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Sony Corp. lose over 20 Billion in market value over 60 days

Bryank75

Banned
At the beginning of February Sony was on the 'up and up' hitting 116.71 dollars per share, however just a mere month and a half later it has plummeted to nearly 100 flat. This translates to a loss of approximately 20 billion on their market cap, coming from almost 145 billion on February 5th.

Much of this loss was explained by publications as investors 'locking in' their gains as they feel the gaming boom due to the virus and lockdowns has run its course and they expected higher profits than were reported (3.22 billion from PlayStation / over 10 billion for Sony)

A few days ago Sony announced a stock buyback of 1.8 billion of stock to make up for not meeting profit expectations, yet despite this the stock fell even further in the days since, in fact it fell at an even more precipitous rate.


My commentary;

Recent business decisions from Sony have smacked of short-term-ism, a stock buyback will only raise the share price for a very short period and the 1.8 billion in cash will have been lost permanently, they might as well throw the cash away or make a bonfire out of it because they all end in the same outcome.
Most recent investments are very poor uses of money, a 450 million investment in Epic games, who is already 40% owned by Tencent.
Supposed investments in internal growth.... details followed that much of this was for a new mobile studio inside PlayStation.

Closing most of Japan studio and a massive lack of Japanese representation with PlayStations management structure. Despite Jim Ryan saying that PlayStation is now a global brand it feels less global than ever. Niche games focused on the Asian market made it feel more international, not less.

PlayStation revenue recently passed 25 billion dollars, a huge milestone but do not be distracted, PlayStation should be at 50 Billion dollars in revenue per annum.


There is a catastrophic management failure at Sony and PlayStation, Sony remains content to sit on 45 billion dollars and make wishy-washy investments that lead nowhere. While Microsoft makes decisive investments..... like buying Minecraft an evergreen game that prints money and boosts their otherwise floundering gaming division, this was a masterstroke by Xbox.
More recently Microsoft bought Bethesda for 7.5 billion, coupled with the previous purchase of Obsidian, it gives Xbox almost a monopoly on the biggest western RPG's and is another great addition to Xbox, it further boosted their revenue with sales of legacy titles on all platforms.

PlayStation now have a target of over 27 Billion in revenue for 2021 but this should really be 30 Billion plus. The industry is full of potential strategic moves they could make but management are instead being distracted by mobile and cloud gaming.
PSNow is being constantly advertised, it is obviously a massive focus for the new management at PlayStation but they are so aloof and have so little understanding of their customers that they are investing in areas that will see absolutely no growth. The PSNow figures were not published in the latest financial statements or press releases, quite amusingly.... despite massive expenditure on advertising it.


PlayStation and Sony need to refocus on the hardcore, high spending customers that they built their business on, price their games more appropriately... as marketing is focused at launch, they need to get as many people in as possible in the first week. 70 dollar and 80 euro prices on new IP's are not going to fly no matter how high they score.
They need their own Minecraft, an evergreen game that constantly brings in money.... this could have been Roblox (a company they knew about for years before it became this big) but they again let that opportunity pass them by.

They also need more first party studios, in actuality PlayStation only have about 6 studios making AAA commercial games.... Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Sucker Punch, Guerrilla Games, Santa Monica Studio and maybe Bend Studio.
Excellent studios but not sufficient to service a growing userbase.

PC is a competing platform, every game published there by PlayStation is a self-defeating move that undermines decades of work. Every effort should be focused on PlayStation and console gaming.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
"Catastrophic management failure", he says..

5lL.gif
 
At the beginning of February Sony was on the 'up and up' hitting 116.71 dollars per share, however just a mere month and a half later it has plummeted to nearly 100 flat. This translates to a loss of approximately 20 billion on their market cap, coming from almost 145 billion on February 5th.

Much of this loss was explained by publications as investors 'locking in' their gains as they feel the gaming boom due to the virus and lockdowns has run its course and they expected higher profits than were reported (3.22 billion from PlayStation / over 10 billion for Sony)

A few days ago Sony announced a stock buyback of 1.8 billion of stock to make up for not meeting profit expectations, yet despite this the stock fell even further in the days since, in fact it fell at an even more precipitous rate.


My commentary;

Recent business decisions from Sony have smacked of short-term-ism, a stock buyback will only raise the share price for a very short period and the 1.8 billion in cash will have been lost permanently, they might as well throw the cash away or make a bonfire out of it because they all end in the same outcome.
Most recent investments are very poor uses of money, a 450 million investment in Epic games, who is already 40% owned by Tencent.
Supposed investments in internal growth.... details followed that much of this was for a new mobile studio inside PlayStation.

