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Games business a money-maker again for electronics giant, thanks to increased console sales, lower manufacturing costs.

Last year, the July-September quarter was a dire one for Sony, with the company losing ¥26.3 billion ($326 million) on ¥1.66 trillion ($20.6 billion) of revenues. Today, the company reported earnings for the same period in 2010, and the result was decidedly different–¥31.1 billion yen ($385.4 million) of profit on ¥1.73 trillion ($21.5 billion) in revenues.

The future is looking bright for Sony.

One reason for the increased profitability is that the massive restructuring Sony underwent last year–which saw 16,000 people laid off–is finally paying off. Another reason, though, mentioned by the electronics giant was the improved performance of its Networked Products & Services division, which includes Sony Computer Entertainment.

During the same period last year, the Networked Products & Services division posted a ¥59 billion ($731.5 million) loss. From July-September 2010, the sector posted a ¥6.9 billion ($85.5 million) profit, thanks to higher PC sales and “the strong performance of [the] PlayStation 3 resulting from significant hardware cost reductions and higher sales.” The company did say that the games business shrunk year-over-year overall, reflecting lessening sales of its other platforms, the PSP and PlayStation 2.

As a result of the better-than-expected earnings during the July-September quarter, Sony now expects a profit of ¥70 billion ($867.7 million) for the full fiscal year, up from ¥60 billion ($743.8 million). It expects to sell 15 million PS3s during the year, as well as 8 million PSPs and 6 million PS2s. Software-wise, it predicts annual sales will be flat at 115.6 million PS3 games, 44.4 million PSP games, and 35.7 million PS2 games.

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Though the videogame industry often relies on hardware sales to drive the bottom line, at least one executive thinks “soon” isn’t the right time for new consoles.

THQ President and CEO Brian Farrell said the arrival of PlayStation Move and Kinect will help the gamer audience grow and extend the life of the current generation of consoles.

“Frankly, the last thing I think the industry needs now is new hardware. You look at the games coming out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 now and they look stunning,” Farrell said in a recent interview. “If we were to have another $1000 box that the hardware guys have to subsidize and that software developers have to spend even more money developing, that model just doesn’t work.”

“So to have an extended cycle with a broader audience I think, strategically, is exactly the right way to go, and Move and Kinect are both designed to do that,” he said. “The market will decide if one or both of those will work, but I love the concept of both hardware guys trying to broaden the audience beyond just the core consumer.”

Do you agree? Have you purchased PlayStation Move? Do you plan to pick up Kinect when it releases next week?

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On a San Francisco evening that also featured an eagerly anticipated World Series Game 1 and a Super Mario Bros 25th Anniversary invite-only mixer, Sony bravely held an event of its own to promote the upcoming Move brawler, The Fight: Lights Out. At the aptly titled Mighty club in Potrero Hill, Sony hosted press and special guests for an evening of hands-on time with the game – and yeah, the World Series was shown as well. Sony’s not stupid. Also on hand was Danny Trejo, fresh off his roles in Machete and Fallout: New Vegas, to talk about his involvement in the game… …

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Remember Mass Effect 2′s Cerberus Network? Think of it as a fancy way to get DLC. Also, think of it as Dragon Age II‘s system of acquiring DLC, as the upcoming game from BioWare is slated to have a bonus content delivery system of sorts.

“We haven’t announced what’s in it,” says executive producer Mark Darrah, “but it’ll definitely be something kind of in that Cerberus vein where there will be additional content.”

Darrah also promised that players can expect higher quality DLC over the first Dragon Age’s DLC, as it brought about a wave of complaints on recycled content and cramped scope.

For some icing on the cake, BioWare also promised free DLC to pre-orders, as doing so will upgrade the pre-order to the BioWare Signature Edition for free.

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Oft-delayed Namco Bandai action horror game goes gold, set for Xbox 360 and PS3 release on November 23; original game headed to mobile phones.

While Namco Bandai will be unable to meet its Halloween launch window for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 action horror game Splatterhouse, it won’t miss the mark by much. Today, the publisher announced that Splatterhouse has completed development and will hit the market November 23.

Charming three bed, four bath Hell-adjacent Victorian with hardwood floors. A real cleaner-upper!

