HardOCP News
[H] News
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Uh oh, you know Sony is one step away from full-blown panic mode when they hire a professional fixer. Then again, maybe this is just what Sony needs…a little of both…panic and a fixer. 
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Sony Hires a Professional Fixer
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
Monkey God
Mangina Full of Sand
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Sony is a mess, so maybe his job will be easy.
dr.stevil
[H]F Junkie
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well, sounds like he has job security at least
JUSTJOEL73
Gawd
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Sony has been stumbling around like a drunk frat boy for years now and now its time for the hangover. Winning the format war against HD DVD has cost them dearly with damage reports coming in quarter after quarter. Packaging BD with the PS3 let them win but is ultimately still losing them big money because they cannot raise the price of the PS3 where they can make a profit. The more PS3s they sell the more money they lose. It is really a lose-lose proposition for them. Losing the format war however would have been worse. BD sales have been sluggish with less then 10% of the market (because of their premium pricing). I don't see their consumer division turning things around anytime soon because they cannot get their costs down any further and their PS3 still cost twice as much as the cheapest competing console.
Bailey's approach, from the article:
"he says the key to successful electronics companies involves shepherding innovation and giving customers what they want"
Stringer at CES:
"he said they needed to be focusing on the creation of better networked devices with long-term value and that embrace open standards and green materials"
Common sense vs. buzzwords. Stringer may have hired his own replacement. Maybe, just maybe, Sony will start trying to give "customers what they want" instead of trying to screw them out of their money at every turn.
"he says the key to successful electronics companies involves shepherding innovation and giving customers what they want"
Stringer at CES:
"he said they needed to be focusing on the creation of better networked devices with long-term value and that embrace open standards and green materials"
Common sense vs. buzzwords. Stringer may have hired his own replacement. Maybe, just maybe, Sony will start trying to give "customers what they want" instead of trying to screw them out of their money at every turn.
That would be a good thing. I would love to see the movie studio/record label separated from the consumer electronics business.
It's an amazing concept that they seemed to have lost. People buy what they want, not what you want them to buy.
I think this might apply to Sony right now. The company is a mess, and even worse they have irritated many customers with their business practices. I know I have specifically gone out of my way not purchased sony products in the last few years. Sony completely screwed the pooch in many areas. Now they are going to have to pay for it. Blue ray, ps3, rootkits on audio CDs , being part of the RIAA/MPAA mafia and etc have all rubbed their many of their enthusiasts in a wrong way.
One of the few things keeping them afloat???
Better for consumers not to have a movie studio or record label with that much leverage in the consumer electronics market. As Bailey said, successful CE companies give consumers what they want. Sony's consumer electronics division gives the movie studio what it wants.
friedchicken
Gawd
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So much anti-Sony sentiment here. They are a business and need to make changes to survive. It's pretty sad that all of you don't understand business economics. They make decisions to maintain their biggest market (enterprise business customers) and sometimes it doesn't jive with what you want as an end-user. So what. Sony wouldn't be around if they catered to you and I on every front. The grief most of you pour on them isn't deserving.
That being said, it is the CEO's responsibility to grow market share and plot short & long term stability and I think this is a very responsible move on any business owners part to bring in hired guns and recognize that they can't live in a bubble forever.
Not really a fan of Sony, but good on them for taking corrective measures.
That being said, it is the CEO's responsibility to grow market share and plot short & long term stability and I think this is a very responsible move on any business owners part to bring in hired guns and recognize that they can't live in a bubble forever.
Not really a fan of Sony, but good on them for taking corrective measures.
Um, which of Sony's business units relies primarily on "enterprise business customers" for revenue?
PS3?
DVD/BluRay players?
TV?
Audio?
Movie studio?
Record label?
Yes, they make a lot of stuff, and they do sell components that are used in other manufacturer's products. It's their consumer electronics business that is hemorrhaging money. That's primarily where the fixing needs to take place.
It is a good move by Sony to hire Bailey. If Sony hadn't been wallowing in such douchebaggery for the last fifteen or so years, they probably wouldn't need him. If they had been providing consumers with the products and technologies we want, instead of doing their damndest to kill any new tech not owned by Sony and pushing overbearing, anti-consumer DRM in electronics to placate their content divisions, they could have been making money.
PS3?
DVD/BluRay players?
TV?
Audio?
Movie studio?
Record label?
Yes, they make a lot of stuff, and they do sell components that are used in other manufacturer's products. It's their consumer electronics business that is hemorrhaging money. That's primarily where the fixing needs to take place.
