MrSega wrote:@CruSega. I agree. Sony should be focused entirely on trying to rebrand thier traditional brand name. People aren't excited about thier electronics brand anymore and Sony doesn't seem to understand that its not thier "Playstation" line that needs rehabliation, its thier bread and butter.
PS Vita will do very well. But likewise, Nintendo will still maintain its handheld dominace in market penetration. Apple will also be able to take up a large chunk of casual mobile game consumer and SEGA's KIDS PAD does have the opprotunity to nibble a small niche base of gamers and consumers so the odds are stacked up against Vita and the chances of it dominating global sales are slim to none.
Since PS3 has be unable to squeeze a large base and siginificant market penetration in the markets where it is doing well at: Japan and Europe, its not wise investment on Sony's part to even dare invest billions more into a successor, dismal North American sales(currently the largest gaming market) don't help matters either.
Sony MUST turn things completely around by 2014. And they know it. If they can't then they are aware that 20 years after entering the console market SCEI could be filing for bankruptcy and that Sony could be reverting back to being a 2nd party OEM company instead of 1st party.
You just contradicted yourself in that post, first you said that the Playstation brand is not the issue, but the rest of the company. Then at the end of your post you claim that it will be SCEI (the Playstation division) that will be going bankrupt.
In a previous Sony thread, I posted links and quotes from a Gameindustry.biz analysis of the problems facing Sony, in that analysis it showed that it isn't the Playstation business that is unprofitable, it is the LCD TV and Camera businesses that are bringing the company down, they need to restructure these or get rid of them, then focus on becoming a leaner, more focused company.
SCEI is actually one of the few bright spots in Sony's line of companies and therefore I would think further investment in the Playstation would be the way forward.
You've missed the point I was trying to make. SCEI is profitable, but its nowhere near the profit it made some 10 years ago.
Investing in a successor right now would be very poor and ill advised on Sony's part. Since there's plenty of opprotunity for someone else like SEGA or Mircosoft to take a significant chunk or the larger more ripe US market share as well as the fragile Japanese hardware market in which SEGA would easily and instantaneous be able to do if/when they launch a new console.
PS3 isn't dominating the global market like PSone and PS2 were doing. And worldwide sales and profit are far from successful. Inevesting in a PS4 on top of the still overbudgeted PS3 and do or die Vita would be risky,inadeqaute and fatal to SCEI and would easily bankrupt them in a few short years.
Sony as a whole, CAN'T afford another year of revenue loss. Thier basically on a tipping scale. More losses would be dire for them.
Their market capital is only 17 Billion. That's still a lot but nothing compared to the days of PS1/PS2 when they were a 35-40 Billion dollar corporation.
My advice to Sony-fire Howard Stringer, as things have gone south with him at the helm. Get some fresh new blood into the company and revive the brand that was once beloved worldwide.
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By David B. Wilkerson
SNE JP:6758 TWC NFLX XX:DWCBRD
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- As American lawmakers failed to reach agreement on a plan to cut the federal deficit, Monday's U.S. market selloff pushed a number of media and entertainment stocks to 52-week lows, including Sony Corp. /quotes/zigman/197524/quotes/nls/sne SNE -1.99% /quotes/zigman/197500 JP:6758 +3.08% , Time Warner Cable Inc. /quotes/zigman/528868/quotes/nls/twc TWC -1.84% and Netflix Inc. /quotes/zigman/87598/quotes/nls/nflx NFLX -1.75% . U.S.-listed shares of Sony fell 4%, and are down 55% this year. Time Warner Cable, the No. 2 U.S. cable operator, was down 1.3%, and about 9.7% so far in 2011 amid slowing subscriber growth. Netflix, down 5.3% on Monday, is down 58% for the year on a series of missteps, including a clumsily-handled 60% price hike announced in July. The Dow Jones U.S. Broadcasting & Entertainment Total Stock Market Index /quotes/zigman/2625085 XX:DWCBRD -1.52% was down 1.7% at 3,614.56.
Well from what I've read it seems that Howard Stringer is due to step down in 2013, it may be that he is persuaded to go early and allow someone else to take over the helm at Sony, it seems one of the likely candidates is SCEI's current president, Kaz Hirai.
