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[Cipherr]

Except last year when they lost money for the first time in forever, drastically cut the 3DS' price, and publicly apologized to fans and stockholders? I think that reflects a company pulling out all the stops to ensure their product is a success. Sony hasn't hit that point yet, even having lost billions more.

Seriously? Price dropping the 3DS and a loss for the first time = desperate, Losing billions and restructuring the entire bloody company, starting with a new CEO, a new set of executives, laying off 6% of your global workforce, revising your projected losses from around 2.7 billion to 6.4 billion and cutting the number of TV products the company produces by 40% = haven't hit desperate yet.

Yeah, I can toooooootally see where you are coming from.

 

[massoluk]

Except last year when they lost money for the first time in forever, drastically cut the 3DS' price, and publicly apologized to fans and stockholders? I think that reflects a company pulling out all the stops to ensure their product is a success. Sony hasn't hit that point yet, even having lost billions more.

Joke post?

 

[Kenshin001]

I can see the logic of that post. Sony just acquired EMI for cost of $2.2 billion which doesn't seem the actions of a desperate company. Maybe they are just incredible reckless and stupid though. Nintendo slashed the price of their newest flagship product soon after release which does seem an act of desperation.

 

[H_Prestige]

I can see the logic of that post. Sony just acquired EMI for cost of $2.2 billion which doesn't seem the actions of a desperate company. Maybe they are just incredible reckless and stupid though. Nintendo slashed the price of their newest flagship product soon after release which does seem an act of desperation.

Did we already forget that Sony was forced to slash the ps3 price from 599 to 499 multiple times during its first year? And losing billions of dollars in the process? That still wasn't enough to get people to buy it, they were forced to make some gimped model to sell for 399. And they still lost money on that one too. It wasn't until the slim model in 2009 that they started to get a solid footing. That seems like more desperate times than what Nintendo is going through.

 

[Cipherr]

I can see the logic of that post. Sony just acquired EMI for cost of $2.2 billion which doesn't seem the actions of a desperate company.

I dont get this, do you just ignore everything that Sony has done to completely restructure the company from the ground up in order to make this statement? I mean, there's even a new CEO assigned with the expressed intent of "Getting the company back on track". I don't see the logic at all. You are pointing out an acquisition and ignoring every single DESPERATE action Sony has made since then in order to try an equate it with a price drop on a product that was priced very high over construction cost in the first place.

No I'm sorry, I don't see it.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Sony are definitely in a desperate position, but it isn't being reflected in SCE's operations yet. If anything SCE are to get more support for their initiatives.

However, we are seeing them embrace their IP's in a much more inclusive manner, taking a leaf out of Nintendo's book. These will be sitting alongside their more traditional 'core' IP's like Gran Turismo, God of War, Uncharted, WipEout etc.

Their new IP's have had a stronger focus on strengthening the mindshare of their IP by doing a lot more crossover work. The upcoming LittleBigPlanet Karting and PlayStation AllStars games will be typical of this approach.

SCE, it seems, will benefit from the demise of other Sony departments. I think Kaz has the right idea and if they manage to buy EMI, their music business will be much stronger too.

Their biggest problem is the lack of a unified digital ecosystem. Its far too compartmentalised at the moment. SEN needs to be everywhere, with one sign in, one account and one wallet.

 

[Clear]

Sony reacted actually pretty similarly to Nintendo over PS3. The hardware was radically re-engineered and simplified in order to create a more price competitive product. Hardly the reaction of a company unaware of its problems.

And the reality is its worked reasonably well to get them back into contention in this console generation.

To be fair, nobody saw the impact the Wii would have coming in to the start of this gen, and with MS performing better than anticipated in the English speaking markets, its been quite a hill to (re-)climb.

 

[CadetMahoney]

Did we already forget that Sony was forced to slash the ps3 price from 599 to 499 multiple times during its first year? And losing billions of dollars in the process? That still wasn't enough to get people to buy it, they were forced to make some gimped model to sell for 399. And they still lost money on that one too. It wasn't until the slim model in 2009 that they started to get a solid footing. That seems like more desperate times than what Nintendo is going through.

I still wonder why they spent so much on Cell and included a blu-ray player.

