Just as Nintendo posted difficult financials for its FY10 Q2, so it is with Sony's games division.

For the three months ending September 30, its sales were down 13 percent to ¥171 billion ($2.1 billion), compared to Q2 2009.

However over the six month period, sales were slightly up by 2 percent to ¥313 billion ($3.9 billion).

Mixed bag

The best performer was PlayStation 3 with 3.5 million units sold, while PlayStation 2 continued to decline, and PSP saw a steep drop.

Compared to Q2 2009, PSP sales were down by half to 1.5 million, although Sony says it expects to sell around 8 million units over the entire year. This compares to 9.9 million PSPs sold in 2009.

PSP software sales during the quarter were 11 million units, compared to 13 million a year ago. During FY10, Sony expects to sell a similar number to the 44 million games sold during its full FY09.

On the up

Taking into account all Sony divisions - products, services, film, music etc - Q2 sales were ¥1.7 trillion ($21.5 billion), up 4 percent year on year.

Net profit was ¥31.1 billion ($385 billion) compared to a loss of ¥26.3 billion ($326 million) during the same period in 2009.

Like Nintendo, Sony complained about the impact of currency variations, which reduced overall sales and profits due to the strength of the Yen against other currencies, especially the dollar.

[source: Sony]