Sony revealed a major blow to its finances in an early warning regarding results for its latest fiscal year (PDF). The company said it had lost $3.2 billion in the 12 months ended March 31 through several factors. Its nearly month-long PSN outage due to hacks is now known to have cost the company $171.17 million, both through repairing the damage as well as free PS3 and PSP games and a month of PlayStation Plus access.
Most of the loss came from a $4.4 billion equivalent setting aside of tax assets to address worries about future results. The earthquake in the Tohoku area of Japan will also have cut into its performance through repairs and lost production. Slow TV sales affecting the whole industry, as well as a struggle to keep sales going for the PS3, PSP, and Walkman players.
Sony was more optimistic for the current fiscal year. It still expected a profit of about $2.4 billion even with the shortfalls from the past year.