If you ask me blu-ray would've won the format war anyway.

 

[Mario007]

I still wonder why they spent so much on Cell and included a blu-ray player.

If you ask me blu-ray would've won the format war anyway.

Because of games like FF XIII and MGS4 and even Killzone 3 I'm very happy that they put blu-ray in there

 

[ScreenSplitter]

I can see the logic of that post. Sony just acquired EMI for cost of $2.2 billion which doesn't seem the actions of a desperate company. Maybe they are just incredible reckless and stupid though. Nintendo slashed the price of their newest flagship product soon after release which does seem an act of desperation.

And Sony is keeping the price of it's new flagship product constant, which isn't doing it any favours whatsoever.

 

[TGO]

Sony's phones aren't even close to being among the best of Android phones.

The Xperia S & ION say otherwise, in fact it's a shame they ain't quad-cores cuz they'll already better then the One X as it is.

But ya Sony needs to cut back, I wouldn't kill the TV devision, you must be a fan of Samsung or just hate Sony to want a world without Sony TVs, plus more businesses & studios use Sonys anyway

 

[Raoh]

I wouldn't mind if Apple entered as a direct competitor to Nintendo going straight for that huge casual poontang. Both are white based consoles with Apple having a huge mindshare at the moment.

They just need a wii-type motion control parlour trick to get ppl interested.

If your an iPhone/iTouch owner, you wouldn't need one, the console would supplement already owned devices, justifying an apple ecosystem, outside of local multiplayer games which the move would be to have anyone with an "i" device come over and easily join a local game via wifi or bluetooth, then I just leave my friends house with my phone which just doubled as a controller.

Eco system.

One of Sony's biggest problem is people's perception on them.

Apple uses proprietary format BS, just like Sony, but they are fine because they are trendy. When Sony used to be trendy, their proprietary formats were "oh, it's different because it's better".

They need to change the way people view them. The guy on the first page saying the Xperia phones were better is a great example. Everybody quickly jumped on him because of Sony's track record with android and xperias.

But the phone in question, the new Xperia S (LT26i, the same one i bought recently) is very different from the old models and it is, in fact, better than any iPhone. (not a surprise since it was released to go against the next iteration of iPhones from Apple.

The way people are ready to quickly discard them, without even knowing which product they are making, is a lot more serious than the quality of the products they are making it.

I don't know how they are going to change this perceived image, but i hope Kaz has at least a plan for this.

just like the 360 is trendy.

Any other company with proprietary hard drives which put the console on par if not at a higher price than the competition, online fees, rrod expecation that just about every console bought would get the error and still bought above all others. Why? In the U.S. the only other name brand besides apple's "i" products is the xbox 360. If sony charged for online and had rrrod and proprietary hard drives they would have had to eject stringer and cut losses much earlier on.

Next gen will be rough for sony because they could offer the best console for the consumer and the developer at an aggressively competitive price and a good line up of new exclusives at launch but the general perception and hate from some game sites will still be very bad.

I know people that hate sony and don't know why. I've even heard from gamestop managers who based on their employees comments like "sony online is broken" actually thought sony games could not or were not made to go online as if it were a wii or a last gen console. Throw in a few "F U Sony" gaming blogs and bam, not cool to support sony.

My favorite is people that say they prefer android over iOS because they prefer open hardware and network and hate everything closed and proprietary they want to do what they want to do with the hardware they bought. Then say they prefer the 360 which is closed, proprietary and nickle and dimed and no xbox media center for the console. one could say that its worth it becuase it just works which would then question their android vs iOS argument as the same can be said for iOS, it just works.

 

[Cheebo]

Not in terms of hardware quality. Just compare the construction of a Samsung plasma to a Panasonic.

In terms of sales. It's absolutely no comparison now. China and Korea dominate where as Japan dominated the last 20 or so years.

Samsung is the new Sony.

Apple doesn't really build any of the parts in their hardware, they buy them from Samsung and others so they aren't really applicable.

 

[Raoh]

I still wonder why they spent so much on Cell and included a blu-ray player.

If you ask me blu-ray would've won the format war anyway.

Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/08/29/origins-of-the-blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-war/

Everyone was already on board with blu ray. The industries needed to go hd and move on from dvd, gaming was only a small part of this. hd dvd was first chosen over blu ray, which sony still worked on behind the scenes anyway. hd dvd was cheaper which people loved but it was not ready for companies to implement fully and then opted to back out of hd dvd and move on to blu ray, which microsoft hated sine blu ray did not license any microsoft patents.

All the formats going forward had nothing to do with MS, ms did not like that and threw money/salt in sony's eyes for this.

Blu-ray Says No to Microsoft, and Vice Versa: 2004.
HP in turn invited Microsoft to also support Blu-ray for playback under Windows, which HP would need for the Blu-ray equipped PCs it sold. According to an article by Peter Burrows in BusinessWeek, Microsoft demanded that the Blu-ray group adopt its WinCE-based iHD for developing interactive content (since renamed to HDi) in order to sign on.

Somewhat ironically, the Blu-ray group had already adopted BDj, an interactive authoring system developed by HP. BDj is based upon Sun’s Java platform. Content developed for BDj is intended to be easily adapted for delivery not just on Blu-ray disc, but also over cable systems.

The Blu-ray Disc Association “did a three month side-by-side evaluation and concluded that iHD didn’t offer enough advantages to make a switch worthwhile,” Burrows reported. “Microsoft was livid.” In September 2005, Microsoft and Intel announced their exclusive support for HD-DVD, which had already included HDi as a mandatory part of the specification.

There never should been a war, MS played an expensive game screwing over companies and consumers.

Sony Continues Work on Blu-ray.
Unconvinced that Toshiba’s HD-DVD plan would be deliverer on time, Sony continued work on Blu-ray. Despite promises that HD-DVD would be much cheaper to produce and could be delivered by the existing DVD player manufacturers with just minor adjustments to their assembly lines, by the end of 2005 no HD-DVD players had arrived.

Meanwhile, Sony continued to build up support behind its technically superior Blu-ray, which promised to store 25 GB per disc layer compared to 15 GB for HD-DVD. In addition to technical work, Sony had also assembled a coalition behind Blu-ray that included critical content producers.

Microsoft, worried that the new HD formats would eclipse its DVD+WMV plan, hoped to get both groups to adopt its iHD for interactive menus and use its WMV video codecs. After finding resistance to using its proprietary WMV over the standard MPEG-4, Microsoft had the SMPTE publish its Windows Media 9 codec under the name VC-1.

Microsoft now humorously refers to Windows Media 9 as “an implementation of the VC-1 standard.” The specification for both HD-DVD and Blu-ray require players to support both MPEG-4 and VC-1, and movies can be encoded in either. Most HD-DVDs use VC-1, and most Blu-ray movies use MPEG.

HD-DVD Troubles: 2006.
The hardware required to play HD video and WinCE-based HDi posed a big problem for Toshiba’s HD-DVD players that overshadowed the somewhat simpler disc player mechanism they use compared to Blu-ray. Toshiba’s first HD-DVD player, the HD-A1, wasn’t released until early 2006, two years later than promised

 

[Akuun]

I don't like Sony either, but this sounds a little too much like a Sony version of those "Nintendo is doomed because Apple is sooooooo much better!!!" articles.

 

[massoluk]

In terms of sales. It's absolutely no comparison now. China and Korea dominate where as Japan dominated the last 20 or so years.

Samsung is the new Sony.

Apple doesn't really build any of the parts in their hardware, they buy them from Samsung and others so they aren't really applicable.

Well, neither does Sony to be fair. Well may be one or two chips inside.

 

[Kenshin001]

I dont get this, do you just ignore everything that Sony has done to completely restructure the company from the ground up in order to make this statement? I mean, there's even a new CEO assigned with the expressed intent of "Getting the company back on track". I don't see the logic at all. You are pointing out an acquisition and ignoring every single DESPERATE action Sony has made since then in order to try an equate it with a price drop on a product that was priced very high over construction cost in the first place.

No I'm sorry, I don't see it.

Yeah, pretty much. Sony is in a bad spot but at least can shift focus to its profitable ventures. From what I've read Sony is not abandoning any of its core services so I'm not sure if that qualifies as restructuring from the ground up. If Nintendo starts to tank it doesn't have so many options.

