Sony: $170m PSN cost will not impact video game budgets
As company braces for huge bill, PlayStation Vita launch strategy dependent on ongoing earthquake assessment
Sony has said that the cost of the PlayStation Network hack - currently expected to be $170 million for this financial year - won't have an impact on hardware or software development budgets in the PlayStation business.
The bill comes at a time when Sony's PlayStation division had reported a profit of $435 million for the last financial year, off the back of falling hardware costs and better games sales - although the entire Sony Corporation suffered a $3.14 billion loss.
"It's a cost for which we'll have to make provisions and that I think we, ironically, were also at the same time talking about very, very strong profitability for our division overall," European president Andrew House told GamesIndustry.biz last week at E3.
There's a very good and sensible reason why we haven't clarified exact timing in regions and geographies - we were significantly impacted by the events of March 11
"I'm hoping that profitability will allow us to just sustain our business at the operational level in much the same way as we would have done without any of this happening."
The PSN hack isn't the only disaster to affect Sony this year. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March had a devastating effect on manufacturing, and it's this disruption that has left the PlayStation division unable to define a solid release date in any regions for the new PlayStation Vita handheld.
"There's a very good and sensible reason why we haven't clarified exact timing in regions and geographies - we were significantly impacted by the events of March 11 in Japan," said House.
"We've undertaken, across Sony but also SCEE, a significant assessment of impact on our supply chain and what we think the long or medium term impact is going to be. Once we've completed that assessment and have a full understanding of what our supply chain looks like then we'll be in a position to be more specific about launch in specific regions."
The full interview with Andrew House, where he also discusses pricing strategies for PS Vita, the newly announced 3D display and software bundle and catering to the hardcore, can be read here.