Every day we’re hearing of a company running through a round of layoffs or going out of business, it’s really not a happy time. Sony is not immune to the economic troubles either. Sony is talking restructuring and that involves a potential head count reduction of 16,000 jobs due to plant closings.
This leaves Sony with some hard decisions. Restructuring can mean drastic changes that effect all their product lines. The PlayStation 3 isn’t currently a shining example of high profit margins. The console needs time to reduce its overall cost, chip sizes and bring profitability. Is it in danger?
“Sony’s not in a position to halt all domestic production but it has to do something that drastic,” said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management. “If it announces plans to move production overseas while keeping only planning and development functions in Japan, that would be a positive.” (gamestooge)
The yen is losing value in our global economy making it more difficult to export the product and build any type of profitability plan. “A source said this month the company will likely suffer an annual operating loss of about $1.1 billion, its first such loss in 14 years” (news.yahoo.com) All this noise is making CEO Howard Stringer contemplate Sony’s involvement as a “software only” company, making us recall the changes at SEGA to this same result.
The Financial Times reported Sony will unveil details of its restructuring steps on Wednesday or Thursday. It said Chief Executive Howard Stringer was meeting with resistance from some executives to shifting the company’s focus to software from hardware and cutting jobs in Japan. (news.yahoo.com)
Is this just a case of a fearful executive trying to lay plans for a more stable future? Software is easier to develop, pays for itself quickly and becomes pure profit as it ages. Hardware requires constant upkeep at manufacturing facilities, chip reductions and a boat load of quality planning for first shipment. Would Sony go full software?
Let’s face it, Sony isn’t SEGA, they’ve been developing hardware for consumers since anyone can remember and they’ve been doing it with quality and market penetration. It seems absurd to think they’d forgo hardware designs in replacement of a full software solution to the problem. In addition, Sony has already invested a large amount of cash into seeing PS3 through it’s 10-year plan and letting that die now is realizing a huge loss on investment.
If Sony pushes through the economic and maintenance course, the PS3 will become highly profitable, much like the PS2 last generation (with a slower ramp up for sales). Even if they break even after ten years it seems a lot better than throwing all the effort away.
Perhaps Howard Stringer is talking “software” for the next generation home console? You think Sony will create a PlayStation 4?
are u guys aware that I’m from philippines coz people in the philippines are stupid coz they don’t know whats the difference between a stupid warcraft 3 mod dota which I call poor man’s game and the difference between world of warcraft . People here stupid they brag about their dota skills .how bout they play wow and get their ass kicked
Yay, 2 hours!
Oliver, please calm down and discuss the podcast in the comments, also AFTER listening to it.
Anyway, Paul, get ready to be disappointed by the final dungeon and the final boss in Skyward Sword. And I don’t think that the open world in Arkham City takes anything away from the game. We probably have different tastes, but I love searching for all the Riddler Trophies and sidequests in the city, it makes it come alive.
Best games: Arkham City, Portal 2, Skyward Sword
Most surprisingly fun games: Rayman Origins, Bulletstorm, Bastion
@Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony all pull support from SOPA – sort of: At least we now know that the SOPA bill is only getting weaker, because it is an absolute disaster in its current form.
@QOTW: I think I would prefer playing on a handheld console, because there aren’t many mobile games that I would want to play.
@Full games vs smaller games on handhelds, I agree with Jonah.
The reason why the DS was so successful was that it appealed to people who werent necessarily gamers before. People who got attracted to playing Brain Training and Professor Layton’s games. While the PSP kept on pushing games like God of War Chains of Olympus and what not. And while you can’t say PSP failed in sales, it was pretty well beaten up by DS world wide.
@Game I played the most
Hard one.. Either Darkfall Online, or TES Oblivion (I keep revisiting this game, one of my favourites of all times)
@Game that disappointed me the most
I havent tried that many new games this year, so even though I’m loving it, Ill have to go with TES Skyrim. Don’t get me wrong, it is a brilliant game, but the series have indeed been dumbed down a lot in this one. It lost complexity to get more action. Don’t think Skyrim will be as epic as Oblivion or Morrowind, but it is still a great game.
@SOPA backlash
This is something that concerns me as a web developer. The problem with SOPA is that it was not only created by lobbies to protect their interests but its an overzealous measure that will affect content broadcasting authors more than pirates. You share a movie of yourself singing Sinatra on Youtube and someone will tell you to take it down or you ISP might cut your service.
This cripples what the Internet is all about, sharing content! As for companies that are now withdrawing their support, I am not a customer of neither Sony, MS or Apple, I do have Nintendo consoles and my business with them will be reviewed. All my domains WILL be taken out of Godaddy as they had no excuse to support something like this in the first place, if they understood the media where they work in, they would be expecting this reaction from the comunity. Note that I am not a USA citizen, but what people tend to forget is that the lobbies only need to open a precedent to move to Europe.
As Jordan said: “The Internet would not be able to function under this law” so its clear that people who back it do not understand the Internet or do not understand SOPA.
@QOTW
Mobile device, specifically an Android Tablet.
I guess I need to start doing smaller comments here in order to have them read on the Podcast :p
BTW one thing I’m really excited about, although I’m not sure it is for 2012
The remake of XCom – Enemy Unknown, which was one of the best games I’ve ever played.
@Console/Handhelds: I have an original PSP, regular DS (the red Mario Kart edition) and all three current consoles, but I still prefer to do my gaming on consoles. When I lived in Tokyo and New York, where I did have a 20 – 40 minute commute, depending on the time of day, I played my hand helds a bit more. But, in the end, I got the PSP because it could not only game, but also access the Internet and play movies and music. Since getting Kojima to sign my copy of Peace Walker in summer 2010, I haven’t touched my PSP. And the only time I use my DS is for the Japanese dictionary software I bought in Japan. When I was a kid in the countryside, hand helds were great platforms because they didn’t vie for TV access and let me be more independent, so to speak. Now that I have 20 magazine subscriptions, the Internet (in general) and other consoles, hand helds don’t appeal to me as much, although I do still salivate at their shiny.
@sony microsoft nintendo pulls support on sopa
Basically what they are doing here is protecting their company coz I think most of the gamers out there are downloading stuff on the internet and most of the downloads out there are not obeying sopa .as for me I only download I don’t spend for games
@ wiiu as I said waste of money.im not a sony fan but I do like psps but I still hate the ps3
@ qotw
I would more likely play a handheld console coz there are better games on portable consoles . I’d play on a mobile device if they have a working monster hunter in it
The best game I played in 2011 is minecraft and monster hunter series since these are the only games I even play lol .can u guys tell your computer specs coz I’m really curious about it
guys Can u answer my question.is tf2 a mod for halflife 2 or is it a stand alone or could it be both.
Team Fortress 1 was a mod. Team Fortress 2 is not.