 

[Kenshin001]

And Sony is keeping the price of it's new flagship product constant, which isn't doing it any favours whatsoever.

That's true. If they get desperate like Nintendo they will have to drop the price.

 

[Raoh]

Yeah, pretty much. Sony is in a bad spot but at least can shift focus to its profitable ventures. From what I've read Sony is not abandoning any of its core services so I'm not sure if that qualifies as restructuring from the ground up. If Nintendo starts to tank it doesn't have so many options.

Which shows how smart they are or can be.

I give them a lot of credit being in between sony and ms.


Many thought nintendo to fade out after the gamecube. Unless you were a die hard nintendo franchise fan, you bought a ps2 or an xbox. even hackers dropped the gamecube since they went with a small physical disc size to combat piracy.

Still and all not only was the wii profitable at launch hardware wise, it was absolutely brilliant for profitability to not include a dvd playback license making the console cheaper for the company.

It's what makes MS releasing a new console with blu ray drive but no blu ray movie playback believable. No one hates paying license fees more than microsoft.

 

[ProtomanNeo]

Samsung Playstation doesn't have that nice a ring to it

They would probably want to distance themselves from a dying brand and would rename it the "Samsung Galaxy X" or something other.

 

[Boss Man]

I like the part where people complain that Sony is too proprietary and then say they wish Apple would take their place in the games industry.

 

[Sipowicz]

i want sony to survive and continue in the home console business. that's where they've always been strong and successful


but in order to do that they'll have to jettison the turd that is vita as well as all of their unprofitable bits

i just dont think they've got the smarts to do this. poor bastards

ah well

 

[CadetMahoney]

Samsung Playstation doesn't have that nice a ring to it

They would probably want to distance themselves from a dying brand and would rename it the "Samsung Galaxy X" or something other.

I don't see a takeover or merger being beneficial for Samsung in the first place. They can just throw their hat in in the ring themselves with no need to absorb the massive Sony debts or be associated with taking over the Playstation brand.

 

[Nilaul]

I still wonder why they spent so much on Cell and included a blu-ray player.

If you ask me blu-ray would've won the format war anyway.

No worries not even blue-ray is winning the war. Everyone I know has a usb player attached to there TV, no body is bothering with Blueray players.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I like the part where people complain that Sony is too proprietary and then say they wish Apple would take their place in the games industry.

Proprietary is quite a regular thing in the console business, the Ps3 was actually the most open console with its SATA and USB support.

But its outside of that where Sony comes off as stupid. Sony's Vaio is just a windows notebook like Acer, Toshiba and all others, nothing more. Apple's MacBook is a different beast. And the iPhone isn't like one of the tens of Android phones either.

In the case of Apple I can understand them being proprietary to some extent, but in the case of Sony, offering the same as a myriad of other companies and thus directly competing with them, I cannot.

 

[ReaperXL7]

No worries not even blue-ray is winning the war. Everyone I know has a usb player attached to there TV, no body is bothering with Blueray players.

I wonder which of us knows more people, because everyone I know is the opposite. Most have netflix, but it's just used as extra, I only really started using it on PS3 when they added the all Kids Netflix.

 

[leroidys]

Sony's fall and Japan's hang-ups

WOW that guy is a terrible writer. If you need two parenthetical clauses per sentence to get an idea across, you're doing it wrong. The actual content is extremely poor as well. Every source is "when I lived there, Japan..." There is not a shred of data.

 

[Grymm]

Apparently Sonys Vice President of Lots of Stuff Kevin Butler has been seen meeting with the Bridgestone tire company. Rumor has it Sony is interested in Bridgestones rubber materials which should help soften the blow when checks start bouncing.

 

[GraveRobberX]

Apparently Sonys Vice President of Lots of Stuff Kevin Butler has been seen meeting with the Bridgestone tire company. Rumor has it Sony is interested in Bridgestones rubber materials which should help soften the blow when checks start bouncing.

Green is the way to Go!

Playstation 4 Hybrid

 

[Nilaul]

I wonder which of us knows more people, because everyone I know is the opposite. Most have netflix, but it's just used as extra, I only really started using it on PS3 when they added the all Kids Netflix.

