Times: Sony on 'Brink of Upheaval'
The paper reported that sources within the company have described the plan as "sacred cow-slaying," but cites several analysts as saying that the restructuring of Sony is long overdue.
Sony, for its part, told Reuters that it does "not plan to announce additional restructuring measures at this time."
This, as you might have gathered, does not at all refute the original report, which stated that the plan is to be announced next month.
Whether or not the Times' story is an accurate reflection of what's about to go down at Sony, we can't be sure how this will affect the company's videogame division at this point. The language about sacred cows and erasing of legacies would certainly suggest that no division is safe. PlayStation will not be "abolished," but Sony's business model would seem to be based upon its being the overwhelming winner of the console wars, and Sir Howard Stringer may have to shape the games division into a form more suited to a third-place underdog.
(Image explanation, for those unfamiliar with Ristora-chan.)
Sony on brink of upheaval as analysts back British chief [Times Online]
The poster before wrote a whole bunch of opinion but neglected to include any facts or quotes to back it up so a wasted paragraph...
"[T]he tides are already turning for the PS3..."
Wasn't the tide supposed to have turned in 2008? "The Year of the PlayStation 3" and all that? So, as the Sony faithful postpone the arrival of their prodigal son for yet another year, sales gaps widen further.
"...as their software gets better and better..."
...and sells fewer copies than the multiplat sequel to another FPS or sandbox adventure. See also: "Just Wait Until [insert PS3 title here] Comes Out!" Syndrome.
"...as developers finally start to get with the development tools."
Just what have PS3 devs been doing for the last three years? Sitting with hands planted firmly under buttocks?
Oh pretty Sony will put DRM on their stereos you will only be able to play music if you are connected to the internet and haven't listened to the song before, if you have you'll have to pay Sony a royalty.
Good hardware but DRM is too much of a pain in the butt for me to recommend Sony anymore.
That is probably the single greatest fanboy comment I've ever read. Well played whooka, well played.
Does Wired just copy and paste video game related articles from Kotaku DAYS after they hit? This restructuring of Sony likely won't touch their Playstation Brand. They still make walkmans for Gods sake, I think those would be the kinds of departments that go out first.
How about Sony gets rid of the:
PSP
ATRAC-3 Format
Walkman
Cybershot
Walkman (And their own mp3 line)
Sony Music
Sony Pictures
Bravia
Vaio
And all the other proprietary BS they put out over the years.
They are all good in there own sort of way:
Xbox 360- Great games and online experience. Dont like how confusing some of the downloadable content is(For example Rock band and GHWT, so many songs you can accidentally download song individually and part of pack).
Wii- Great Gimmicks and not for hard core gamers. And graphics suck! However, I do like some of the family fun games and wii fit.
PS3- Great expensive Blu-ray player. Best blu ray player on market. Bought Resistance 2 and traded it in 2 days later. Online experience sucks!
JUST MY OPINION
Its good to know that everyone in the PS3 or 360 fancamp are 14 year old kids with down syndrome. Those 2 systems are almost identical. You may as well tell people that you passionately love the color deep red, but can't stand the regular red. You may as well say you hated Fable 1, but loved part 2. You may as well hate Paris Hilton, but Love Britney Spears. The PS3 and 360 are so bloody similar that it is strange to love one and hate the other.
Hopefully Sony realizes the time has come to get out of music at the very least, and possibly movies? Why? Because Sony has missed the boat on some great electronic products they could've made because they didn't want to make any device capable of pirating media. For instance, the PSP could've moved a ton more units if they weren't so obsessed with trying to get people to re-buy movies on UMD.
And of course there's the latest failure, the PS3. Had Sony not used the PS3 as a tool to win the High Def DVD war it could've come out at a much cheaper price and sold a lot more units. Now because of the low installed base and high price there is pretty much no chance for the PS3 to beat MS or Nintendo in this generation.
And let's not forget about the DRM/rootkit CD scandal.
Sony needs to focus on making great electronic that are the best possible in their market segment. Instead they've been handicapping their products in order to protect their media products.
One thing important for Sonys health, is to stop allowing the Media side to cripple their Hardware side. Its like starting off a race by shooting yourself in the foot.
That would be the healthiest restructuring of all. There is a difference between symbiosis and codependance.
Have you bothered to look at the specs Daggerfall. Sure the 2 might seem similar, but that is because of software technology limits. The hardware is very far apart. Different processors, difference speed memory, one with blu ray, one dvd, ps3 built in wireless, that is just a start!! I love the 360 and dont really have a reason yet to like the ps3. It comes down to this, what can Sony offer us that hasnt already been done with the xbox 360. Maybe they will make a sensor bar for motion control, oh wait, that is already taken. The problem now is there are so far behind, that Microsoft already is looking way ahead. Sony wont be making a profit for another 2 years and cant afford to put millions more in a new one that is going to lose money for the first 4-5 years also. So that makes them already 1-2 years behind the new xbox 720 when it comes out. Not saying that xbox is the best, but they played the cards right.
To answer your other questions:
I'm 31, not 14. I dont have down syndrome. The systems are not identical, I like maroon, but not red. I never played fable 1 and love fable 2. Dont like Paris and think Britney is cute it a nasty sort of way. Hhahahah
@whooka: Baahahah! dude, what are you 4?
