sony

Showing 14 posts tagged sony

“Why do you care?”

Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, to Luke Plunkett of Kotaku when he dared to ask where the actual PS 4 was at the PS4 event today.

Plunkett’s wording indicates that Yoshida was joking with such a comment, but the “real” answer isn’t much better:

We really wanted to explain what we’ve done with the DualShock 4, but as far as the system itself we have to keep something new for later. Otherwise you’d get bored.

Such a strong start for Sony…

As Apple and Samsung dominate, Japan’s tech giants are in a free fall

Chico Harlan, reporting for The Washington Post:

The pace of problems is accelerating. Sony hasn’t made a profit in four years. Panasonic has lost money in three of the past four. Along with Sharp, the companies’ combined market value, according to Bloomberg, is $32 billion — making them one-fifth the value of Samsung and one-twentieth the value of Apple.

The smartphone angle here is obvious. So is the pricing squeeze angle. Not-so-obvious: the complete and utter failure of each of these companies to understand the importance of software tying in with hardware.

Sony Bottoms Out (Hopefully)

The company lost $3.2 billion in the last quarter to close out their fiscal year $5.7 billion in the red.

It was the fifth straight quarter that the company has failed to make (well really, keep) a dime. Worse, it was the fourth straight year the company has lost money overall.

And this year was the worst in the company’s 66-year history. Ouch.

In the coming year, they project to turn a (small) profit once again. We’ll see… Something not in their favor:

In November of last year, Sony projected that the total loss for the fiscal year would come in around $1 billion. In February, after a disastrous quarter, they changed the estimate to $2.9 billion.

The actual number ended up just about double that.

Sony clearly thought they could right the ship. But they have not. They lost more last quarter than they were projecting just three months ago that they would lose for the whole year.

Could have been worse though — could have been the $6.5 billion yearly loss the company warned about a few weeks ago. Some bright side.

Panasonic Comes In At Negative $10 Billion

Swimming in a sea of red, Panasonic is the bloodiest yet. A $10.2 billion annual loss. That’s not just bad, it’s insanely bad. 

But again, they’re hardly alone. Reports Tim Kelly and Yoko Kubota for Reuters:

Together, Panasonic, Sony and Sharp Corp expect to lose $17 billion this year, highlighting the savaging of Japan’s electronics industry by foreign rivals led by South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, weak demand and a strong yen.

$17 billion. And the underlying subtext here is that all are (were) key players in the television set industry. The low-margins and competition finally caught up to these guys. To some, this will raise more questions about Apple entering the industry. But to me, this signals yet again that they need to enter it. The system is in disarray. Ripe for disruption. 

Meet The New Sony Store, Same As The Old Sony Store

Jordan Crook reports that Sony COO Phil Molyneux unveiled Sony’s new retail strategy at a press conference this morning. Wait for it… Sony Stores! As Crook notes, the strategy is basically “follow Apple’s lead”.

But I’m confused, wasn’t this also their old retail strategy? It sure sounds like they’re basically doing the same things they were doing with the Sony Style stores but holding a press conference to say the strategy is new because it didn’t work the first time around.

The real problem — which I’m not sure either Sony or Microsoft really understand — is that simply building stores which look like Apple Stores isn’t enough. It’s the Apple products in them that make them successful.

Apple’s strategy with the stores worked because they knew they had the best products, they just had a hard time conveying that with the existing retail channels. The products quite literally sell themselves, they just needed the most efficient and effective way to get them in peoples’ hands.

At the same time, they realized there was a huge opportunity for competent human beings (who don’t work on commission) to usher users into this brave new world of computing everywhere.

It was the perfect one-two punch. That’s the Apple Store. 

But if you open a Apple-like store and your products just aren’t very good, guess what happens? The opposite of success. 

Think of it this way: if you opened the nicest looking store in the world that sold bags of shit, would it be successful?

Focus on the products first, not the stores.