Nah, its more to do with the region, here people either download the movies, or stream them from online. (Greece). USB players are quite common now. In UK netflix is avaible... well its absolultly crap, cancelled the subscription. My PC has a blueray drive, but I dont use it, its useless.
Movies on blueray is a quite dead, being other taken by online streaming (also free online streaming) and movie downloads. However blueray may still be used for applications.

It will be interesting in the future, what would hapen to disks when flash storage will be extreamly cheap. E.g 30 Gb for a Euro.

 

[Boss Man]

Green is the way to Go!

Playstation 4 Hybrid

Whoa, strike-out 4's look awesome.

 

[ta-va]

I still wonder why they spent so much on Cell and included a blu-ray player.

If you ask me blu-ray would've won the format war anyway.

well, we all know why they put bluray in the ps3. They wanted to boost the userbase and get that format in as the HD standard and it worked.

As for the cell, they really thought it was going to branch off into other devices. The concept of the chip sounded amazing. Sony originally wanted to put 2 cell chips in the ps3. 1 for the CPU duty and the other for the gpu duty. Real world performance was too shitty to be a gpu, so they had to throw an NVIDIA chip in at the last minute.

The cell chip was a huge reason why the ps3 was so damn expensive. It was brand new at the time just like bluray. It was another huge blunder by Sony (and IBM and Toshiba).

 

[TimeEffect]

A modestly priced PS4 that focuses on friendly programming over complicated hardware where most resources go into technology/the engine will be great for Sony.

A $250-$299 console with a host of exclusives that can profit Sony immediately is what they need, and I really do think Home and PSN (judging by how well it's done on VITA) should help them keep competitive when it comes to competing against the XBL brand.

I really think Sony needs to brand PSN as a legitimate network that, while still free, has a ton of features and superb presentation value. Home is nice, but limited by the hardware IMO, but can be a great hub to launch PS4 into.

PSN/Home + Low price + Friendly hardware + lots of exclusives + earlier/quick release date compared to the competition should really do wonders, IMO.

I really do think that Sony needs to stop chasing bland shooters and they need to revive some of that creativity and fun factor you used to see: games take themselves too seriously these days, I miss games like Crash or Jak and Daxter. I also really think that Sony needs to push more Japanese games over shooters, and main titles like Killzone need to see some general improvements (3 was horrible, 2 was good but too damn cluttered and chaotic)

I really wish they didn't kill SOCOM, they are too busy trying to emulate the cookie cutter standard for shooters

 

[Slurpy2k20]

Yet another 'tech writer' sucking on Apple's proverbial you know what. There is absolutely nothing amazing about Apple's phone, but that doesn't stop the 'press' from making the statement so matter of factly, with literally nothing to back it up. I guess popularity should always be equated with quality.

Go outside and get some fucking fresh air. Sounds like you need it.

 

[east of eastside]

I would like to see a 22nm PS3 mini in 2014, all digital entertainment hub (*w/o a Blu-ray* drive), finally take the place of PS2 at the $99 price level.

PS3 classics would be digitally distributed for $19.99.

 

[GraveRobberX]

Whoa, strike-out 4's look awesome.

Then be prepared for this awesomeness

7

 

[saichi]

It does make sense. A lot of people seem to be in love with Nintendo's games this gen, and they were definitely desperate coming into this gen after a decade of failure. They were on the verge of becoming a niche brand.

even though N64 and Gamecube failed, Nintendo still dominated the handheld space during thee "decade of failure". when were they ever on the verge of becoming a niche brand?

 

[Grymm]

even though N64 and Gamecube failed, Nintendo still dominated the handheld space during thee "decade of failure". when were they ever on the verge of becoming a niche brand?

What's today's date?

 

[entremet]

I don't like Sony either, but this sounds a little too much like a Sony version of those "Nintendo is doomed because Apple is sooooooo much better!!!" articles.

Um no, this is actually based on the lackluster earnings over their last quarters, threats to their longstanding business, and lack of innovation compared to their glory days. Did you read the article?

 

[Bowler]

Samsung in particular KILLS Sony in any objective reliability tests of hardware quality.

