This week’s episode is a little late due to a power outage. However, despite the lack of really interesting news, the crew still finds plenty to chat about.
This week’s news includes:
The Question of the Week is, “What popular game did you play long after its initial release?”
This week is another short one as the news is pretty light. However, there is another Gaming History as The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is examined.
This week’s news includes:
The Question of the Week: “What is your favorite giant monster?”
[This episode was reposted due to being corrupted when the site went down.]
This episode is heavy on remasters and expansions, some bad, some good, some questionable. There’s even a sequel in there.
The news items include:
All this and listener feedback!
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?
Hi guys.
Thanks for the episode. It was intersting and funny as always 🙂 To your question of the week: I Played Portal the first time last year. Of course i completed it very fast, but this was a PC game i played about 10 years after its release 🙂
For Console games, it must be some of the first 6 Mega Man Games … i don´t remember which ones i played as a kid, but of course not all of them. So i decided to play through the first 6 Mega Man games last year 🙂
I like to play all the old games, i missed in my youth, but as you know: now (as an adult) you got the money to buy games, but you dont have the time anymore to play all of them 🙂
Jonah: Archon is a really great game! I loved it as a kid, even i did not understood it at all 🙂 (I am born in 1980, so i was 4 years old, when Archon was released, and i got my first C-64 when i was 8).
So thanks again guys and keep gaming 🙂