the first time ever, the  Japanese electronics conglomerate said.
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TOKYO -- Price cuts for the PlayStation 3 video game console are among the factors Sony is studying as it seeks to break even in its money-losing gaming business next fiscal year, a company executive said Wednesday.
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5:1 sales ratio Sony's PlayStation 3 is falling further behind Nintendo's Wii in the Japanese sales stakes, the latest figures from local market watcher Enterbrain have revealed.â¦
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Sony Corp. is revamping its strategy in the U.S. personal computer market by tailoring laptop computers for corporate customers and entering the low-end market in a move to boost share, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said on Tuesday.