An update of the original gross-out arcade beat-’em-up released in 1988, Splatterhouse features a mix of platforming, puzzle-solving, and brutal combat, all set to an original storyline by comic-book scribe Gordon Rennie (Judge Dredd, Necronauts). Players assume the role of a college student in search of his kidnapped girlfriend and subsequently happen upon a mask that confers great power–and an insatiable bloodlust.

The series reprise will also feature the original Splatterhouse trilogy of games as an unlockable bonus. Gamers interested in simply checking out the original Splatterhouse can either download the TurboGrafx-16 version from the Wii Shop Channel or look forward to a mobile version of the title set for release on a variety of platforms–including the iPhone and Windows Mobile phones–around the same time as the console game.

The game was originally announced as being in development at BottleRocket Entertainment in May 2008, but Namco Bandai abruptly pulled the studio off the project in February 2009. After a brief dispute between the two companies, Variety reported that Namco Bandai had picked up a number of ex-BottleRocketeers to finish the project.

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Since the launch of StarCraft 2 earlier this year, Blizzard’s Battle.net matchmaking system has proven to be an invaluable tool for communicating with friends and organizing matches across multiple Blizzard products. But what if there were more than just Blizzard games on Battle.net? Greg Canessa, project director for Blizzard’s online service, discussed exactly that in a recent interview with Gamasutra.

“I’ll tell you this, Bobby Kotick and all the folks at Activision are very supportive of Battle.net and what we’re doing,” Canessa said, calling Battle.net “one of the top five strategic initiatives going on at Activision Blizzard.”

He continued, “Today, [the focus is] Blizzard games, and making sure Diablo III is a kick-ass online experience, and making sure we evolve and add features of StarCraft II, make sure that WoW kicks ass for Cataclysm and beyond.”

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Ubisoft has announced that Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is “gold” — i.e., it’s on the way to the factory where it gets turned into thousands of silver discs and shipped to stores, where it will go on sale November 16. To accompany the news, a new montage trailer is out. Hit the break to view it.

Continue reading Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood goes gold, new trailer goes to Rome

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood goes gold, new trailer goes to Rome originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony has just announced it will be releasing the 320 GB PS3 unit, which is currently bundled in a $400 PlayStation Move hardware package, as a standalone console in time for the holiday shopping season. At $350, it’ll be the most expensive standalone console system on the market… …

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In an update by publisher Warner Bros., the third iteration in the first-person horror series that was to be released “this holiday” but was delayed for reasons we’re still to be informed of, F.E.A.R. 3, is now hitting store shelves on March 22nd next year. The game is still coming out on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, so no changes there.

In the wake of the new date, Warner Bros. also revealed a few retail-exclusive pre-order campaigns that will be taking place at Amazon, Best Buy and GameStop. Pre-ordering the game at Amazon will get you a 12-page comic book meant to be a prequel to the game, written by Steve Niles, illustrated by Stefano Raffaele and published by DC Comics. While that is a cool attachment, Best Buy and GameStop will be taking a more… let’s say, practical approach, as pre-ordering at these stores will give you exclusive access to The Shredder (Best Buy), a gun that fires heavy rounds with nitrates that acts “like a fire breathing dragon in your hand,” and The Hammer (GameStop), Paxton Fettel’s original .50 mm sidearm that packs twice the punch of a standard one.

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Phil Spencer, Vice President of Microsoft Game Studios, is continuing the marketing push for Kinect, their soon-to-be-out motion control device, by stating that eventually “you’re not going to see that differentiation between ‘is that a Kinect game?’ and ‘is that not a Kinect game?’” That doesn’t mean to imply that all future games on the Xbox will be controller-less, Spencer just means that we will think of them all as 360 games, not divided into Kinect/non-Kinect groups.

“We view Kinect as a fundamental part of the platform,” Spencer said. “It is as core to the platform as Xbox Live is.”

He goes on to say that, just like Live is being “used in many different ways across many different experiences that we build,” developers can use the cameras attached to their dev kits to add in Kinect in ways that they feel enhance their game’s experience.

Spencer adds in the fact that he believes the Kinect experience will be enhanced by the third party devs: “expect to see Kinect across all genres. All genres will support Kinect at some point.”

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