PSN, SOE Hack Cost Sony $171 Million

Sony revised their forecast for the upcoming fiscal year today. Their financial outlook has, understandably, changed a bit due to the double whammy of the PlayStation Network/Sony Online Entertainment outages and the Japanese earthquake.

"As of today, our current associated costs [related to the PSN/SOE hack] for the fiscal year ending March 2012 are estimated to be approximately 14 billion yen [$171.4 million] on the consolidated operating income level," said Sony on the investor conference call (via Shacknews. The figure includes both the loss of revenue as well as the increased costs from fixing the services and giving freebies to users.

The hit Sony takes could be even larger than this figure, though. They note that they're the subject of several class action lawsuits, which may result in costly settlements. Furthermore, the PlayStation Store still isn't back online so they're still bleeding potential revenue. It's also possible that sales of the console slowed in May, as consumers held off on buying the system because they knew they wouldn't be able to play online yet.

Regardless, the cost of the PSN and SOE hack is dwarfed by the damage from the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year. Sony estimates a 150 billion yen ($1.83 billion) loss on their operating income for this fiscal year, as well as 17 billion yen ($208.1 million) for the fiscal year.