PS3 Sells Over 14M Worldwide, Sony Profits $51M

Sony Computer Entertainment has now sold over 14.41 million PlayStation 3 units worldwide since it launched in 2006, according to financial documents released today.

The company sold 1.56 million PS3 consoles during the first quarter of its 2008 fiscal year, which ran from April 1 to June 30. At the end of Sony's 2007 fiscal year, over 12.85 million PS3 units had been sold worldwide.

As of March, Nintendo's Wii had sold 24.45 million units worldwide while Microsoft's Xbox 360 had moved 19 million. Both companies have yet to provide updated figures.

Lifetime worldwide figures for the PlayStation 2 and PSP hardware are not available, as 2007 was the first fiscal year that Sony declared sales, not shipment numbers. In all, Sony expects to sell 9 million PS2s, 10 million PS3s, and 15 million PSPs during the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2009.

As for the actual financials, Sony's Game division saw $2.16 billion in sales revenue--a 16.8% jump over last year--and posted a $51 million profit. The company stated this was an "improvement" over the $237 million it lost in Q1 2007, owing the reduction to better performance of "the PS3 business" and "strong sales of PSP hardware."

An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed a $51 million loss, not profit, to Sony's Game division. Shacknews apologizes for the confusion, and furthermore, is not fond of the parenthesis that led to this error.