More losses expected at Sony Corp.

[stu]

[Sony should abandon the PC market as well. There is no way they can compete with with the Lenovos or the Acers in that market. Not when their products are priced for people who would likely purchase a Mac if they could afford a Vaio.

Stringer needs to go too. The whole HD movie format war has been disastrous for the companies involved and Stringer will always be synonymous with this gamble that never really paid off.

They need to ditch any of the product lines that are now nothing more than low margin commodity products and focus on their Playstation division and figure out the best way of integrating their Smartphone/Tablet division in to the mix.

As for the divisions for the chop, the TVs are the obvious ones as well as the Vaio PC business, for the reasons you laid out, the other one is the camera division, at the low end of the camera market the smartphones are killing off the traditional "point and shoot" camera, which is where Sony tends to have most of their products, (ironically for Sony, the camera in the Iphone 4S is actually manufactured by Sony ). The high end Digital SLR market hasn't really been affected by the onslaught of the smartphones, but Sony really has no products in that category, also the market is already dominated by Canon and Nikon so it would be much harder to push in to that area.

A change at the top of the Sony management tree is needed, Howard Stringer has proven that he is not cut out to run Sony, maybe Kaz Hirai might fair better?

Edit:

One thing that I think Sony should look in to is maybe trying to integrate the next gen Playstation tech in to the TV, in effect turning the TV in to a Playstation Network connected SmartTV, doing this might mean that they could reinvigorate their TV business and differentiate their product line from those of Samsung and Panasonic.
This is what a lot of industry commentators are predicting Apple will do next, by combining the AppleTV in to a LCD TV.
Perhaps Sony could try to get a jump on the competition.

[CruSega]

[Sony should abandon the PC market as well. There is no way they can compete with with the Lenovos or the Acers in that market. Not when their products are priced for people who would likely purchase a Mac if they could afford a Vaio.

Stringer needs to go too. The whole HD movie format war has been disastrous for the companies involved and Stringer will always be synonymous with this gamble that never really paid off.

They need to ditch any of the product lines that are now nothing more than low margin commodity products and focus on their Playstation division and figure out the best way of integrating their Smartphone/Tablet division in to the mix.

As for the divisions for the chop, the TVs are the obvious ones as well as the Vaio PC business, for the reasons you laid out, the other one is the camera division, at the low end of the camera market the smartphones are killing off the traditional "point and shoot" camera, which is where Sony tends to have most of their products, (ironically for Sony, the camera in the Iphone 4S is actually manufactured by Sony ). The high end Digital SLR market hasn't really been affected by the onslaught of the smartphones, but Sony really has no products in that category, also the market is already dominated by Canon and Nikon so it would be much harder to push in to that area.

A change at the top of the Sony management tree is needed, Howard Stringer has proven that he is not cut out to run Sony, maybe Kaz Hirai might fair better?

Edit:

One thing that I think Sony should look in to is maybe trying to integrate the next gen Playstation tech in to the TV, in effect turning the TV in to a Playstation Network connected SmartTV, doing this might mean that they could reinvigorate their TV business and differentiate their product line from those of Samsung and Panasonic.
This is what a lot of industry commentators are predicting Apple will do next, by combining the AppleTV in to a LCD TV.
Perhaps Sony could try to get a jump on the competition.

That's exactly what Sony should do. If they don't integrate the PSN into their TV's Apple will most likely do it with iTunes and it'll be another lost opportunity for them. The living room TV will be the next key battleground. In fact, its the only reason MS entered to gaming market in 2001.

[MrSega]

@CruSega. I'm not surprised by all excessive losses on PS3 or the drop and decline in Sony's electronic brand market penetration. Sony has displayed arrogance this gen. The fact that Karzai boldly boasted to consumers back in 2006 " In order to buy PS3,you'll have to work two jobs" shows a cocky and defiant attitude. Thier fans have lived in a world of delusion & denial about PS3's massive budget loss and failure.

PS3 is still costing Sony alot. Its just that they're loosing less on manufacturing costs.

In 2006, PS3's actual retail price was $800. But since they were selling them at $600, Sony was losing $200 on each unit, when they dropped price to $500, the losses were $100, during 2008-2009 with a $400 price point, losses fell to $50. Since last year, with the BOM production costs being able to taper off from 2005, PS3 now costs Sony $33.

