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PlayStation 4 sales help Sony's game division to profit

But handheld sales fall and company records overall loss.

Sony has announced that it had shipped 3.3m PlayStation 4 consoles during the three months between July to September, which boosted revenues in the company's game division up 84 per cent year-on-year.

Another 800,000 PlayStation 3 consoles were also shifted during the same timeframe.

The company's handheld category fared less well, however - Sony shipped a combined total of 700,000 PlayStation Vitas, PSPs and PlayStation TV units (Sony declined to specify exact amounts for each).

But that's around 100,000 less than it sold during the same period last year - and despite the new addition of PlayStation TV.

Overall, Sony's Game and Network Services division made 309.5bn yen (£1.73bn) in revenue and reversed last year's 4.2bn yen operating loss into a 21.8bn yen (£122m) operating profit.

But, company-wide, Sony made a loss of ¥136bn (£764m) and expects to end the financial year with an even wider loss of ¥230bn yen (£1.2bn), despite raised expectations for the game division.