Sony has had the same approach for years they don’t make any money off the consoles themselves, in fact they make a small loss which is usually made back by software and controllers etc. They just do it so you remember the Sony name when your out buying a new TV.
Microsoft take a similar approach i think they don’t make much if any on he actual console.
Obviously Nintendo go for money since they have no other means of making money outside there own games. They don’t need to be the cream of the crop if its making them a nice profit anyway since they are a small company despite what you would think.
Anyway I don’t understand console wars. Buy whatever you want most. Why should it matter what the person below you thinks? Its all down to personal opinion.
why are you guys spinning this into a console thing? sony entertainment encompasses a ton of different entities, including tv, movie, and music (wasted money), consumer electronics (the big loser here) and ridiculous amounts of r&d (look at how many patents sony puts out in a year).
sony’s consumer goods have been irrelevant for over a decade now. usually because they are overpriced or simply not as good of a value as their competition. but they be goddamn sure they put out 20+ TV’s, 100’s of random other tech (audio, cameras, blu ray players, computers, on and on) every year, and wastes money on tons of other ventures that have no chance of working. they take risks on movies that have very little chance of succeeding financially (though, some of these movies deserve to be made and enjoyed) and banking on media that hasn’t proven itself (beta, minidisc, memory sticks, bluray).
I can’t find the article that i’m really looking for, which goes over how japanese sensibilities mixed with engineering that is 95% geared to innovate instead of monetize is the major internal stumbling block for the company. the gist of it is that japan doesn’t do layoffs if at all possible, and they get newer and newer engineers who are looking to be the ken kutaragi of this generation and become rockstars of the engineering world because that is what sony endorses. they spend millions and millions on stuff that isn’t going to sell, but some engineer is gonna get recognized for being ambitious… not a sound business practice.
for the past decade, the playstation brand is the only division that was making money, and everything else was slowly crippling them. from TV’s that just don’t sell, to things like their viao brand computers that sit on shelves for years, to some of the most unnecessary consumer electronics that have no chance at selling, like vr headsets, smart watches, printers?..
sony essentially does hundreds of things poorly than other companies do 2-3 things really well. if they were to do the right thing and focus on what will return income for their company, video games would be highest on their list, simply because it makes money. and its the only thing that people recognize sony for anyways, nowadays…
which i guess answers the question i started this whole post off with…
no skin off my nose, Sony doesn’t really have anything unique to them anyway. They don’t do anything brilliant or amazing, and a majority of their sony produced games are lackluster in both this generation, and soon to be the next Imo I’m sure.
Would be unfortunate to see their televisions go though.
actually I take it back.
Vita is an amazing peice of hardware that they don’t bother to make use of the right way.
And it being a ps4 tether does not make it excusable that the content on vita is absolutely lacking and weak.
I can’t wait till that thing can be hacked fully instead of using kernels for the psp side of things.
Snes emulators don’t run too well on that thing sadly.
Ummm…from the website posted by the OP. Did anybody actually read it?
“Companies or funds with Probability Of Bankruptcy above 90% are generally considered to be high risk with a good chance of bankruptcy in the next 2 years.”
Chances are, Sony has invested a ton of money into the production and marketing of the PS4 and is currently looking at a lot of debt incurred that will be recovered in the next few years. Sony is fine.
Companies “restructure” all the time. Walgreens has done that 2 times in the last 5 years and are in the middle of another restructuring yet they aren’t on the brink of bankruptcy either. Restructuring realigns where they need to spend money, man power to where the market needs it. Like getting rid of the “Walkman” division and putting more man power and money into hot products and attempt to find the new trend to stay ahead of the curve.
restructuring plan is just that, restructuring. You can have a healthy profitable company and still shut down parts that are not making any or losing too much money.
Hell a company can be financially sound and still declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Restructuring or Chapter 11 bankruptcy is not the death of a Company, its just their “Spring Cleaning”.
Chapter 7 Bankrupcy is the one you have to worry about, complete liquidation of all assets.
Always a huge problem with Sony as a whole is they are split between their Japanese and US Firms, and there old CEO was too concern with only the Japanese portion of the company. Sony Computer Entertainment Japan’s international business affairs office is in New York for Christ sake. the Sony VAIO tried to do what Macs do and failed, thats why the VAIO sucks.
The current Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai, is multilingual, traveled the world and understand US and European culture (as well as Japanese). Kazou asked tough questions to the rest of the company like why certain experienced and key engineers left, why Sony limiting them selves to entertainment technologies (and kitchen appliances) and not areas like medical or automotive. Off the record he pretty much said “WHAT THE FUCK” to all of Sony (I am paraphrasing there) when he took over.
The previous CEO was Howard Stringer, a Welsh American who knows how to run entertainment companies like CBS (he was its President and won 9 Emmys when he worked with CBS) but knew jack shit about marketing or technology, and Howard Stringer didn’t understood Japanese at all (he also the brains behind the Spider-man movies).
I’m NOT discrediting your post, I just want to slightly defend the ignorance. The MAIN things people played on PCs in the 90s were FPS and RTSs. Why? For one controls…and its a an idea that has not truly ‘vanished’ despite…well being ignorant. But shit, if I look at what I got on Steam…virtually everything is a RTS/MMO/D3/D3Rip/FPS.