PS Vita is Sony's attempt to completely turn thier profits around & help give SCEI enough momentum to finally start working on a PS3 successor within the next couple of years & while I see Vita getting off to a strong start & doing well, It isn't going to be enough to save them. Remember, Nintendo still holds a substanicial handheld market share, & although PS3 has been doing much better in Europe & Japan for the past 2 years, the miniscle Euro market & declining Japanese console marketwhich is now less than half the size it used to be a decade ago and PS3's flopping in the US market doesn't help matters much.

[stu]

That's exactly what Sony should do. If they don't integrate the PSN into their TV's Apple will most likely do it with iTunes and it'll be another lost opportunity for them. The living room TV will be the next key battleground. In fact, its the only reason MS entered to gaming market in 2001.

On a Microsoft related note it seems that there are rumors that Microsoft maybe thinking along these same lines.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/32 ... -than-360/

Quote: "Blogger MS nerd, who Industry Gamers notes has previously reported accurate early information on Microsoft's abandoned Courier tablet, says the machine will also contain ARM-based processors and run a version of Windows 9.
"With a heady mix of rumors, tips and speculation, I am now stating that Xbox codename "loop" (the erstwhile XboxTV) will indeed debut a modified Win9 core," claims the report.

The source in this article refers to the "Loop" system as "XboxTV", it would seem that everyone is moving in this direction. Maybe Sony will trademark the name Playstation.TV for their next system!

[MrSega]

@stu. I agree Sony needs to cut thier losses and rearrange thier electronic brand name. But so far, nothing has indicated that they understand this.

As for them trademarking "Playstation TV" its an interesting idea, but I don't see it happening for a few years if Sony has some concept for it. If this were to happen, it would be a great end game strategy for them.

[craziestrufis]

@stu. I agree Sony needs to cut thier losses and rearrange thier electronic brand name. But so far, nothing has indicated that they understand this.

As for them trademarking "Playstation TV" its an interesting idea, but I don't see it happening for a few years if Sony has some concept for it. If this were to happen, it would be a great end game strategy for them.

PlayStation TV wood be o must like Sega channel lol

[stu]

@stu. I agree Sony needs to cut thier losses and rearrange thier electronic brand name. But so far, nothing has indicated that they understand this.

As for them trademarking "Playstation TV" its an interesting idea, but I don't see it happening for a few years if Sony has some concept for it. If this were to happen, it would be a great end game strategy for them.

I'm curious why you feel this would be an 'end game strategy' for Sony. If Sony were able to successfully combine the Playstation console into their TV it could revolutionize the living room like the iphone and ipad have revolutionized the cell phone and computing industries. in effect it would render the traditional game console as we know it obsolete. It would also be massively profitable for the Playstation divIsion of Sony.

[MrSega]

@stu.

1. Its unlikey that it will happen & that Sony even has a patent for such a concept.

2. If this were too happen it wouldn't be until towards the end of the decade.

3. Plenty of smaller companies have time,knowledge & R&D for such a concept and can easily pioneer and steal Sony's thunder. So say PS TV is introduced in 2017, & there are already devices simluar to it with a strong market base, PS TV would fare well, but would be unable to gain momentum.

[stu]

@stu.

1. Its unlikey that it will happen & that Sony even has a patent for such a concept.

2. If this were too happen it wouldn't be until towards the end of the decade.

3. Plenty of smaller companies have time,knowledge & R&D for such a concept and can easily pioneer and steal Sony's thunder. So say PS TV is introduced in 2017, & there are already devices simluar to it with a strong market base, PS TV would fare well, but would be unable to gain momentum.

Whatever you say MrSega.
I was merely speculating what I thought Sony could do to revitalize their company, you are free to agree/disagree as you see fit, just as I am free to mostly disagree with what you post.

You still didn't answer my main question which was:

Why would such a move represent an "end game strategy" for SCEI?

I am assuming that you think that Sony would be closing down SCEI with such a move, where as it would seem to me that they would actually be investing further in the Playstation brand and growing the brand further, making it a integral part of Sony.

[Hiryosuke]

Well sony does do some close work with google...perhaps they can work with google to push out a playstation tv with someone who has the software experience for the web browsing end...a playstation3/4 with google chrome dont soumd too bad...there were rumors of chrome goin to ps3 to give the browser a much needed fix but alas it was just a ru,or...pity...chrome is my browser of choice...ie9 wont even fuccin work on my laptop for some reason...tried reinstallin 3 times to no avail...