Maybe Hirai will then be able to turn Sony around and get them back on track. From what I've read on the PSVita they've been able to rectifiy a lot of the issues with the PS3 (it apparently a lot cheaper to make and the development tools are a lot better) and I'm sure that they will be using the same plan for the PS3's successor as they did with PSVita.
Sony was fighting on two fronts: one was against the HDDVD format and the other against MS and the XBox 360. This took a lot of their focus away from the fight with MS and it ultimately cost them the US gaming crown.
It will be interesting how Sony handle adversity moving forward, for example, if PS4 is beaten badly by the XBox3 in the American market. Unlike Sega, Sony doesn't rely solely on videogames and I firmly believe that had the tables been turned in the 32 bit era, it would have been the last we'd have heard of the Playstation. The 32/64 bit era was practically hand-wrapped and given to Sony what with Sega's many mistakes and Nintendo's stubborn refusal to go with CDs on the N64. They rode that wave into the 128 bit era, obliterating those two companies once again. It won't ever be as easy for them again.
@CruSega. You're correct. The 32/64 bit era was tailor made for Sony. The internal civil war within SEGA and the consistant miscommunications between SOA & SOJ toppled SEGA. And Nintendo's CD add on debacle with Sony caused skepticism with Japanese OEM partners who became pessimistic about working with them which was why Nintendo was unable to obtain CDX.
Sticking with cartridges ended up hurting Nintendo. Ultra 64 ended up being a difficult to program, high budgeted, time consuming mess of a console.
Sony built a basic,cheap easily to program 32-bit machine. And took advantage of Nintendo & SEGA's shortcommings.
During PS2, Sony was able to ride the wave of its brand name to success once again. If there were to be a PS4(I strongly doubt there is), given the losses on PS3, all the effort,budget and money they put into PS3, I just don't see it being successful at all.
Sony: it would be "undesirable" for PS4 to launch significantly later than the competition
Having given Microsoft a year's head start in the current generation, PlayStation Europe boss Jim Ryan said it would be "undesirable" for PS4 to repeat that for the next-generation.
Speaking to Eurogamer TV this afternoon at a press event for PlayStation Vita in London, Ryan, who stepped up to the SCEE top job in the summer, said: "I think we would consider it undesirable to be significantly later than the competition [with the next PlayStation]."
With Wii U out next year and Microsoft expected to reveal the next Xbox in 2012 amid suggestions that a number of studios are already making games for a 2013 launch, industry chatter regarding a PlayStation 3 successor has been considerably more muted.
This, coupled with Sony's overall financial position, has led to speculation that the company is behind its rivals with its next-generation planning.
Ryan defended Sony's strategy, insisting: "There's still a lot of unfinished business on PS3."
He added: "If you look at PlayStation 2, now in excess of 150m units installed globally, a huge majority of that was done at price points of £120 or lower. [With PS3] we've only just hit £199 in the UK, so clearly there's a considerable untapped part of the market there."
Last week Edge reported that a first-party Sony studio had ceased PS3 development and moved onto PS4 development. The unnamed developer is also apparently involved in building the graphics technology for Sony's next system.
It then said Guerrilla Games was making a new Killzone game - for PlayStation 4?
Hiryosuke wrote:No he's saying they won't let ms get a year headstart this time...at least thts what I see...
He's suggesting that there's plenty of life in PS3 left. And giving his opinion that Sony would likely launch a PS3 successor before the next Xbox.
He's not saying there is a PS4 noir is he hinting at one. He's saying, thier sticking to PS3.
"There's still a lot of unfinished business on PS3."
He added: "If you look at PlayStation 2, now in excess of 150m units installed globally, a huge majority of that was done at price points of £120 or lower. [With PS3] we've only just hit £199 in the UK, so clearly there's a considerable untapped part of the market there."
Mephiles550 wrote:The name "Xbox 720" Has been used and rumored ever since the 360 came out. I'd be surprised if Microsoft didn't call it that.
Its kinda a fanmade name. Since Xbox Loop will have full HD, Unreal 3 graphics and will likely use High Res visuals, I highly doubt that Mircosoft will use that name.
Just seems like if the ps1 has a aftermarket memory reader and the dreamcast has a vmu, then everything after probably is capable of having something...
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Well, I was wondering if there was a aftermarket one or if someone was working one of there own, maybe using a raspberry pi or something. I tried to...