It is a good move by Sony to hire Bailey. If Sony hadn't been wallowing in such douchebaggery for the last fifteen or so years, they probably wouldn't need him. If they had been providing consumers with the products and technologies we want, instead of doing their damndest to kill any new tech not owned by Sony and pushing overbearing, anti-consumer DRM in electronics to placate their content divisions, they could have been making money.
alg7_munif
Supreme [H]ardness
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Too bad that Sony is having some losses right now but I still can't see any successful american consumer electronic company yet. Other brands like Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic and LG are also Asian companies.
Well, the anti-Sony sentiment comes from Sony not paying any heed to customer perception. Saying 'so what' to how consumers perceive Sony is ignoring a large part of the problem. What good is a company that doesn't keep most if not all of their customers happy?
I remember the Sony of yesteryear, when they were committed to quality and their loyal customer base. The entire sound system I bought in 2000 is from Sony (a non-pre-packaged 350 watt amp, 2 floor standing speakers, 2 bookshelf, and a center), survives to this day, and still rivals currently available products for quality (well, aside from the fact that they're all fairly boring looking, but who buys audio equipment based on looks?). Walkman used to be synonymous with portable media. Everyone knew the PlayStation was a gaming device you had to have. Their televisions were pretty respectable. Now look at them.
Based on my previous purchases and looking at what they currently produce, I think Sony should be ashamed of their progress over the last five years, which makes the fact that they're losing money by the billions of $'s fairly unsurprising. The fact they haven't done anything to redeem themselves in the eyes of customers until now is just bad business sense, no matter where they might actually be doing well.
BillParrish
Supreme [H]ardness
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George Bailey to do list.
1) offshore manuf to China (insert bribes as needed)
2) Promote "Employees are our greatest resource (until we don't want to pay you) " program.
3) Sell off non-core businesses
4) Offshore some more.
5) Cost reduce by flattening middle management layers and laying off senior high paid workers.
6) Reduce R+D
7) Inflate "Goodwill"
optional obscure (well not really) reference,
Delegate critical fiscal responsibility to an incompetent family member, take the rap for it but get bailed out at the last minute because you are such a nice guy.
1) offshore manuf to China (insert bribes as needed)
2) Promote "Employees are our greatest resource (until we don't want to pay you) " program.
3) Sell off non-core businesses
4) Offshore some more.
5) Cost reduce by flattening middle management layers and laying off senior high paid workers.
6) Reduce R+D
7) Inflate "Goodwill"
optional obscure (well not really) reference,
Delegate critical fiscal responsibility to an incompetent family member, take the rap for it but get bailed out at the last minute because you are such a nice guy.
I thought CEO and the Board of directors are to steer a company, if this is the best they can do by hiring an outsider then its time to get rid of Howard Stringer. Sony has been losing money and going down hill ever since he took over other then maybe his first year. The reason an anglo took over from the Japanese was that Sony wanted to get the American Movie and Music industry into their portfolio. As it turned out, bad mistake.
knothead34
[H]ard|Gawd
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- Apr 4, 2005
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- 1,599
i think the prices they came up with for the ps3 hurt them bad. same thing with xbox. one reason why the wii is doing so well....its more affordable. sony isent the only one hurting ..alot of major companies are having to restructure.........layoff people until we get out of this recession.
Companies bring people in to fix stuff like this quite often. Stringer was brought into a company that was falling apart. With or without him Sony would be in a bad position.
djoye
2[H]4U
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- Aug 31, 2004
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- 3,116
They might as well drop the price on the PS3 even more, take that loss and try to make up with it by selling high-def content on Blu-ray discs.
JUSTJOEL73
Gawd
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- Nov 14, 2007
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They can't drop the price on the PS3 anymore. They need to make money on the front and back end. They can't afford to lose more on the front end sellling cheaper consoles and wait and hope to make it up on the back end later on media. They need results today not 12 months down the road. The high price for BD media is hurting its sales too.
I just love marketing, goes to show it works. Sony did not win the HD DVD war, They Paid for it. Sony must have paid 2 billion or more to the studios and who ever else to drop HD DVD. Sony still has to recover that money. I'm hoping a new format comes out before BR actually takes hold.
I wish people would use their brains and the internet more. SONY DOES NOT OWN BLU-RAY!
You're way off course here. Traditionally, the vast majority of consoles cost more to produce than the actual selling price until later in the life of the console. Nintendo's Wii is the exception to this rule. In most cases, the technology included in the console was rather new and as time went on yields increased, economy of scale came into play as well as being able to make parts smaller which cost less to produce.
Along with that, the owner of the console also receives money on each game sold for the console. The licensing fees for the games are the main revenue for the console. More recently, accessories for the consoles have also brought in a lot of money due to the licensing needed to release the products for the consoles and this is another big money maker.
That said, you have to get the consoles out in large numbers in order to make money off of licensing fees for both games and accessories. If you do not have a large base of consoles out there, you are going to have fewer games and accessories made for the console as the companies making those products need to see a profit from those products. This all leads back to licensing and making money from the licensing.