Closing most of Japan studio and a massive lack of Japanese representation with PlayStations management structure. Despite Jim Ryan saying that PlayStation is now a global brand it feels less global than ever. Niche games focused on the Asian market made it feel more international, not less.

PlayStation revenue recently passed 25 billion dollars, a huge milestone but do not be distracted, PlayStation should be at 50 Billion dollars in revenue per annum.


There is a catastrophic management failure at Sony and PlayStation, Sony remains content to sit on 45 billion dollars and make wishy-washy investments that lead nowhere. While Microsoft makes decisive investments..... like buying Minecraft an evergreen game that prints money and boosts their otherwise floundering gaming division, this was a masterstroke by Xbox.
More recently Microsoft bought Bethesda for 7.5 billion, coupled with the previous purchase of Obsidian, it gives Xbox almost a monopoly on the biggest western RPG's and is another great addition to Xbox, it further boosted their revenue with sales of legacy titles on all platforms.

PlayStation now have a target of over 27 Billion in revenue for 2021 but this should really be 30 Billion plus. The industry is full of potential strategic moves they could make but management are instead being distracted by mobile and cloud gaming.
PSNow is being constantly advertised, it is obviously a massive focus for the new management at PlayStation but they are so aloof and have so little understanding of their customers that they are investing in areas that will see absolutely no growth. The PSNow figures were not published in the latest financial statements or press releases, quite amusingly.... despite massive expenditure on advertising it.


PlayStation and Sony need to refocus on the hardcore, high spending customers that they built their business on, price their games more appropriately... as marketing is focused at launch, they need to get as many people in as possible in the first week. 70 dollar and 80 euro prices on new IP's are not going to fly no matter how high they score.
They need their own Minecraft, an evergreen game that constantly brings in money.... this could have been Roblox (a company they knew about for years before it became this big) but they again let that opportunity pass them by.

They also need more first party studios, in actuality PlayStation only have about 6 studios making AAA commercial games.... Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Sucker Punch, Guerrilla Games, Santa Monica Studio and maybe Bend Studio.
Excellent studios but not sufficient to service a growing userbase.

PC is a competing platform, every game published there by PlayStation is a self-defeating move that undermines decades of work. Every effort should be focused on PlayStation and console gaming.
Been saying this for months, and have been shot down. They are company living on past glory. Long term they got problems.
 
He actually makes good points. Jim is focused on easy short term profits (70$, 80€, focus on the most productive devs while getting rid of the rest, porting their games on PC for easy but rather low profits, trying to compete with gamepass) while the moment is perfect for long term big investments (they need to buy more developers) and focusing on what they are the best at: varied portfolio of games on Playstation hardware.
 
This is just normal market fluctuation. I invested in Sony back in mid 2020 and bought it at $65 a share. That’s huge growth going to $116 by Feb 2021. Many companies in the tech, electronics and gaming sectors have had pull backs in the last few weeks as they correct and consolidate after a long period of gaining in share price rapidly.

Sony’s financials have been stellar and the main cause of them missing their profit targets this quarter were extra costs associated with the PS5 hardware launch (as is usually the case at the start of a gen when a new, expensive piece of hardware is launched at a consumer friendly price) and the pictures division suffering from cinema closures.

Also, share buy backs are not a waste of money, they are a great way to return value to their shareholders by making each share slightly more valuable. I will be buying more shares in Sony when my pay check comes in next week, given the recent share price pullback. I’ll also be buying more MSFT and AMD, given their excellent earnings reports and the fact their share price barely budged.
 
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Ailike

Member
This is just normal market fluctuation. I invested in Sony back in mid 2020 and bought it at $65 a share. That’s huge growth going to $116 by Feb 2021. Many companies in the tech, electronics and gaming sectors have had pull backs in the last few weeks as they correct and consolidate after a long period of gaining in share price rapidly.

Sony’s financials have been stellar and the main cause of them missing their profit targets this quarter were extra costs associated with the PS5 hardware launch (as is usually the case at the start of a gen when a new, expensive piece of hardware is launched at a consumer friendly price) and the pictures division suffering from cinema closures.

Also, share buy backs are not a waste of money, they are a great way to return value to their shareholders by making each share slightly more valuable. I will be buying more shares in Sony when my pay check comes in next week, given the recent share price pullback.
Shush your face. This obviously means they're going bankrupt unless they make another Uncharted.
 

T8SC

Member
I don't visit the gaming forum very often but let me explain how this topic will go:

Xbox fans - Hhahaha Sony are failing, Soony they will have no money. hahah Sony am cri.

