Sony reveals its financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year, with the company's PlayStation gaming division accounting for 78% of its profits.

As is typical for the end of July, video game companies have started revealing their financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year (April 1st - June 30th). So far, things have looked bleak for the industry, with Nintendo reporting a massive loss, and Capcom experiencing a decrease in both sales and profits. Sony has now announced its results for the first quarter as well, and it paints a much more optimistic view of the current state of the gaming industry, though the company is struggling in other areas.

Sales for Sony's Game & Network Services division were $3.2 billion in the first quarter, with an operating income of $427 million, up 126 percent from 2015. Sony also has its hand in the television, film, and music industries, among others, so those ventures combined with its gaming business resulted in an overall profit for the first quarter of $546 million. This means that Sony's Game & Network Services division accounted for 78% of the company's total profits for the first quarter.

Sony's increased gaming profits are due to strong software sales and the 3.5 million PS4s it sold in the last three months. Moving forward, Sony will be looking to maintain this success with PlayStation VR when it launches in October, and with PlayStation Neo, which could be released before the end of the current fiscal year.

It just goes to show how strong the PlayStation brand is that it was able to claim responsibility for almost all of Sony's profit in the last quarter. Maintaining this momentum will be tricky, though, especially in the face of competition from new hardware like Xbox's Project Scorpio and the Nintendo NX, but so far, PS4 is still on track to becoming one of the best-selling video game consoles of all time.

It's true that console sales are slowing down, but the new hardware all three console manufacturers are introducing should rejuvenate console sales. Furthermore, there are numerous high profile games on the horizon, and Sony should be able to count on strong software sales to help it maintain the PlayStation brand's profitability.

Whether it's through the introduction of new PlayStation 4 hardware or software sales, Sony should be able to keep its position as the leader of the eighth generation console sales race. With experimental new ventures like PlayStation VR set to launch in the next few months, it will be interesting to see how Sony's financials are impacted in the coming quarters.

Source: GameSpot