The perfect example of this is Microsoft with the Xbox. The original Xbox was a huge money pit for Microsoft and Microsoft knew that long before getting into the console arena. However, this isn't the case for the Xbox360. Despite hardware problems, Microsoft is making a nice chunk of money of the Xbox360 platform including the hardware at this point.
This is where Sony royally screwed up with regards to arrogance. Sony believed that due to the popularity of the previous two Playstations people would fork over whatever money Sony priced the PS3 at. This was obviously not the case. Due to arrogance and a very short sighted look at profits, Sony did not drop the price of the PS3 to the level the console would sell at well. Sure, we've seen price drops on it, but they were usually too little and too late. By the time prices were dropped to a relatively low level, the other two consoles were being bought up at a much more rapid pace and Sony lost out on a lot of sales because of that.
From what I remember, due to the much smaller install base of the PS3 than was originally expected a number of games which would have normally been PS3 exclusive have not been exclusives. While this is just a guess on my part, I wouldn't be surprised if a number of games originally to be made for the PS3 were totally dropped and the budgets of others have been cut.
As far as the PS3 is concerned, Sony screwed up by pricing the console too high initially and didn't quickly follow through with large price cuts in order to increase the install base which is required for a console to succeed.
You want affordable OLEDs? Wait a few years. The technology is incredibly expensive. Demanding affordable OLEDs right now is like demanding affordable Plasma TVs when they first came out. It's a nice wish, but it simply isn't feasible.
I know its a fantasy... But it was such a beautiful one...
Well if Wiki is wrong can you inform them.
"Blu-ray Disc (also known as Blu-ray or BD) is an optical disc storage medium designed by Sony to supersede the standard DVD format. Its main uses are high-definition video and data storage with 50GB per disc. The disc has the same physical dimensions as standard DVDs and CDs.
During the format war over high-definition optical discs, Blu-ray Disc competed with the HD DVD format. In February 2008, Toshibathe main company supporting HD DVD ceded and effectively ended the format war[2].
Blu-ray Disc is developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group representing makers of consumer electronics, computer hardware, and motion pictures."
I wish people would use their brains and the internet more. SONY DOES OWN BLU-RAY!
Read the last line of what you quoted, genius. The BDA owns Blu-Ray. Sony HELPED develop it. Wiki is NOT the be-all end-all source for information. Any idiot can tell you that. Do some research beyond Wikipedia, you'll learn something.
The association has the rights to use Sonys BlueRay technology in their equipment and the motion picture association the right to produce Blueray movies. The point being that Sony collects royalties from all the sales. Which is why they pushed so hard to win the format war. Instead of knocking me, lay your research down ya twit. Your so lazy you grabbed info from my research, Can't find your own?
Oh by the way thanks for telling me.
Sony has a couple patents, but the others that helped create the technology. Sony, for example, did not create the laser. Sony and the others involved in the creation of the technology formed the BDA to control licensing and content. You don't go to Sony to get the right to use Blu-Ray, you go to the BDA and you pay to become a member of it.
I've followed Blu-Ray since it was announced.
I set myself up for that one, didn't I?
This post is spot on in my opinion.
This goes for all parts of Sony, even down to their online entertaiment dept.
EQ2 could have been so much better, and pulled in more revenue if they didnt screw people over, same for SWG, etc...
Sony, for the past 5-6 years has been turned into a screw you consumer business. Now they are paying for it (as has been mentioned above many times.
This goes for all parts of Sony, even down to their online entertaiment dept.
EQ2 could have been so much better, and pulled in more revenue if they didnt screw people over, same for SWG, etc...
Sony, for the past 5-6 years has been turned into a screw you consumer business. Now they are paying for it (as has been mentioned above many times.
I think the major part of the decline of most of the companies is they are not run by the original founders. The founders cared deeply about the development and direction they were going. They nurtured, and in the early days most didn't know where their next meal was coming from. They plowed most of their profits back into the company.After that they deserved what came with success.That was the past, roll the film forward and you have the selfish, greedy, wheres my next million coming from, CEOs. They belong to the boys club. They fail in one company, get the golden parachute of millions then move on to the next company. I think, if I'm not mistaken the CEO of Chrysler came from a failed company. These guys live in a totally different world, no guilt or shame, just take. Take millions for themselves, shut down factories, layoff thousands, tell the workers that its not their fault that they might lose everything they own, but never explain who's responsible.
I can't fathom how a company claims millions sometimes billions in loses, but they are allowed to go further in debt to pay themselves all these bonuses and wages and pensions. Shouldn't that all come to a stop once the company is in the red. Nuff said. That might be where to start in cleaning up this financial mess.