I and millions others are living breathing proof of the exact opposite of what you are saying. Here's how:
I made a decision to buy "A GAME CONSOLE". I chose between 3 alternatives: The PS3, the 360 and the Wii. I did not choose the PS3 or the 360, though gainfully employed, I could easily afford them all.
Carefully now; explain to me how this decision matrix DOES NOT represent competition for the other 2 consoles I did not purchase, but could have had I been enticed to.
Saying they are not competing is silly. My dollars have gone to Nintendo instead of their competitors. Don't know how it can be made any plainer, but denial often makes on delusional...
And another thing, I hope Sony gives up their hard-on for proprietary formats. Memory Stick, Atrac3, UMD, etc. all ended up being a pain in the ass and crippled some potentially great products. I almost bought a Sony camera recently but Memory Sticks are easily 100% more expensive than SD cars so I passed.
At the very least if Sony is going to do the proprietary-format-pushing ass act they should execute as well as Apple does.
Fitzzzgerald and Bud! I agree!
@Fitzzzgerald:
Interestingly enough, I got a new ereader for xmas this year... while it does have the proprietary memory stick access, it also has an SD slot.
So perhaps some of the backlash from format enslavement is already percolating down through their product lines....
Didn't Sony slash a handful of divisions within the last 5 years? I seem to recall the Aibo division getting the axe at that point.
Ryan, are you referring to the robotics division? If so, they did cut drastically, but I believe it ended up being bought by toyota.
Well as I've said several times, Sony kind of blew it this generation. Instead, let's say they released a console of graphical power and price somewhere in between the Wii and 360, ramped up software development early, and launched within 6 months of the 360. They would have easily beaten Microsoft and probably had enough momentum to dampen the excitement over the Wii. Instead, MS hurt their hardware pride by launching the Xbox that was much more powerful than the PS2 (and some argue more powerful than the Wii), and thus had to burn much R&D, time, and dollars to ensure they were the higher end hardware this time around.
Whooka:
Sycophantic fanboyism, a lack of understanding of the current fiscal crisis, and bush derangement syndrome all in one post?!? It's like christmas for those of us who are educated!
@ all of you. Owned all three, 'attach rate' of 20 on all of them so tried them all out, pretty well. Owned pretty much all of the consoles in the last 30 years, if you give a fuck? (?!) PS3 - best tech, wait and see. XBOX - loved it, best range of games of the current gen, best in terms of that. Wii - love it - sold well too. Now please go and argue about something else. The game is far from over for the next year at least. I just hope I dont need to buy another 360, but wont feel too bad if I do. Now grow up boys and girls. X
Businesses generally don't dismantle historically well-performing P&Ls, so the gaming division isn't going anywhere. Sony Pictures, however, should have been euthanized long ago, so if that saves them some cash, then the more power to them for giving it the axe.
Both the PSP and the PS3 would have benefitted from being marketed as gaming-first devices, as opposed to multimedia centers, so if anything changes in the games division, it will be the focus -- back on gaming.
...on second thought, after that last ad with the douchebag watching chick-flicks on his new PS3 with his girlfriend instead of playing games with his bros, maybe that ain't going to happen after all. But the PS3 still ain't going anywhere.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees that ad delivering entirely the wrong message -- in so many ways.
Who gives a crap about gaming on the PS3? I bought it 200 bucks off last Christmas (2007), bundled, and bought another game or two for the grandkids. It does main duty as a media center for streaming video/audio/storage, and of course a kick-ass blu-ray player. It was cheaper than any blu-ray player out there. Buying it for that purpose alone was even a no-brainer.
I work on gaming consoles, (and computers, home electronics, and broadcast transmitters, for kicks), and the PS3 beats-the-crap out of any console out there for bang-for-buck.
Sure, Sony has been a proprietary jerk in the business world, and has effectively kicked its own ass with their ridiculous gaming offerings, but I don't give a crap about gaming.
r1derbike
Maybe there's room for McDonalds, Burger King, and Taco Bell. Maybe all the ambitions for total victory of one system over all others is more of a motivating ambition, and not an actual realistic goal.
@ r1derbike
"Who gives a crap about gaming on the PS3?"
Thanks for inadvertently summarizing Sony's problem in the PS3 marketing department so succinctly. That seems to be the attitude of the powers-that-be at Sony, but that sentiment appears, by most measures, to not be generally shared by consumers.
If by 'third place underdog' you are referring to XBox360, Wii, and PS3, that's a bit of a miscategorization. PS3 is not in competition with XBox360 or Wii. If it were they'd all be relatively the same price and have the same features. The PS3 being the newest of the bunch has many features those other two consoles will most likely never see in their current incarnations (i.e. a top of the line bluray player). The only thing common amongst the three is they are all primarily 'game consoles'. You folks can laugh now but the tides are already turning for the PS3 as their software gets better and better as developers finally start to get with the development tools. By the holiday season next year the PS3 catalogue will make XBox360 and Wii (which the Wii shouldn't even be listed among the other two consoles as it's a crapware, easy access little game machine) look like plonker toys. It was just ahead of it's time but fortunately time is catching up. It's biggest problem right now is the current world economy thanks to our Wall Street thieves and eight years of screw you Republican politics. Naturally people are going to buy the cheapest or most affordable thing out there and the PS3 due to it's high-end components just ain't for the budget conscious or broke. But if you like returning your console several times due to known manufacturing defects then I gladly recommend an XBox360, or if you're a bit slow or a young kid and would like a good case of tendonities, then Wii is the console for you! I'll stick with my badass PS3, thanks.