Sony has given a revised forecast for their fiscal year today, adding a large loss resulting from the earthquake and tsunami tragedy in Japan and the security breach of the PlayStation Network.
The company says the PSN breach will cost Sony $171.1 million and the earthquake will cost them a devastating $1.8 billion.
PSN costs were mainly attributed to the cost of the free 1-year of ID theft protection the company is offering all affected, as well as the free games/PlayStation Plus and customer support costs.
Adds Sony (via Gamasutra):
So far, we have not received any confirmed reports of customer identity theft issues, nor confirmed any misuse of credit cards from the cyber-attack. Those are key variables, and if that changes, the costs could change.
In addition, in connection with the data breach, class action lawsuits have been filed against Sony and certain of its subsidiaries and regulatory inquiries have begun; however, those are all at a preliminary stage, so we are not able to include the possible outcome of any of them in our results forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2012 at this moment.
Overall, thanks to the earthquake and the PSN issues, Sony says its fiscal year, ended in March 2011, will be revised down to a $3.2 billion loss from an $858.5 million profit.
Sony did say, however, that the earthquake will not affect the release of the NGP (PSP 2) and that the PlayStation Store would be available again this week.
Result for: games
Citing “trusted sources,” IGN is reporting that Microsoft will soon make free-to-play games available through Xbox Live.
By doing so, gamers can play the games for free, but will purchase virtual content (currency, weapons, clothes, etc) just like in popular Facebook games like MafiaWars and CityVille.
The industry has seen an expansion into F2P, with big publishers like EA even trying the model on shooters like Battlefield Play4Free.
That game is still in beta.
For now this is still rumor, but we will keep you updated.
Result for: games
A district judge has cleared a class action lawsuit against Electronic Arts this week, which means it should eventually become a jury trial.
The class action suit claims EA illegally increased the price of the Madden NFL series after it won exclusive rights to the NFL license, in 2005.
Any purchaser of a Madden game from 2005 until now is eligible to register as a plaintiff in the wide-ranging suit.
In 2004, Take-Two released NFL2K5 for just $19.95, taking on the behemoth Madden, which was forced to drop its prices to $29.95, down from the standard $49.99.
EA won the exclusive NFL license the next season and returned Madden prices to $50, and eventually $60 when the Xbox 360 and PS3 were launched.
Says plaintiff lawyer Steve Berman (via GI):
“Consumers now have a legal standing to demand that EA refund consumers millions of dollars it made from Madden NFL and other sports titles through what we contend was an illegal price-gouging scheme.
“We believe EA forced consumers to pay an artificial premium on Madden NFL videogames. We intend to prove that EA could inflate prices on their sports titles because these exclusive licenses restrained trade and competition for interactive sports software.”
