Sony's second quarter results have fallen short of expectations - charges related to the sale of its battery division and earthquake damage hit its bottom-line.

The firm has reported a 48% drop in its operating profit - the company has reduced its full-year profit forecast by 10% to 270 billion yen (€234bn).

The Japanese company faced as impairment charge of 33 billion yen (€28bn) related to the sale of the battery business.

Sony's business has also hit by a series of earthquakes in Japan which disrupted its sensor production - these components are used in a number of devices, including Apple's iPhones.

Gaming is central to Sony's future plans, investors hope its virtual reality headset and a Playstation 4 upgrade, which will offer better graphics, will be a hit come Christmas time.

"PlayStation VR is off to a great start, already having exceeded our expectations... Due to the popularity of the system, we have received some additional units for the upcoming holiday (season)," senior Vice President for merchandising Bob Puzon commented.

The company will hope that the VR headset will draw new casual gamers and tech enthusiasts to its console.

Newstalk.com gave the VR experience two thumbs up when we gave it a test-run last month.