Sony fans - So basically the predictions of some financial media outlets were wrong and Sony made a little less, no big deal.




Followed by countless back & forth arguments with toys being thrown from every pram in this thread.
 
I am more dissappointed that MS lost 90 bil. and now 1.9T rather than 1.99T. I want that 2T cap.

Jim is focused on easy short term profits
No, Jim is trying to turn Sony into Apple a-la premium product. It is more of the question whether the can pull it off or not.

Sony is doing fine short term and medium - long term hard to say - because they come from PS2-level of success last gen and did not make mistakes of PS3.
 
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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
PC is a competing platform, every game published there by PlayStation is a self-defeating move that undermines decades of work. Every effort should be focused on PlayStation and console gaming.
You can continue to say this and you will continue to be wrong about it.

Last gen PS4 hand me downs going to PC will not hurt PS5.

You would have a argument if current gen Sony made exclusives released on PC but they don't and won't.

This is what MS does because it's Xbox alone can't compete with Playstation.
 
I am more dissappointed that MS lost 90 bil. and now 1.9T rather than 1.99T. I want that 2T cap.


No, Jim is trying to turn Sony into Apple a-la premium product. It is more of the question whether the can pull it off or not.

Sony is doing fine short term and medium - long term hard to say - because they come from PS2-level of success last gen and did not make mistakes of PS3.
Apple sell its services on their own hardware. Which is why they can 100% control their profits (which are massive). Sony are trying to compete against MS with games and services on PC, which is a mistake (particularly when it's MS who profit from PC growth thanks to their OS and tools). But they are doing that while being very shy with company acquisitions and they are devaluing their IPs by selling them on PC.

They bought Insomniac 229 million, lol that peanuts. MS bought Minecraft for 2.5 billion and Bestheda for 7.5 billion. On the other hand Sony got rid of plenty of potential long term perspectives like Japan Studio (they fired all the producers of Bloodborne, long term consequences, who is going to produce another hit game with From Software?) or Driveclub (a game that had potential and was finally liked by the critics in the end with the PSVR game and Bikes).

By the way they still don't own the Spiderman IP for videogames. They have a deal with Marvel but as we have seen will MLB, maybe one day Marvel will be tired of that deal and they'll want to put Spider-man on Gamepass. Yep this is probably what is going to happen soon or later.
 
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I mean, you guys are laughing at Bryank but he actually makes some good points here.

I'm pretty sure the only reason Xbox hasn't been axed is Phil and the direction he steered it. He was the one who pitched Minecraft and it turned out to be an absolute steal for them. That and Zenimax are the kind of moves you would expect from the market leader instead.
 
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Apple sell its services on their own hardware. Which is why they can 100% control their profits (which are massive). Sony are trying to compete against MS with games and services on PC, which is a mistake (particularly when it's MS who profit from PC growth thanks to their OS and tools). But they are doing that while being very shy with company acquisitions and they are devaluing their IPs by selling them on PC.
Well Sony is not that different from Apple, of course they are not that encompassing as Apple with mobile, tablets, PCs, laptops as not that big, they also don't sell overpriced hardware. But the idea is the same - make Playstation into a premium product.

They bought Insomniac 229 million, lol that peanuts. MS bought Minecraft for 2.5 billion and Bestheda for 7.5 billion.
I have no idea why people think that Sony is able to afford huge acquisitions or will throw billions on that. Not many companies in the world can afford acqusitions bigger than 5 billions and in a lot of cases - if such acquisition happens - it includes stock options, mergers and so on and is done strategically.

By the way they still don't own the Spiderman IP for videogames. They have a deal with Marvel but as we have seen will MLB, maybe one day Marvel will be tired of that deal and they'll want to put Spider-man on Gamepass. Yep this is probably what is going to happen soon or later.
I believe they have IP for the movies, but don't have IP for the games. Sony and Disney are trading favors basically. But regarding everything else - I think Sony will be more strict with the contracts in the future looking at what happened with MLB. I am pretty sure they weren't that happy. Not to mention those rumblings regarding Death Stranding on PC and Game Pass PC, as 505 published the game there...
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
PC is a competing platform, every game published there by PlayStation is a self-defeating move that undermines decades of work. Every effort should be focused on PlayStation and console gaming.
PC is the largest platform around. Some of you should just accept that fact and move on. You're favorite piece of plastic and silicon isn't going anywhere just because they share the same library. This whole "I DON'T WANT TO SHARE MY TOYS" shit is childish and annoying by this point and just screams Sony White Knighting. People who play primarily on PC will still buy consoles as they have there uses as well. PC is the biggest platform and can be very complimentary to a console. It's a great feature being able to play on PC and then head over to a different room and sit on the couch and pick right up where you left off.
 

