EA's Sales Figures Paint a Rosy Picture for Sony

5/15 - "EA posted some big software sales across the board, but Sony benefitted the most from EA sales. Combined numbers across the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Portable paint a rosy picture for Sony's platforms for both Sony and EA—especially once you take into account the sales trends of Sony's platforms, which saw some pretty substantial increases over last year."

"Throughout the year, Sony's two consoles contributed significantly to EA's overall revenue. Figures from the fourth quarter indicate that the two platforms contributed 29 percent of overall revenue for the company, compared to 11 percent for the Xbox 360, 7 percent for the Wii, 10 percent for the PC, 6 percent for the PSP, 3 percent for the DS, and 4 percent for Mobile."

"Sony has also reported its earnings which, when paired with EA's report, paint a bright future for the company. The PlayStation 2 continued to outsell the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 in most quarters despite sales slowing down for the aging platform. However, the PSP and PS3 managed to demonstrate significant improvement through the fiscal year with a 46 percent and 156 percent increase in hardware sales for a total of 13.89 million units and 9.24 million units, respectively."

"The good news for Sony extends further than that, as well. Two important studios were purchased by Electronic Arts in 2007: legendary RPG house Bioware and its sister studio Pandemic were scooped up in a deal worth an estimated $620 million in cash and an additional $155 million in equity. Both of the companies were known for producing content exclusively for the Xbox and PC platforms, but EA's ownership will ensure that more multiplatform titles will be released which, in the long run, will benefit Sony as once-potential Xbox 360 exclusives become multiplatform titles."