Sony Borrows $698 Million, Ordered To Pay $243 Million

A story on Bloomberg from a couple of days ago reported that Sony took out an ¥80 billion ($698 million) syndicated loan last week, its first bank borrowing in 10 years! Ironically, however, another report which surfaced on Japanese news site IT Media indicated that Sony was being ordered to pay additional taxes of ¥27.9 billion ($243 million), as a result of the company's under-reporting of games business income.

According to Tokyo's regional tax bureau, Sony allegedly failed to report revenues earned from deals between SCE and its US arm between 1999-2004, and CD and DVD disc transactions with overseas subsidiaries during 2003-2004. The bureau estimated the total unreported income at ¥74.4 million ($649 million), leading them to order the payment of the above mentioned amount of $243 million in taxes. Both Sony and SCE disputed the claims, saying: "We have always made appropriate tax payments in compliance with the tax codes of countries; this notice is unsatisfactory", and adding that Sony was "confident [of avoiding] this double taxation" thanks to international tax agreements.

Hmm... weren't they pretty "confident" about dodging another kind of taxes some time ago, by having their PlayStation 2 classified as a computer? Because that didn't turn out so well. And their other financial disputes are also far from over, what with Immersion and everything.

But anyway, financials aside, we can't have a news about Sony and not talk about the PlayStation 3. The latest issue on the matter revolves around the number of PS3 units to be available on launch day in the UK. The UK's Official PlayStation Magazine was said to have predicted around 150,000 units. However, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, a Sony spokesperson said: "We have yet to confirm allocation for the UK territory. We're on target to ship 2 million units globally at launch and 6 million units by end of fiscal year".

Meanwhile, as November 17th draws near, another couple of publishers - Ubisoft and Sega - have expressed their fears regarding the PlayStation 3's high price. Ubisoft President Yves Guillemot warned that the price of Sony's console must go down in 2007 to stay competitive, while Sega of America's Scott Steinberg pointed out that "for a lot of families [the launch price is] too expensive". O RLY!

And finally, speaking of Sega, it looks like both the next-gen Sonic game and Full Auto 2: Battlelines are on track for the November PS3 launch. At least that's what mr. Steinberg said a couple of days ago, according to Spong.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)