Tomeru

Member
I mean, you guys are laughing at Bryank but he actually makes some good points here.

I'm pretty sure the only reason Xbox hasn't been axed is Phil and the direction he steered it. He was the one who pitched Minecraft and it turned out to be an absolute steal for them. That and Zenimax are the kind of moves you would expect from the market leader instead.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
One year ago today, Sony's stocks were $60 per share. Even with this supposedly catastrophic drop, their market value is up 67% yoy. The market fluctuates throughout the year. To take a 60 day sample and write a doom & gloom article is just silly and uninformed.
I bought a shit ton then. I'm not complaining one bit at the moment.
 
You can continue to say this and you will continue to be wrong about it.

Last gen PS4 hand me downs going to PC will not hurt PS5.

You would have a argument if current gen Sony made exclusives released on PC but they don't and won't.

This is what MS does because it's Xbox alone can't compete with Playstation.
A few PS4 PC ports probably won’t really hurt PS5, but I predict that if Sony first party games sell adequate on PC, then PS5 games could eventually follow. We are already hearing about an increase in PS4 ports and the time frames seem to be getting shorter. Personally, I think PS5 PC ports could happen especially if the software sales are disappointing on PS5.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
A few PS4 PC ports probably won’t really hurt PS5, but I predict that if Sony first party games sell adequate on PC, then PS5 games could eventually follow. We are already hearing about an increase in PS4 ports and the time frames seem to be getting shorter. Personally, I think PS5 PC ports could happen especially if the software sales are disappointing on PS5.
Sony made PS5 games won't release on PC this generation.

Regardless of sales this isn't Sony's way of doing business.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
People really don't realize that the PC thing is about Sony knowing consoles have topped out, and may go downward.

So you either milk the console market for more profit, or you expand into other markets.. or both.
 

Yoda

Member
Over the last month it is down 5%? This sort of volatility is the norm for most stocks nowadays. They're still up 60% since the start of COVID (a year ago) so I'd say it's "meeting market expectations".

I agree they're divestment from Japanese style games is disappointing and part of what gives them appeal over Microsoft. Time will tell if they shift the saving into an equally profitable endeavor.
 
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Every time people make these threads they keep forgetting Sony Corp is not just a games or software division. There are entire divisions that exist completely out of gaming and they are as important to Sony as the games division is. Microsoft can make power plays like Zenimax because its a software division buying into more software/entertainment. Sony Entertainment has bled money over covid, Sony music is adjusting to the industry change, Sony film is doing Gods work when it comes to camera equipment and shaking up the industry enough in that sector that Canon and Nikon are not only playing catch up in the mirrorless space they are actually purchasing camera processors from Sony themselves.

When corporation have their hands in everything they are not going to always make decisions based on their best divisions as we have seen via Covid and entertainment in general has taken a huge hit. If Sonly only focused on singular entities within the entire company they would have failed ages ago.

Share buybacks at this time were brilliant for Sony. They were in a place to do it and could do it so it was a smart decision. Sony in general is in a great place as a company. Stocks fluctuate end of story.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
This ain't Jim's fault my man. This is parent Sony and the idiotic stock market fluctuations. This happens to every company.
 

longdi

Banned
He actually makes good points. Jim is focused on easy short term profits (70$, 80€, focus on the most productive devs while getting rid of the rest, porting their games on PC for easy but rather low profits, trying to compete with gamepass) while the moment is perfect for long term big investments (they need to buy more developers) and focusing on what they are the best at: varied portfolio of games on Playstation hardware.

As i said, Jim is aiming for his retirement paycheck/bonus. Im also not a fan of his short termism. 🤷‍♀️
 

A.Romero

Member
Sony is not going anywhere. I don't even think they need to buy new studios. The output they had on previous years has turned out to be enough.

It's pretty stupid to think business is about countering everything the competition does.

Also games being released on PC is good for the company and good for gamers. Consoles won't stop selling because it is the main platform for Casuals and people that are not willing or can't build a 1000 usd computer will still get them.

Studio Japan wasn't really a powerhouse of development, they just published games. That can (and will) be done from other places in the world. Hell, Japan development hasn't ever been where most of the heavy hitters have come from with the particular exception of GT.

You will see, Sony will still develop and publish great games and they will also still keep making consoles. Remember: they are still sold out.
 
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