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Kaz Hirai details his plan to save Sony

Howard Stringer knew what needed to be done as well, but he was never able to really accomplish his plans. Let's see if Hirai will be any different.
 
Sony had Apple's brand appeal in the 80's and well into the 90's. I don't know what went wrong. Lack of vision? It's incredible how they just dropped the ball with the iconic Walkman.

It's also incredible how they are fucking up the marketing of the Vita. I think a single Taco Bell in New Jersey has more Vita advertising than a small European country.
 
how about reducing there line-up of electronics to 3 classes?

so for tv's you could have 3 classes:

Budget
Mid-range
Premium

this make more sense than having 47 type's of tv's with slight variations, making a niche product which is ranged according to price will sell better and lower costs in general.
 
Things to drop:

- Playstation Home (No, they make quite a profit off home)
- Crazy designed tablets (Agreed.)
- Lower prices on ALL Vaio laptops (this is actually a healthy business)
- Playstation Move (Why)
- Overpriced accessories that nobody buys, like cables and stuff (High margin stuff once again that makes money)
- stupid Sony software on Vaio laptops (Ditto)

Things to do:

- Moneyhats to Rockstar + Bungie
- Purchase companies such as Konami, Square Enix, and Capcom when they will eventually go belly up.
Fire everyone and create a WWS ethos.
- PS4 less expensive than 720 with more powerful hardware
- Store as good as Steam on consoles
- More moneyhats to Rockstar

Comments.
 
Kaz needs to shoehorn Wii U functionality into the PS4 on Day 1 with the Vita. In fact, by the time PS4 comes out, they need a bundle with the PS4.
 
Drop the Vita and PSP and be a Console-only game company. You know, like the time when Playstation was at the top of the foodchain.
 
Medicine has always been a good field to jump into. Sounds like good planning but plans aren't usually worth 2 billion dollars.

Here's hoping for a stable revitalization.

Well if it wasn't for the Japanese natural disasters last year, Sony was actually poised to make a profit last year iirc.
 
I thought Sony said at ces they weren't gonna do the whole OLED tv thing?

Not at all. Sony are still one of the largest investors in OLED, but they believe that it is not suitable for large screens and have also been investing in CLED since about 2009/10. Sony are still one of the few companies which actively produces OLED screens and OLED products, Samsung and LG are the others.

I think Sony are going for OLED in the mobile and small screen space (phones, tablets and laptops) and CLED for large screens (TVs). Obviously that strategy isn't going to have any effect overnight, but after a few years Sony could be out of the budget TV sector altogether and only be selling premium and high margin CLED TVs.

As for Sony's killer quarter/year. Kaz needs to act fast to kill product lines that are unprofitable and fix the Vita problems. He also needs to start looking at Japanese gaming expansion, I would recommend Square, which they should have bought yesterday and possibly one of Konami or Capcom. If Dragons Dogma and DmC fail I think Sony could get Capcom on the cheap. Basically Sony don't control the right Japan centric IPs to be successful there anymore, GT isn't as big as it used to be and Nintendo can always rely on Pokemon and Mario to sell their consoles and portables. Sony need MH, FF and DQ to make sure that people always buy their consoles and portables.
 
Things to drop:

- Playstation Home
- Playstation Move

Home brings in a hell of a lot of money for them. You'd be surprised how many people use it and how much money they make. Also quite a few indie developers thrive on Home. They have absolutely no reason to drop it.

Move was priced for a profit right from the start. Check this article on DToid where Shu confirms they "are not losing money on each one we sell". They have no reason to drop this.
 
Things to drop:

- Playstation Home
- Crazy designed tablets
- Stupidly coloured 14" Vaio laptops
- Playstation Move
- Overpriced accessories that nobody buys, like cables and stuff
- stupid Sony software on Vaio laptops

Things to do:

- Moneyhats to Rockstar + Bungie
- PS4 less expensive than 720
- Store as good as Steam on consoles
- More moneyhats to Rockstar
- Research in robotech

He's in charge of Sony, not just the game division.

