Sony today announced its financial results for the second quarter of the fiscal year ending on March 31st 2006. The company's game division, Sony Computer Entertainment, reported an operating profit of 8.2 billion yen (70.79 million US) on sales of 214.2 billion yen (1.85 billion US). This stands in pure contrast to the same period of the previous fiscal year, when the division reported declining sales and a net loss.

PlayStation 2 hardware shipments increased from 3.02 million copies during the second quarter of the previous fiscal year to 5.01 million units. Sony Computer Entertainment also shipped 3.75 million units of its PlayStation Portable handheld. For the second time this year the company raised its shipment forecast for the full fiscal year. It now projects shipments of 14 million PlayStation 2 and 14 million PlayStation Portable units. On the software side, 50 million copies of PlayStation 2 software and 9 million copies of PlayStation Portable software have been sold. The 9 million copies of PlayStation Portable games managed to offset a decline in PlayStation 2 software sales by 6 million copies.

Development costs for the next generation PlayStation 3 hardware and an aggressive advertising campaign for PlayStation Portable drove up expenses, but strong hardware sales still allowed Sony Computer Entertainment to generate a profit during the second quarter.

• GameWatch