Sony Q1 loss $312M, game division loses $45M
- Thread starter Scott_Arm
- Start date
well that has to be expected, I mean Kaz Hirai just got in charge, no matter his views are the good ones or not, he can't change such a big company in a few months.
Expecting otherwise would be a bit like the politically fanaticized (? can't find the proper translation... sorry) people that as soon as a PM/president/whatever is in charge he becomes responsible for his predecessor crap or should fix thing in a blink of an eye. Obama case comes in mind... lol Did he let LB fails? Is he responsible for the crisis and the overall budget situation in US? It's unwinding under his watch => that's all his fault (and I think he is failing by the way but there are many shades of grey).
So shortly the situation is for me neither better or worse at Sony, let the management some time and then evaluate its action. Asa side note, there was never something called recovery in this world, so it's still crazy tough for most enterprises especially Japanese.
Expecting otherwise would be a bit like the politically fanaticized (? can't find the proper translation... sorry) people that as soon as a PM/president/whatever is in charge he becomes responsible for his predecessor crap or should fix thing in a blink of an eye. Obama case comes in mind... lol Did he let LB fails? Is he responsible for the crisis and the overall budget situation in US? It's unwinding under his watch => that's all his fault (and I think he is failing by the way but there are many shades of grey).
So shortly the situation is for me neither better or worse at Sony, let the management some time and then evaluate its action. Asa side note, there was never something called recovery in this world, so it's still crazy tough for most enterprises especially Japanese.
i_am_interested
Newcomer
good thing that crazy ken guy's gone, psp2 probably would have been the first zero seller in consumer electronics history under his incompetence, dare i say the first negative seller?
on a serious note though, i hope kaz can turn things around, maybe this third division reshuffle is what theyve been needing
on a serious note though, i hope kaz can turn things around, maybe this third division reshuffle is what theyve been needing
Not much of a break down. More like damage control...
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-02-sony-sales-highlight-playstation-vita-struggles
Don't forget that they have a huge pile of cash, and there's only so much cost-cutting they could do to PS4 before they turned it into a shitty console. I'm guessing they'd take the spend money to make money approach, and keep investing in it, even if they don't sell it at quite as big a loss. Sort of like some Apple story I read, where it the philosophy in the 90s to turn the company around was to make good products, rather than cut costs and increase revenues. They've gotta be smart enough to know there are no half measures in such a cut-throat business.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
PSP + Vita combined sold 22% less than PSP alone last year during the same period... That's pretty nasty.
I talked about how I didn't like the stupid Balls GUI on the PSV....they didn't listen so I didn't buy one.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
This is hardly a surprise.
Back in E3 2012, Sony showed the world how their commitment to the PS Vita is piss poor.
What were they thinking? Crapping on their latest console? It's obvious the message for their customers was the worst possible.
Back in E3 2012, Sony showed the world how their commitment to the PS Vita is piss poor.
What were they thinking? Crapping on their latest console? It's obvious the message for their customers was the worst possible.
Do you honestly believe the problem with the Vita is commitment? I'm not sure what they could do to make a handheld console in this environment appealing aside from taking an absolute bath on the hardware. The most common thing I hear from kids these days is "Mom/Dad can I use your phone?"
ya, 50 million dollars marketing probably very hard to recoup from the poor vita performance. They really should have had PS mobile ready from the start and have many key/popular tablet features built in or available in day1 and advertise it as a mini tablet + console gaming on the go device right from the beginning. It would have been a much more appealing device for the price point with a stronger start I think. Now that the Nexus 7 is out, its even harder for them. I really hope this thing can survive, too good of a hardware to watch it die.
Bang on. People often blame a lot of ancillary, impossible to quantify things like "marketing" for a product failure without understanding the real reasons imo.
It seems like Westerners at least for sure just dont want a "high end" expensive dedicated handheld. There's likely pretty much nothing Sony can do.
I cant tell if this is sarcasm, but whatever crazy Ken might have done with it probably couldn't have turned out any worse.
From what I get from GAF scuttlebutt, Vita was Kaz's baby. That certainly doesn't bode well for his judgement initially.
Also saw a graph on GAF where you can pretty much see the game division profits turn from black to red corresponding with the Vita inception and ever since then. I am not sure it is all Vita's fault, but it's certainly suggestive.
That's a fuck up? I mean, PSOne games are awful. That's probably as niche as it gets, in terms of features.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
IMO, what you're describing is just another consequence from the lack of commitment.
It's not the environment, it's just that Sony completely failed to see what brought profit from the original PSP.
Take a look at the PS Vita's top-rated games and you'll find:
- Casual games like plants vs. zombies, lumines, super stardust, etc.
- A MGS remake
Now look at what brought most of the money for the PSP:
- Monster Hunter
- Gran Turismo
- God of War
- GTA
- Final Fantasy VII: Crysis Core
No wonder the Vita is a failure so far!
They're trying to strike Android in what Android has best: casual games.
Of course I'm not going to purchase a heavy and bulky console to play the exact same type of games that I can purchase in Google Play for 99 cents, in the smartphone that I have to carry with me everyday.
And it's impossible to compete with Google Play/app market in price, due to their distribution channels.
This is just stupid, it looks like not even a single executive at Sony ever learned a thing about strategy.
Of course Android/iOS is their main competition right now. But they can't go head-on striking those platforms at what they do best. Sony should only strike them at what they can't do yet: AAA games with good graphics, stories/characters with depth, high production values.
It's either that or just give up on the whole thing. They won't beat them on the casuals, period.
It's not a different battle this time than it was in 2005. The NDS already took over the casuals in the last decade and the PSP brought Sony tons of money anyways. It's Nintendo who should be the most affected by Android and iOS. Not Sony.
Instead, just look at the most successful games for the PSP. How many of those franchises have been released for the Vita? Zero.
And how many of those same best-selling genres/franchises have been announced during E3 2012? Zero.
The only way to make the Vita an appealing console is to:
1 - Start making AAA games for the console,
and/or
2 - Allow a dual-boot with full-fledged Android, getting access to Google Play's contents (video, music, etc) and increasing the console's value as a powerful and cheap tablet that could rival even the Nexus 7 in sales.
Given Sony's generalized over-greediness, number 2 is less likely to happen.
They were even stupid enough to force a proprietary mass storage media onto the consumer, again.
There is a PSOne emulator for every other HW SCE markets (PS2, PS3 and PSP). I am currently mostly playing FF8 on my PSP Go, if I buy a Vita I can not continue playing that on the new device.
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