Sony closed its first quarter of the fiscal year (ending June 30, 2010) with a strong increase over the ¥37.1 billion loss ($426M) it saw during the same time period last year. In financial statements released today, Sony revealed its quarter ended with a net income of ¥25.7 billion ($295), pushing overall year-over-year sales up by 3.8 percent to ¥1.7 trillion ($18.7B).

Although the overall PlayStation brand saw an increase in hardware and software sales for the quarter, the combined Networked Products and Services division, of which it is a part of, recorded an operating loss of ¥3.8 billion ($43M). The reported loss still pales in comparison to the ¥36.7 billion ($422M) drop the division saw in the same time period last year.

In the period, PlayStation 3 hardware saw an increase of 2.4 million units, versus 1.1 million the previous year with software sales climbing to 24.8 million units (a 10 million unit increase over last year). PlayStation Portable sales dipped to 1.2 million units from 1.3 million; however, software sales for the handheld jumped 900K units to 9.2 million.

PlayStation 2 hardware remained constant at 1.6 million units but software dropped 5.1 million units to 3.4 million.