As for me, I would say.

Make all the divisions at Sony SPEAK WITH EACH OTHER. Have them share all their technology and knowledge on how to do things. This has been a problem for them for years. Product integration is going to be key if they want to compete. As individuals the part will part apart, united they can produce competitive products. each.

Streamline and reduce cost/price for the TV division. Their TVs might be good now, but they are priced to expensively. More affordable TVs with Sony branding can go a long way.

Sorry to say, but drop the walkman and ericsson on the US or at least re brand it or try to do something about these ASAP. Both have lost their presence in the US at least. From the little time i spent in Japan, Sony seems to have a good presence there in the phone market and even apple is eating at that pie. I don't know if Walkman is even relevant anymore. Speaking from perspective and not experience.

As for gaming, they need to work with 1st/3rd party developers to produce an IP that is exclusive to the system and can actually move units. This basically saved the psp in japan, the bad thing is that sony didn't have a hold on that IP and lost their leverage. Easier said than done, since they have been trying and sadly not getting it this gen.
 
Old Sony was more confident in the hardware. I take this as absolute confimation PS4 won't be a true next-gen console.

Jesus Christ. By this metric, none of the consoles will be a "true" next gen console. Just get a gaming PC and be done with it already. lol

Kaz needs to shoehorn Wii U functionality into the PS4 on Day 1 with the Vita. In fact, by the time PS4 comes out, they need a bundle with the PS4.

How many times does it need to be said? You aren't going to get lag-free gaming/dual-screen functionality over Wi-Fi. There are some things that you can do (such as maybe using it as an inventory screen or a "tingle tuner" of sorts (google it, youngins!) but you cannot replicate the Wii U pad with a Vita + PS4. If you want a tablet controller with your PS4, you will get a tablet controller not a Vita.

ps4-controller-oncept.jpg
 
Things to drop:

- Playstation Home
- Crazy designed tablets
- Stupidly coloured 14" Vaio laptops
- Playstation Move
- Overpriced accessories that nobody buys, like cables and stuff
- stupid Sony software on Vaio laptops

Things to do:

- Moneyhats to Rockstar + Bungie
- PS4 less expensive than 720
- Store as good as Steam on consoles
- More moneyhats to Rockstar
- Research in robotech

More things to drop:

- Rolly
- Walkman (MP3 player)
- Bloggie
 
Howard Stringer knew what needed to be done as well, but he was never able to really accomplish his plans. Let's see if Hirai will be any different.

Didn't it take Stringer a year to figure out he wasn't actually in charge? The corporate culture at Sony seems to be absolutely toxic and impossible to navigate.
 
Not at all. Sony are still one of the largest investors in OLED, but they believe that it is not suitable for large screens and have also been investing in CLED since about 2009/10. Sony are still one of the few companies which actively produces OLED screens and OLED products, Samsung and LG are the others.

I think Sony are going for OLED in the mobile and small screen space (phones, tablets and laptops) and CLED for large screens (TVs). Obviously that strategy isn't going to have any effect overnight, but after a few years Sony could be out of the budget TV sector altogether and only be selling premium and high margin CLED TVs.

As for Sony's killer quarter/year. Kaz needs to act fast to kill product lines that are unprofitable and fix the Vita problems. He also needs to start looking at Japanese gaming expansion, I would recommend Square, which they should have bought yesterday and possibly one of Konami or Capcom. If Dragons Dogma and DmC fail I think Sony could get Capcom on the cheap. Basically Sony don't control the right Japan centric IPs to be successful there anymore, GT isn't as big as it used to be and Nintendo can always rely on Pokemon and Mario to sell their consoles and portables. Sony need MH, FF and DQ to make sure that people always buy their consoles and portables.

How the hell would Sony just buy one of those companies? They're huge.
 
In addition, the new CEO wants to apply the advances the company has made in digital imaging to the medical industry, hopefully turning it into a future core business.

Might be tough, GE is a behemoth in medical devices, no doubt other companies are equally powerful. Sony might not be prepared to take them on.
 
