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NY Times: Sony is in "the fight for its life"

S

shinobi602

Member
NY Times direct link is 3 pages long, so I'll just cite IGN's summary. You can find the full link in there too.

The New York Times' Hiroko Tabuchi recently penned a scathing article (via Games Industry International) about Sony entitled "How the Tech Parade Passed Sony By." Within, Tabuchi draws some stunning conclusions about the once megalithic Japanese electronics company.

Tabuchi cites new Sony CEO Kaz Hirai's proclamation that Sony must chart a new course, noting his quote: "I believe Sony can change." But as Tabuchi herself states, "Outside Sony -- and inside it, too -- not everyone is quite so sure. That is because Sony, which once defined Japan's technological prowess, wowed the world with the Walkman and Trinitron TV and shocked Hollywood with bold acquisitions like Columbia Pictures, is now in the fight of its life."

To be fair, Tabuchi contextualizes Sony's problems as an issue more endemic in Japanese industry as a whole, but with Sony, she states that it's the company's "astonishing lack of ideas" that's at the core of its problem, while noting that the company hasn't made any money in years due to its complete lack of a "hit product" during that time.

As a result, "Sony's market value is now one-ninth that of Samsung Electronics, and just one-thirtieth of Apple's," companies that stole Sony's thunder in the television and music industries, respectively. "One by one, every sphere where the company competed -- from hardware to software to communications to content -- was turned topsy-turvy by disruptive new technology and unforeseen rivals. And these changes only highlighted the conflicts and divisions within Sony," Tabuchi writes.

One major concentration of Sony's problems, according to Tabuchi, is its culture of "disastrous infighting" that causes parts of the gigantic company to quarrel and compete with one another. Indeed, "Sony's recent leaders have had trouble wielding authority over the sprawling company," she writes. "Sony remains dominated by proud, territorial engineers who often shun cooperation."

And even though she states unequivocally that the PlayStation brand is an area where Sony has clearly "found success," an area they will continue to aggressively pursue, she writes in an earlier part of the article that "executives complain privately of recalcitrant managers who refuse to share information or work with other divisions," further compounding the problem company-wide.

She also points out the confusing nature of Sony's electronics catalog, which totes "10 different consumer-level camcorders and almost 30 different TVs," which flabbergasts customers. "Sony makes too many models, and for none of them can say, 'This contains our best, most cutting-edge technology.' Apple, on the other hand, makes one amazing phone in just two colors and says, 'This is the best,'" Tabuchi quotes ex-Sony executive Yoshiaki Sakito as saying.

But Sea-Jin Chang, National University of Singapore's Chairman for Business Policy, put it most succinctly. "At this point, Sony just needs some strategy, any strategy, because that is better than no strategy at all."

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/122/1223379p1.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/technology/how-sony-fell-behind-in-the-tech-parade.html
Click to expand...
 
C

ComputerMKII

Banned
26343702doom-00000-jpg.jpg
 
M

MagicWithEarvin

Member
Every time I see a doom and gloom Sony article, one thing that's always mentioned is that their gaming division is successful. I've always thought that Sony just needs to trim the fat off a little bit in regards to their televisions, laptops, cellphones, etc.
 
M

mysticwhip

Banned
sony definitely has too many models of tvs and other electronics with confusing model names, they should just have a bravia and not bravia kv12 xdna.
 
B

bigtroyjon

Member
shinobi602 said:
NY Times direct link is 3 pages long, so I'll just cite IGN's summary. You can find the full link in there too.
Click to expand...

lol, this is why video games journalism sucks. Why put the effort into doing real journalism when people give you clicks for copying and pasting somebody else work?

There is nothing stopping IGN from doing their own summary of Sony's situation and getting interviews other than shitty, lazy video game journalism.

Edit-Example of a video game writer actually doing his own work and conducting his own interviews.
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
earvcunanan said:
Every time I see a doom and gloom Sony article, one thing that's always mentioned is that their gaming division is successful. I've always thought that Sony just needs to trim the fat off a little bit in regards to their televisions, laptops, cellphones, etc.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. They're in the middle of a restructure that's focusing on gaming and cameras. They're trimming everywhere else and keeping the game division as is. They'll need to do well in gaming next-gen to be able to keep it up but for the time being nothing huge is changing in the way that the gaming department is run.
 
C

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Sony needs to get its shit together. If they continue down the path they're on, the company will end up killing itself due to mismanagement and stubborn pride within the separate divisions. They should start by trimming the TV division.
 
T

timetokill

Banned
It's been clear that the company lacks a clear vision for a long time now. The Vita screams this out to me, personally. Vita is just about the most "obvious" thing they could have done. Instead of forging a new direction they just seemed to slap on everything that could possibly have been successful before and hope for the best. They are being outmaneuvered by pretty much all of their competition because their competition has a clear focus and vision for their products.

Since Sony's vision seems to be unclear or muddled, that comes across to consumers.

My suggestions have long been to cut the TV division and cut the handheld division. Everybody says to cut the television division now but Kaz doesn't even seem to want to do that entirely.
 
