Sony today said it expects to lose Y50 billion ($490 million) in the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2015. Even though the Japanese electronics and entertainment giant has been struggling for years, today's announcement comes as a surprise, since a Bloomberg-compiled average of 19 analyst estimates had Sony making a profit of Y57.1 billion. The last time Sony surprised investors with a downbeat assessment of its prospects was on May 1, when it spoiled the holiday mood by announcing that its loss for the 2013-14 fiscal year would be Y130 billion, worse than the Y110 billion loss it had forecast a few months earlier and much worse than the Y30 billion profit it had forecast a few months before that.