Who runs the Xbox division? It's that smug T-shirt guy right? I'm sure the terrible $499 launch and subsequent lackluster sales had nothing to do with the sudden generosity of the division to become interested in the gamer's well being after creating the walled off garden online model last gen... Just wait, next gen MS can be #1 and stop playing nice, then Sony can whine about why everyone is not cross-platform.
Corporate Structures of Microsoft and Sony *spawn*
- Thread starter DrJay24
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Who runs the Xbox division? It's that smug T-shirt guy right? I'm sure the terrible $499 launch and subsequent lackluster sales had nothing to do with the sudden generosity of the division to become interested in the gamer's well being after creating the walled off garden online model last gen... Just wait, next gen MS can be #1 and stop playing nice, then Sony can whine about why everyone is not cross-platform.
Satya runs everything.
Xbox is a division of MS. It's not a separate corporation like Sony Entertainment.
It's not just me mouthing off, I do have some views into what they are working on for unannounced items. They have cross department work all over.
Crossplay, and the idea of XPA are very much in the DNA of MS. Xbox is only catching up to the rest of MS
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Sony Computer Entrainment along with Sony Music, Sony Picture and the dozen other Sony divisions are wholly-owned subsideries of Sony Coproration. Their financial division may be seprate becuase of the way finance/banking companies are regulated around the world. This means, legally and structurally, they are no different to Microsoft. If you buy SNE stock you own part of everything. Microsoft is structured how American companies genearlly are. Sony is structured how Asian/EMEA companies generally are. There is no material financial or legal/liability difference. Potatoes/potatoes.
Microsoft's CEO is Satya Nadella , Sony's CEO is Kaz Hirai. I doubt neither spend a lot of time focussed on gaming, that's why you have VPs and executives. The CEO is looking at the bigger picture than one business unit.
imo, that's a big part of it though. How decisions are made and the structure of how they are financed hugely impacts how the division is run. Before Phil reported to Satya he reported under a different EVP. Satya was the one to make the call to buy Minecraft. Anytime Phil needs money it's gotta get approved by Satya. Which means Satya has control over Xbox. Whatever Satya wants, Phil must do.
Satya runs all of MS, all major decisions with any and all aspects of his business goes through him.
House runs/ran Playstation and PS only. He controls the funding, he knows the revenue, and strategies.
Hirai can provide input, but he's certainly not messing around with Playstation in the same way Satya could shut down xbox tomorrow if he wished.
the way the companies roll up are just not the same.
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Xbox Division has an annual budget allocated by CEO Satya Nadella having been approved by Microsoft's board of Directors. Sony Interactive Entertainment has an annual budget allocated by CEO Kaz Hirai having been approved by Sony's Board of Directors. This is how most publicly-traded organisation works.
And how do you figure this is different to Kaz Hirai selling off Vaio or closing Sony's mobile phone operations? It's the same thing.
It's exactly the same. And to be clear, all of the operations under both companies are only under the day-to-day operations of CEOs, COOs, CTOs and managers but everything is accountable to the board, who represent the people who actually own the company, i.e. the shareholders.
That sounds really directly involved in the operations aspect of it. I don't know the full operations of Sony, but it almost sounds like you're treating SIE as a brand.
I think Lexus has it's own income statements/balance sheets from Toyota for instance. I don't think Toyota determines the budgeting for Lexus in the way that Satya controls it for Xbox.
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SIE is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation. It could just as well be a division of Sony Corporation because this makes no material difference to structure, legal status, liabilities or finances. But it's seen as a cleaner corporate structure and is generally how companies in Asia, Europe, the Middle-East and Africa, structure themselves when they get very large and want distinct, marketable identities for their different businesses.
Microsoft don't really have that, they are an IT company. In comparison Sony have a presence in electrical component manufacture, media licensing, music, movies, consumers and professional products, medical products, finance and insurance and so on.
Both Microsoft and Sony Corporation have one budget, which is spread across divisions in Microsoft and subsidiaries in Sony.
I'll read up. It's not that I don't believe you, but i recall things like tax implications are different. SIE should have its own balance sheets and income statements. You could build a subsidiary and take advantage of tax laws in another country.
Audi is a wholly owned subsidiary of VW for instance. They have completely separate operations and I don't know how much interaction VW on operations.
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Where revenue and spend is attributed dictates tax laws, hence tax havens (or tax avoidance allegations) for companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Starbucks. Sony has suffered because corporately they are Japanese and the Yen has not been strong for a long time. They lose out in exchange, which should tell you everything. Both SIE and Microsoft's divisions will have their own balance sheets which part of financial accountability and budgetary control but none are distinct publicly traded entities.
It really makes no difference. Like I said, you say potatoes, I say potatoes.
Once again, I'm going to disagree here.
There are actual differences in the way Divisions and Wholly Owned Subsidiaries can be run. It's true that WOS can be run fully by the parent company. So I needed to look around and double check if that was the case with Sony
Kai Hiraz On Andrew House leaving as CEO for SIE:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ollieb...-sony-interactive-entertainment/#318ed722faec
From John
So to me, it sounds like SIE has a lot more room for control over it's own operations and strategies. It also probably has a lot more control over it's finances and budgeting. If Sony needs money than can siphon from SIE. But since it's their biggest money maker at the moment I don't see the parent company draining and controlling them.
And the other thing is, and you were right to point this out, being a division of MS means you work on MS related stuff. We see a lot of cross work within MS, because they are working together. Xbox must work with Windows, must use the same hardware teams, the same OS teams, the same directX teams, Xbox is forced to show up in the W10 store, it's now a gaming brand on W10 etc; XBOX is bound in a way that SIE is not. SIE doesn't need to work with their movie or TV or music divisions.
So there's a big difference here in how their both run, which full circle, was what I was trying to get at originally; cross play is not a decision Phil made because they were losing out to Playstation, and they will definitely not stop the crossplay program if they ever take the lead again.
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SIE may have more autonomy than Xbox Division but that would not a consequence of them being a subsidiary. It's true to say that in Sony, the position of Head of PlayStatin is significantly more senior than head of Xbox Division is in Microsoft but there are no regulations that mandate this. Microsoft have tons of management layers whereas Apple and Google are setup like huge startups - very flat. How management decisions are made and what autonomy each management unit gets it up to the Board and CEO.
Sony is a massive conglomerate so like aerospace and defence companies, they setup subsidery companies which local HR, marketing, recruitment etc so there is focus for each business unit, the alternative is one massive HR unit which tends to be less efficient.
That's really it. I've worked for small companies, huge aerospace and defence companies and Government. If the man at the top wants to micromanage, that's going to happen whether you're in division of a subsidiary company.
Right. Yea I agree with this.
