Revenue Slips at Sony

The net result of that change was that Sony's effective tax rate in the quarter was 4.7%, compared with 42.8% in the third quarter a year earlier.

In terms of its individual business segments, sales and operating income fell at Sony's games, electronics and music divisions. Those declines were partially offset by revenue and operating income gains at the company's film and financial services divisions.

Within the electronics business, sales fell less than 1% to 1,510.8 trillion yen, but operating income plunged 23.3% to 49.4 billion yen. Sony blamed the drop in operating income on largely on falling average prices for its video cameras. But the company noted that overall sales of its portable audio devices and traditional televisions also declined.

Despite being the company behind the Walkman and the sports line of jam boxes and other audio products, Sony has struggled in recent years as digital music players have driven the growth of the industry. Apple (AAPL Quote) currently dominates the digital music market with its iPod players.

On the games front, Sony's sales fell 23% to 282.6 billion yen, while its operating income dropped 36.8% to 44.6 billion yen.

Although the company actually shipped 560,000 more PlayStation 2 consoles in the quarter than it did in the third quarter last year, actual unit sales of the device declined in Japan, the United States and Canada. The company is in the middle of replacing its original PlayStation 2 with a more svelte one and struggled last fall to stock shelves with the updated device. The company also dropped the price on its console last year, adding to the sales decline.

On a brighter note, the company's new PlayStation Portable handheld device has seen "positive" sales, Sony said. The company had shipped 510,000 PSP units by the end of the quarter, it said.