Apple to buy Sony?

[Alby_da_Wolf]

kowenicki said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:
Being taken over would be good for Sony, but not by Apple, MS, Nintendo, Samsung, LG or Google. It should be bought by some Japanese giant not inside gaming yet, if not marginally, to have maximum interest in managing PS brand at its best, and with a consumer electronics division not well known as Sony, or not in the same market segment, that could benefit from making it its mid-high-end and luxury brand.

such as?

There's quite a wide choice.

An obvious candidate could be Mitsui, the same keiretsu Sony itself belongs to, absorbing it. As much obvious and maybe even better could be Sumitomo, that already has some financial joint-ventures with Mitsui.
Another could be Mitsubishi. Or Fuyo. Or others, as some keiretsu have several big common members. Or simply one of the biggest electronics members of the most powerful keiretsus, not a whole keiretsu. Whichever would do it, Sony could benefit from precious economies of scale in display components, and it could ditch altogether the mid-low end, where it can't really compete, let alone profit. BTW, most Japanese electronics giants are well-known in just a small subset of developed countries. Maybe the only ones with too much overlapping could be Sharp and Panasonic for displays, these two could even benefit more from killing Sony TV and display division altogether and keep only the rest, but all the other possible candidates should just cut the parts that aren't profiting and that have no hope of ever being brought back to do it. Most probably some candidates could benefit from separating PS and Sony brand, so that PS brand could provide wider synergies with all the consumer electronics brands of the group, without privileging just Sony.