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?
I like to think of myself as a provider of counterbalance between Jonah’s XBox bias (yes, it’s there 🙂 ) and Jordan’s pessimism as far as it comes to Sony products. Look here and tell me again that there are no Vita games, I dare ya! 🙂 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_Vita_games
Sure, it is very possible that there will be few Vita-only games when PS4 comes out but we don’t know it for sure now and there really are games to play on the system now and there have been a steady flow of titles since it came out. There hasn’t been a moment when I didn’t have anything interesting to do with the system. Maybe I’m the perfect target for it but I really believe that when people get their hands on a Vita they see that it’s a great platform.
@Diablo III – yaaawn. They’re gonna milk it till the cows come home, pardon the pun. Diablo never got me excited, I find it too repetitive and ultimately boring. Putting tens or hundreds of hours into it, hoping some amazing piece of loot pops up. No, that’s not for me. I enjoyed Borderlands much more because of it’s FPP nature although the basic idea is very similar. The humor and graphical style helped too. In short, I won’t be getting Diablo III on any of the platforms.
@LoL
@LoL – I was a semi-professional bridge player so I know a thing or two about unconventional sports 🙂 I don’t mind it becoming a professional sport although it may seem a bit silly. However, if prize money in the range of $1 000 000 is at stake, I see what the fuss is about. Let them at it. I don’t really know how the labor and tax regulations play into this but if it makes it easier for people to compete it’s even better.
As far as the game itself goes, I tried playing the LOTR MOBA but I didn’t like the gameplay one and that’s how my adventure with the genre ended. Don’t really care (see Diablo III comments).
@Sony appeal – It’s probably better to pay and let the stink finally disappear. It is strange it took them so long but better late than never. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen again and if it does, they handle it better next time.
@MS family sharing – this is a great feature if it really works the way you described it. You buy one game and can share it between 10 accounts? Fantastic. It makes my wonder why Playstation now allows only two accounts to share a downloadable title and it used to be 5. Didn’t the publishers push Sony to decrease the limit because it resulted in less copies being sold? Did MS confirm that it applies to all games? Maybe it’s just 1st part downloadable titles?
@Police Quest – I mentioned already that I love adventure games. However, I was a little too late for the Sierra title and only played some Leisure Suit Larry. By the time I discovered the Quest series, the graphics scared me away from them and I don’t think it makes sense to go back and play them now.
@QOTW – There’s no other answer than Fallout! Is it a cop-out if I pick the whole series? I got the first Fallout for free with a video game magazine a long time ago. At first, I had no idea how to play it but once I figured it out it consumed me completely. I beat the first two games several times, several ways. I got Platinum trophies with F3 and New Vegas and I wasn’t bored for one minute. Amazing stories, fantastic character system. Perfection.
I loved your gaming flashback to an old classic Sierra game. I played almost all of the various Quest games. They are a sorely missed company and am glad that some of them have gone to kickstarter to make their adventure games again.
I will also be one of those that doesn’t buy a launch console I’m sticking with PC gaming.
Yay at Jordan mentioning Suikoden! I loved this series with its epic world story telling. Also Sazh from Ff13 is not the only game character to sport a bird in his hair. There is also Faylon from suikoden 5 who had one as well.
http://www.suikosource.com/chars/list/imageviewnojs.php?img=f/faylon01.png&char_id=617
I don’t know why either of these characters has a bird in his hair. A google search brings up Nicholas cage with a bird hair too. It just seems like one of those strange random things and how appropriate to have ended the last show with White Rabbit to get to thinkin about why such strangeness exists.
Qotw- even though I love Suikoden series I have to say my all time favorite is Baldurs Gate series. I loved having a group of characters I got to know. I also loved the iosometeric view I agreed with the computerized minis reference.
Oh an Shadowrun was on Snes and Genesis. I remember playing the heck out of it on Snes and can’t wait to play the new version.