Most electronics manufacturers do a better job than Sony nowadays, at any price. Go check out a new Sony standalone Blu Ray player, it's reminiscent of the old Goldstar crap.

I have had 4 samsung LED TV's that say otherwise.

 

[Bowler]

No worries not even blue-ray is winning the war. Everyone I know has a usb player attached to there TV, no body is bothering with Blueray players.

completely disagree with this. 2 years ago, I could get any new release movie on bluray via netflix send to home or the Blockbuster B&M store. Fast forward to today, Redbox blurays are always empty, blockbuster B&m rarely has them, unless you request a hold. There send to home for new releases are almost always wait listed, as is netflix's... which is 30 days behind blockbuster already.

All it took was a black friday 69.00 bluray player, that will drive sales.

wait till this black friday when the US goes ape shit for a 30 dollar bluray player. Then this dvd vs bluray conversation will be mute, as bluray titles will overtake dvd sales 6 months after.

With what I said above, says to me that MS would not even consider locking there bluray drive, if its in fact in the 720, to NOT play blurays video codecs. The world, and local ISP's for that matter are not ready for a stream only universe.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

It's what makes MS releasing a new console with blu ray drive but no blu ray movie playback believable. No one hates paying license fees more than microsoft.

Well, even though Apple is on the Blu-ray board of directors, Steve Jobs called the license fees a "bag of hurt" and to this day Apple doesn't make a single computer with a Blu-ray drive.

 

[H_Prestige]

even though N64 and Gamecube failed, Nintendo still dominated the handheld space during thee "decade of failure". when were they ever on the verge of becoming a niche brand?

Do you think Nintendo wasn't worried about the PSP taking over the handheld market?

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Do you think Nintendo wasn't worried about the PSP taking over the handheld market?

Only a stupid company dismisses their competition.

 

[Acheron]

Well, even though Apple is on the Blu-ray board of directors, Steve Jobs called the license fees a "bag of hurt" and to this day Apple doesn't make a single computer with a Blu-ray drive.

Well that and it competes with iTunes.

 

[RukusProvider]

Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/08/29/origins-of-the-blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-war/

Everyone was already on board with blu ray. The industries needed to go hd and move on from dvd, gaming was only a small part of this. hd dvd was first chosen over blu ray, which sony still worked on behind the scenes anyway. hd dvd was cheaper which people loved but it was not ready for companies to implement fully and then opted to back out of hd dvd and move on to blu ray, which microsoft hated sine blu ray did not license any microsoft patents.

All the formats going forward had nothing to do with MS, ms did not like that and threw money/salt in sony's eyes for this.




There never should been a war, MS played an expensive game screwing over companies and consumers.

Good revisionist history. Having followed the war closely for many years, this was an amusing read.

 

[GraveRobberX]

Good revisionist history. Having followed the war closely for many years, this was an amusing read.

Winners write the history to favor themselves

 

[Oblivion]

I'm honestly a little surprised at so many people in this thread suggesting Sony cut down on their products? Don't Toshiba, Samsung, LG, etc. also have like 30 different T.V.s and other products?

 

[Infamous Chris]

I'm honestly a little surprised at so many people in this thread suggesting Sony cut down on their products? Don't Toshiba, Samsung, LG, etc. also have like 30 different T.V.s and other products?

Not for the most part. Samsung has quite a few models but mostly the higher model has more features and is more pricey, i.e 6000 series --> 6300 --> 6400 --> 7000 --> 8000. Sometimes for Black Friday or for holidays they release special discounted versions of models that have less features like 4 hdmi ports --> 2 hdmi ports, etc, and those models would be something like the 6003 series.

On a sidenote, every day a TON of people come in asking to see the new interactive Samsung SMART TV and since we recently put it up, I've been showing it off a lot lately. Reminds me of Kinect a whole lot. The Sony rep actually tried to say it doesn't work around a week ago, not knowing the Samsung rep was nearby and she got embarrased when he showed her (and the customers she was bullshitting to) how easy it was. She's always so salty and I do have tons of stories to share but this isn't the place :lol

 

[RukusProvider]

Come on, sharing is caring, chris!