Online games make lots of money. You know this. Everyone knows this. It’s why everyone and their mother has made an MMO in the last three years and attempts to advertise them with lots and lots of boobs. A new study by Strategy Analytics has confirmed that widely held belief. It was actually a study of the industry as a whole that showed growth everywhere, but specifically that online gaming would generate more than $20 billion in new revenue over the next three years.

Strategy Analytics says that online gaming is set to grow in revenue by 18.7% year over year, creating a $24.8 billion sector of the market that accounts for 38% of total gaming revenue. In short: it’s gonna be huge. It’s not just online games blowing up, though. SA also predicts a $64.9 billion industry by 2013, compared with the meager $46.5 billion that was 2009.

I hope the students out there are paying attention. These are the kinds of numbers that just might legitimize video games as a career in the eyes of your parents.

Source: Edge Online

Sony’s Q2 fiscal-year earnings report reads a bit like a good horror story. The most interesting for our purposes is that “networked products and services” division, which includes the Playstation brand. It also includes a whopping $654 million loss this quarter, which Sony attributes to declining PS2 sales and appreciation of the yen. The PS2 sold some 600,000 units less this year than last. Ouch.

Maybe worse, though, is that the numbers have given math nerds around the web enough info to figure that the PS3 has cost Sony roughly $4.7 billion over the course of its life. That’s a monstrous figure, particularly since this is Sony’s third-gen console. Microsoft lost about as much with the original Xbox, but the 360 hasn’t hurt Redmond nearly as badly.

There is some hope, though. As manufacturing costs continue to plummet and sales rise with the PS3 Slim, Sony thinks the brand will become profitable as early as next year. That would be a hell of a turnaround, and frankly one I doubt we’ll see, but I’m willing to hope a little for Sony’s sake.