By Ty Wenger, TheStreet.com

Michael Jackson is the rising tide that lifts all boats -- or at least the boats that have a financial stake in his assets.

Sony became the latest beneficiary of his posthumous powers today. The company reported a smaller-than-expected 26.3 billion yen ($289 million) quarterly loss because of cost cuts and healthy sales of PlayStation 3 game consoles and, yes, Jackson hits. The pop superstar, whose 1982 release Thriller was the best-selling album ever, died on June 25.

Sony has been battered by the global slowdown, sliding prices of gadgets and its failure to produce new blockbuster consumer products. But the Japanese electronics and entertainment giant said Friday that it now expects a smaller loss for the fiscal year through March 2010.

Bing: More on Michael Jackson

Sony is projecting a 95 billion yen ($1 billion) loss compared with an initial forecast of a 120 billion yen ($1.3 billion) loss. The new forecast is marginally better than the 98.9 billion yen loss it suffered the previous fiscal year.

Several of Sony's Asian electronics competitors also filed their earnings today, including South Korea's privately held Samsung Electronics, which tripled its profit in the July-September quarter amid increased sales. Panasonic posted a quarterly profit for the first time in a year, helped by cost cuts and recovering demand for home electronics, while Toshiba reported a net profit of 100 million yen ($1.1 million) for its fiscal second quarter, up from a net loss of 26.9 billion yen in the year-earlier period.

Sony shares gained 2.8% to 2,785 yen ($30) in Tokyo.

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