Sony Computer Entertainment released its financial results for the fiscal year 2003/2004 in Tokyo today. The game division of Sony posted a consolidated net profit of 67.6 billion yen ($622.10 million USD) on sales of 780.2 billion yen ($7.18 billion USD). Compared to the previous fiscal year, both figures declined by 18.3% and 40% respectively, as the company is preparing the launch of its handheld system PlayStation Portable (PSP) and investing heavily in new technologies such as the CELL processor, to be used in the successor of its current PlayStation 2 console.

Hardware sales declined only slightly to 20.10 million units, whereas software sales rose by 17% over the fiscal year 2002/2003 reaching a total of 222 million copies. Worldwide totals for PlayStation 2 hardware and software have reached 71.30 million and 572 million respectively. In the meantime, Sony Computer Entertainment is getting closer to shipping its 100 millionth PlayStation (including PlayStation One) unit. The PlayStation 2's predecessor sold 3.31 million units throughout the 12 months until March 31st, with software sales of 32 million copies. That brings the platform's total figures to 99.72 million units of hardware and 949 million copies of software.

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