I think they should drop the huge variety of products they have. We don't need 50 versions of televisions, phones, blu ray players, or laptops. Cut the fat, focus on a select few.
 
As an outsider, Sony seems to have all the resources to be in good shape but because all their divisions are acting as single entities with no ties to the other, they come across as a disjointed dysfunctional giant. I hope he can change that, and focus more on software.
 
Mission impossible 5: Back to profitability

Starring: Kaz Hirai as CEO who would turn Sony back to profitability.
Villain: Japanese corporate tradition and fights between different divisions, and strong Yen.
Plot: Kaz will fight hard to turn things around and bring Sony back to profitability.

On a serious note, i really want him to succeed in his mission.
 
Things to drop:

- Playstation Home
- Crazy designed tablets
- Stupidly coloured 14" Vaio laptops
- Playstation Move
- Overpriced accessories that nobody buys, like cables and stuff
- stupid Sony software on Vaio laptops

Things to do:

- Moneyhats to Rockstar + Bungie
- PS4 less expensive than 720
- Store as good as Steam on consoles
- More moneyhats to Rockstar
- Research in robotech

Why would Sony ever drop Playstation Home? It prints money. Seriously, do you know how much money Sony makes on mictotransactions in Home?
 
As an outsider, Sony seems to have all the resources to be in good shape but because all their divisions are acting as single entities with no ties to the other, they come across as a disjointed dysfunctional giant. I hope he can change that, and focus more on software.

Dysfunctional is the key word. Even when they try to work together, the disparate objectives often scuttle any benefits.

First thing to do is to sell off Sony Music and Pictures. Both divisions acted like lead weights that held back the company's CE divisions.

The vertical integration of old media makes no sense
 
Didn't it take Stringer a year to figure out he wasn't actually in charge? The corporate culture at Sony seems to be absolutely toxic and impossible to navigate.

Yup, I expect the changes to the corporate structure in the last couple of years is about Stringer ousting the old guard and installing his people before he handed over to Kaz who will have more success with investors as he is less tainted by the losses of the last few years.

Another area where Sony can do well is phones. As we have seen with HTC, it doesn't take a lot to become big in phones and in the last year or so Sony Ericsson started to gain a lot of traction with people about updates and whatnot. If Sony can carry that good will through for their 2012 phones, have a properly powerful flagship for Q4 and a decent tablet strategy they can challenge Samsung for their number one position. Sony also need to start looking at more vertical integration for phones, they need to invest in their own SoC that is exclusive to Sony phones as a differentiator, Samsung were able to push the SGS2 so hard because it had their own hardware inside. As long as Sony are using the same SoCs as all other handset makers they will never be able to differentiate their products.
 
I'm glad to see the words "OLED" and "Innovation" included in that release. As a previous post read:

"Godspeed."
 
How the hell would Sony just buy one of those companies? They're huge.

They just spent $1bn buying out Ericsson from the JV and are looking to buy a sizeable stake in Olympus. They have enough money to buy a couple of publishers whose outlooks are very dodgy in the next 2-3 years.
 
Well he has a plan and he's definitely an incredibly clever and capable bloke. Hope he turns things around for the company. They've made huge amounts of mistakes, but it'd be terrible to see them go completely down the drain.

Why would it be terrible? Serious question. Not trolling.
 
Why it's been making money for them and they won't make PS3 mistakes again .
I can see Sony going out of the handheld business after this gen but they will stick to consoles until cloud gaming becomes the norm.

Saying Sony won't make the same mistakes again is kind of silly. For one, you don't know if it's true or not. Second, they might not make the exact same mistakes, but they can make very similar ones. For example, Vita seems to have rectified a number of the "obvious" problems the PSP had but still makes some very similar mistakes as their older hardware.

I think the PS3 was an expensive lesson, but really I think Sony needs to evaluate if the home console business is really a long-term goal for them. PS4 will obviously come out, it's already underway, but I think long-term it doesn't have that "control the living room" destiny that Sony seemed on their way to claiming.
 
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