C

cvxfreak

Member
Read the NYTimes article the other day and it's incredibly well-written. At the current trajectory, I just don't see the major Japanese electronics manufacturers surviving 20 years from now.
 
M

M-PG71C

Member
The PS3 is not what I call a "successful, sound strategy". If anything, it exemplifies their problems today and their lack of ability to resolve them

The Vita is a step in the right direction but it still lacks the ambition, innovation, and drive of Sony's past. For gaming, they need to take a serious look at the PSOne/PS2.
 
James Sawyer Ford

James Sawyer Ford

Member
mysticwhip said:
sony definitely has too many models of tvs and other electronics with confusing model names, they should just have a bravia and not bravia kv12 xdna.
Click to expand...

Yup.

Plain and simple, they sell too much garbage that nobody wants.

Apple's had tremendous success just on the back of a few core products.

Sony needs to (and by all indications they are in the process of doing this) gut their entire TV division, perhaps even think about exiting the sector entirely and focusing on their core pillars which are gaming, movies, digital imaging, and mobile.

They are basically an entertainment company now with an increasingly lessened focus on hardware.

If I were them, I would entirely leverage the playstation portfolio onto mobile devices. Once cell phones become powerful enough to run Vita games (won't be too long), create a clip-on gaming adapter with the necessary controls, sell it for $30 bucks, and instantly turns your iPhone or Android device into a Vita that can play call of duty on the go.

They need to stop thinking, especially of their mobile platforms, that the entertainment content they produce needs to somehow be exclusive to the hardware they develop. In the mobile space that is backwards thinking, and with how wildly popular phones are from Apple, they need to embrace the new reality of the market place.

Besides, they hardly make any money of their Vita hardware regardless. All of the money to be made will be through software sales, and the only way to achieve significant software sales is to embrace the larger market space.
 
DanielJr82

DanielJr82

Member
Totally agree about the over saturated electronics line. They seriously have over 30 TV models, never mind the different sizes. Looks like Playstation is still good. Well, sans the portables, couldn't care less about the PSPs and Vitas.
 
C

Canova

Banned
cool, maybe Sony will abandon its TV division and its other hundreds stupid divisions and focus completely on gaming. Then we'll have the best Playstation era ever
 
B

bigboss370

Member
Sony still means quality for me, will continue to buy their stuff :D

they definitely do not have a lack of ideas in gaming software. and they led the charge with bluray.
 
statham

statham

Member
udivision said:
Sony should become a gaming company and make money.
Click to expand...
when sony got into the mix, they were battling atari(lol), sega(lol) and nintendo. now they are battling MS, Google, Apple and Nintendo, all doing crazy amounts of business while theirs had fallen off. Sony is in for a rough few years, they need to pull a nintendo.
 
S

Schweinehund

Member
Isn't their gaming division their must successful division right now?

Hope it isn't hit too hard due to other divisions.

edit: oh, bad reading comprehension. Missed that line where it said playstation brand is sucessful.

I don't think I've bought any sony brand stuff besides my ps3 in a long time. Walkman was their last huge hit I think.
 
G

gogogow

Member
bigboss370 said:
Sony still means quality for me, will continue to buy their stuff :D

they definitely do not have a lack of ideas in gaming software. and they led the charge with bluray.
Click to expand...

That "killed"/damaged the Playstation 3/Playstation brand. And was Blu-ray worth it? It seems to me streaming services are much more popular/is the future.
 
C

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
JiveTurkey said:
Isn't their gaming division their must successful division right now?

Hope it isn't hit too hard due to other divisions.

edit: oh, bad reading comprehension. Missed that line where it said playstation brand is sucessful.

I don't think I've bought any sony brand stuff besides my ps3 in a long time. Walkman was their last huge hit I think.
Click to expand...
The gaming division will be fine for the time being.
 
R

reKon

Banned
Had a group project in a class where we had to do a corporate analysis on a company using things like Porter's 5 Forces, etc. We choose Sony and we had a lot of fun with that...



This is obligatory for this thread:

http://neogaf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=452811


The article that's posted here is a very good and and will explain everything.
 
W

Wiseblade

Member
I'm torn. One the one hand, I think it's highly likely that Sony will go under by the end of the decade. On the other, I'm confident Kaz Hirai can make the changes necessary to keep the company afloat. Which basically means gutting TV division and doing a complete restructuring of the Phone division.
 
J

JordanLMiller

Member
timetokill said:
It's been clear that the company lacks a clear vision for a long time now. The Vita screams this out to me, personally. Vita is just about the most "obvious" thing they could have done. Instead of forging a new direction they just seemed to slap on everything that could possibly have been successful before and hope for the best. They are being outmaneuvered by pretty much all of their competition because their competition has a clear focus and vision for their products.

Since Sony's vision seems to be unclear or muddled, that comes across to consumers.

My suggestions have long been to cut the TV division and cut the handheld division. Everybody says to cut the television division now but Kaz doesn't even seem to want to do that entirely.
Click to expand...

I agree completely. Why can't you be in charge?

JWong said:
All of Sony's phones are better than iPhones.
Click to expand...

lol
 
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