The decline in sales of the Sony Playstation has hit the 1998 fiscal year figures for the entire company. Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) has said that for the first time in four years sales of the video console have fallen. The parent company, Sony Corp, posted a 1998 profit of 179bn yen ($1.5bn), down 19% from 222bn yen ($1.86bn) last year. The company also blamed economic conditions in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America for the results.
The consumer electronics firm has been used to strong performance from its SCE division bolstering flagging sales in its core audio/visual market. However, the launch of Sega Enterprises Ltd’s Dreamcast has meant increased competition in the console market. Despite the fact that the Dreamcast is already falling behind the Nintendo N64 and Playstation in the market (CI No 3,645), there are now three major machines fighting for market share, hitting the Playstation totals.
In addition, Sony has the headache of moving to a new generation of Playstation console, one that uses an untried chipset and development platform. This is reflected Sony’s predictions for FY99, the company is saying that group profit is likely to be down 39% on FY98 at 110bn ($0.9bn). In a statement, it blamed this further fall on development costs for the new console.
