Sony's quarterly profit up 25%; video game business stops losing money

[Grubert]

TOKYO (AP) -- Sony Corp. reported a 25 percent jump in profit for the October-December quarter Thursday, as its video game business stopped losing money, largely because of cost cuts for the PlayStation 3 console.
Profit at Sony, a Japanese electronics and entertainment company behind the Walkman portable player, climbed to 200.2 billion yen ($1.88 billion) for the three months ended Dec. 31, from 159.9 billion yen in the same period the previous year.

But profitability at Sony's core electronics business declined for the quarter compared to a year earlier because of plunging gadget prices that offset some of the positive impact of improved sales, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080131/japan...sony.html?.v=1