The Playstation 3 has cost Sony $3.3 billion since the machine launched in late 2006, says a newly released financial report. Ooyah!

Megacorps don't come much bigger than Sony but that's still gotta hurt, and plenty. Needless to say the analysts have been clucking and fussing over their calculators since the bomb was dropped too, with Forbes already predicting that "Even if the platform is ultimately successful, it may take longer than expected to recoup the investment, resulting in a negative impact on Sony’s profitability." And dear old Michael Pachter reminding all that the PS3's current price point is still too high to tempt mainstream consumers onboard. So it all looks rather gloomy for Sony, right?

Well, perhaps not. As brain-warpingly heee-yoooge as this cumulative loss may be Sony's definitely running a marathon not a sprint and still has the appetite to see things through. Sony CEO, Howard Stringer, told shareholders just last week that restoring profitability to the games business was now top priority and the company has made great strides recently in cutting down PS3 production costs. Furthermore things are already on the up, financially speaking - $2.15 billion was shed globally in the first five months following launch but it's only been a mere $1.5 billion in the last year, since console sales have really started to accelerate. That's way more than a 50% improvement year on year, so a profit won't be too far off if the PS3 keeps that performance off. At least that's what Sony execs must be hoping.