the sorry state of sony

[Kalahari Inkantation]

Annual net revenue per company (billions of USD):



Red: Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI)
Green: Microsoft Entertainment and Devices
Blue: Nintendo

Fitch cuts Sony to 'BBB-'; outlook negative

PS Vita sells only 72,479 units in second week; outsold by 3DS and PSP

this, coupled with the fact that not a single division of sony has been profitable for years (for years, there's been oodles of bad news about the other branches as well (a quick overview from wikipedia)), actually has me pretty worried about the company's future

Here's an especially scary fun fact:

In September 2000 Sony had a net worth of $100 billion, but by December of 2011 it had plunged to $18 billion.

What do you think lies ahead for Sony?

it wouldn't surprise me if scei eventually split off from the rest of the ailing company as one of the only divisions with future potential and hope

whatever the change, it probably needs to be drastic and soon

Otherwise, terrible management and negative income puts them right on the path to becoming the next Sega, and despite the amount of complaining I do about Sony's often terrible decisions, I'd really rather not have that happen.

[ncba93ivyase]

I'd really be more worried about Nintendo. Sony's plan was to recover the costs of manufacturing the PS3 years after it was introduced, and they seem to be doing so, and the biggest danger would be having the next generation rush in. Microsoft hasn't said anything about the next Xbox, and Nintendo's desperate to do something now that the casual market's abandoning them and the Wii can't handle anything that actual gamers want. Considering the Wii U is even behind the 360, they're not a major player in the industry anymore.

Also, the 3DS was dead at launch. It still has very little going for it, and I'm expecting sales to drop off now that the holiday season's over. If Sony can garner good third party support, they'll do fine. Nintendo's target market has all moved on to the iPhone, and since they have no major original titles on the horizon, they've got nothing.

Nintendo just has a more rabid fanbase that eats up any and all shit that's served to them.

[ME##]

Isn't Sony [still ~lol~] trying to restructure itself so there's less infighting amongst its divisions [also buying out its partners in some of its joint ventures like Ericsson or selling its stake in things like S-LCD to Samsung].  So, whilst Sony isn't in 'great' shape currently, it's mostly due to its non-video shame divisions lagging behind.  Really what Sony needs to do is get more people to buy its more expensive products, or stop trying to go at the higher end of electronics.


Also, Joystiq Engadget said the Vita's sales can possibly be related to stocking issues.

This doesn't necessarily reflect a lack of interest, however: there have been stock shortages, and it's also possible that buyers are waiting to make sure that all the launch bugs get cleaned up.

According to Wiki, Sony is the only current manufacturer of the console and much of its facilities were affected by the earthquake earlier this year [and is most likely the reason why Sony pushed the launch for Europe and North America into February], so I wouldn't put a shortage of units out of real of ~possiblity~. 

[ncba93ivyase]

Really what Sony needs to do is get more people to buy its more expensive products, or stop trying to go at the higher end of electronics.

Uh, Sony's problem is that everything is marketed with near-Apple prices with none of the famous quality and reliability of Apple products.

Sony's been notorious for years and they're one of the biggest suspects of planned obsolescence. Their PS1 and early PS2's were some of the worst, although they've (mostly) cleaned up their act in the gaming console area; however, their products are still complete shit outside of that realm. I and nobody I know will buy Sony electronics because we know they'll fail before the year is up, and you could easily get a similar product from Samsung or some other company for half the price and five times the life.

[Kalahari Inkantation]

i worry about nintendo as well, because its wii fanbase is now satisfied by simple smartphone gaming and a significant portion of the "hardxxxre" gamers have migrated over to the HD consoles

Smartphones will also cut into their share of the handheld market, as prior to the late 2000s the only place to find handheld, "casual" games was on Nintendo portables.  Now that everyone has a smartphone, not everyone will be returning to the 3DS.

they'll be hurting themselves further by underpowering the wii u, which will technologically be a whole generation behind the future sony and microsoft consoles, and while that tactic worked excellently for them this generation, they've now mostly lost that fanbase to apple

There's also the issue of third-party support, but by now I really don't think anyone buys Nintendo consoles for anything other than Nintendo games, primarily.

But now that the 3DS has picked up and proven itself to not be an utter failure, that will at least buy them some time before real issues become apparent with the Wii U (unless they make some major changes to the console prior to its launch).

Additionally, all of Nintendo's problems are pretty recent.  Even if the 8th generation is an absolute disaster for them, they still have a vast amount of wealth to help them through difficult situations.  They have never not been profitable.

I'm still more worried about Sony, because their issues have been plaguing them for years.  Sony's only majorly successful division was SCEI, and until recently, even that was struggling because of the disastrous PS3 launch.  I'm not sure there's much hope for any of Sony's other branches at this point, which is why I wouldn't be surprised if SCEI spun off and watched from the outside as the rest of the ship crashed and burned, or got taken down with it.

I don't know if they can survive for much longer in their current form.

[Kalahari Inkantation]

Also, Joystiq Engadget said the Vita's sales can possibly be related to stocking issues.
According to Wiki, Sony is the only current manufacturer of the console and much of its facilities were affected by the earthquake earlier this year [and is most likely the reason why Sony pushed the launch for Europe and North America into February], so I wouldn't put a shortage of units out of real of ~possiblity~. 

hmm

didn't they claim to have 700,000 units prepared for launch

as of now, they've only sold about 400,000

Could we really blame a "shortage" for the issues, or is it merely a convenient scapegoat?

[silvertone]

these guys going out of business would be a Good Thing imo.

[PLEASEHELP1991]

these guys going out of business would be a Good Thing imo.

A video game-less society would lead to Apple communism.

[silvertone]

A video game-less society would lead to Apple communism.

that would be corporatism (what Mussolini desired to call fascism) not communism

but i was talking about Fresh new Faces on the market and not the same companies of the last decade idk.

[Kalahari Inkantation]

i lied, that graph is in billions

these guys going out of business would be a Good Thing imo.

Why?

[silvertone]

Why?

aren't all 3 companies constantly shitting on their consumers or am i just missing a lot of good things happening in the industry

[Kalahari Inkantation]

aren't all 3 companies constantly shitting on their consumers or am i just missing a lot of good things happening in the industry

you're right, but i think less competition would give the remaining companies even more freedom to do shady things

[silvertone]

you're right, but i think less competition would give the remaining companies even more freedom to do shady things

I meant all 3 business lol

[PLEASEHELP1991]

if all three companies failed, we wouldn't see any new video game consoles being made because it would be seen as a "failed industry" :'(

[silvertone]

if all three companies failed, we wouldn't see any new video game consoles being made because it would be seen as a "failed" business :'(

but there is a bunch of indie games Massively Populating PC and there are other consoles outside of  'Big 3' ???  plus mario deserves nothing more than a futurist-style slaughter.