Sony takes a hit on films, games and music

As if the much publicised problems with the hacking of its PlayStation online network weren't bad enough, Sony has today reported revenue falls across its films, games and music divisions for the first quarter of 2011.

Sony's networked products and services division, which includes its PC and PlayStation business, reported a 14 per cent year-on-year fall in revenue to ¥317bn (£2.4bn). Operating losses widened to ¥13.3bn (£100m).

A similar drop occurred at Sony Music, with a 12.9 per cent fall in revenue to ¥109bn (£820m) for the three months to end of March.

It blamed the exchange rate of the yen versus the US dollar, the "especially strong performance of Michael Jackson product in the previous fiscal year", and the "continued contraction of the physical music market" for the fall in music sales.

And film studio Sony Pictures fared little better with revenues down 11 per cent year-on-year to ¥174m.

The company said that while films such as Angelina Jolie's Salt and the remake of The Karate Kid did well in 2010, international movie and home entertainment revenues "declined significantly" because the previous year did so well from the release of disaster flick 2012 and Michael Jackson's This Is It.

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Andy is Global Brand Director of What Hi-Fi? and has been a technology journalist for 30 years. During that time he has covered everything from VHS and Betamax, MiniDisc and DCC to CDi, Laserdisc and 3D TV, and any number of other formats that have come and gone. He loves nothing better than a good old format war. Andy edited several hi-fi and home cinema magazines before relaunching whathifi.com in 2008 and helping turn it into the global success it is today. When not listening to music or watching TV, he spends far too much of his time reading about cars he can't afford to buy.

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