As for the original subject, I havne’t read the article, I won’t read it, I already know what it’s about, its not NEW news, it is semi-realistic, but it’s not the end.
Sony has been doing BBBBAAAAADDDD for a LONG time. Remember Sony phones and laptops? Yeah. The losses they were taking on the PS3? Those are actual losses. The company kept bleeding trying to fend off M$ and Nintendo. Outside of movies which - if you aren’t the Lone Ranger - are hard to not flip a profit on on the AAA side of things - Sony has been bombing left and right, and even with Sony selling 2mill+ PS4, wha’ts that margin? They sell if for what $400, it cost $381 for the console alone, not including the controller which “I’ll assume” is on the $15 side of things. So that means they are STILL taking a loss on EACH console sold. And that doesn’t factor in the cost of doing business, advertisements, etc. And company that large? They more than likely need like 30% back to start flipping a profit on a product (if the total cost of R&D/Mat/Ad/QC is $100, they need to sell it at $130 to cover overhead). So the PS4 is NOT saving them right now, the good news is its not hurting their pockets ‘really’ and it WILL turn a profit by year’s end more than likely
Sony won’t ever ‘fold’ out of existence. They will sell off damaged divisions and patents. They will evolve and expand into other directions, but they are pretty much a staple company at this point. They did it with their music group.
The reality is the PS4 is super important to video games. Nintendo is going to have to pull a Sega at this point with their stock losing like 75% of their value - they’ll become a software only company. Apple won’t forray into video game consoles again - they could in theory buy out Sharp and use them to put out Apple TVs with iOS built into them, but it would be more of an extension of the iDevices than home console gaming. M$ is doing “OK” as a company - its taken losses in various capacities and grown in others to counter balance it, so if they smell blood in the water, they’ll take over the video game market (which they could in theory do by buying up Nintendo in it’s weakened state and use them to FINALLY break in over seas). But if the PS4 doesn’t take off and keep going well, Sony WILL have to close down it’s video game department…which would leave just one real major player (M$). And while I personally have an XBOne, I don’t think anyone wants a VG system monopoly.
And while I’m not Negrodamus - I’m just making educated guesses on how things are going to go based on how things are currently going - there is a HIGH chance that Sony has to file for bankruptcy/‘restructure’ by 2016.
But saying they’re “fine” is kinda off a stretch imo. Yeah their game division is doing better than it used too and the future looks promising, but lord knows if their other less profitable divisions will pick up the slack in following years or they’ll have to be amputated like a limb with gangrene. They’re aiming for 5 mil PS4’s by March but I’m sure that’s a low balled number just to be safe lol.
Reminder, Restructuring or Chapter 11 bankruptcy is not always a bad thing. Even Healthy, financially sound companies sometimes file for Chapter 11.
The only thing Ch 11 bankruptcy screws over are the creditors.
Launching consoles early with no games would have cost them dearly 20 years ago.
this is what happened with Sega Saturn. they rushed production without games to catch up with Playstation1 and Saturn plummeted in sales. Also PS1 was much easier to develop
this is what happened with the SNES for a while. Nintendo had a market share of 90 % in USA with the NES. they were assured that no threat was looming. But they delayed the SNES and games for it and Sega managed to take the lead 55% to 45% with the Sega Genesis. if it werent for Sega’s mistakes and Nintendo’s quick reaction, Nintendo might have been out of console business at that time.
It was the Sega Megadrive that forced Nintendo to make the SNES the best Nintendo console ever and the games as well.
Sony repeated that mistake twice with PS3 and PS4. it seems they have a lot of reserve funds for this.
Oh wow this thread is everywhere at once it’s Warp fucking 10.
Random musings:
Though between jobs, when I am working it’s as a professional writer. And I ain’t gun be all prissy on forums 'bout dat language. Except for its vs. it’s. Use the correct one, please.
PC Games include a ton of Japanese titles and things that aren’t FPS games – btw, FPS games are awesome, it’s the shitty FPS games that aren’t. Anywho, just looking at my Steam list I see the Ys games (Japanese action RPGs), Dark Souls, Revengeance (the preorder anyway), and Jamestown (American-made Cave-inspired bullet-hell game that everyone needs to play RIGHT NOW). And yeah, a bunch of FPS games (like Serious Sam, which is pretty damn hectic and enemy-filled like certain Doom WADs).
That said, don’t be a snide PC gamer. Or a snide console gamer.
I very much doubt Sony will go bankrupt, but if they do, they might not get to keep all their assets. When I went bankrupt I got to keep my shitty clunker of a car, a bunch of personal effects, and that’s it. (Yes, I realize personal vs. business bankruptcy is different.)
Its not even a proper article OP linked everyone too, its a calc for lazy people who don’t want to do their homework for investments.
And its not even a good calc either. Anyways even the best industry analyst can’t accurately predict what happens 6 months from now, so forget 2 years.
No one saw Hostess Brands, LLC the maker of Twinkies, HoHos, and Wonder Bread falling apart like it did.
So to say Sony who doing a bit stronger now as they learn from mast mistakes is going to go bankrupcy in 2 years is crazy
We need a Mod to lock this thread as its getting ridiculous.
Disregard this, I am seeing the entertainment value here. Damn 4Chan corrupting me further.
