“The activity of video games has instead returned to profit, thanks to an increase of 16.8 percent over a year of its quarterly turnover pulled off by the sales of the PlayStation 3 console, by the growing popularity of the handheld PSP model, and games that accompany these two multimedia platforms,” an AFX report said.

Back in January, Nikko Citigroup’s Kota Ezawa told BusinessWeek that Sony cut the cost per machine to around $400 now, from above $800 just before it went on sale. This was a result of shrinking the PS3’s chips and tweaking its design, as Sony continues its efforts to trim down production costs.