Sony's financial report is in the horizon, and it will give us concrete information about how things are things at Sony and what might happen as a consequence.

This is a small poll to see how VGcharters' opinions are distributed regarding a topic which has been and will likely continue to be hot. Not long from now we should know who was right!

Something of sony will be gone, what I have no idea.

Considering the selling/cutting studios has already begun, I'd say one of the answers is a pretty safe bet

alpha_dk said: Considering the selling/cutting studios has already begun, I'd say one of the answers is a pretty safe bet

Mmmm, all I saw was some report that two studios were merging. Was there anything else besides that?

I tend to agree with MakingMusic on this, at least to a degree. The clear problem for Sony is hardware. Software may have some issues, but the 3.5 billion dollars lost is not from Motorstorm or LittleBigPlanet.

So if SCE were to be cut at all, I'd guess it would be hardware: however, this isn't a time when hardware can be "cut," exactly. The most extreme solution would be to not fund a PS4, but even that wouldn't stop hardware production right now, on this day. They'd still be shipping PS3s, they just wouldn't be coming out with a successor.

In other words, it's entirely possible that Sony will decide to cut something gaming related, but the obvious things to cut (hardware R&D) won't really show that it's been cut for years. I expect software production to continue unabated, and I see little reason to cut products for which all R&D has already been completed (i.e. PSP, PS3).

That's what I'm talking about. You don't think that's unrelated, do you? They're merging, which means that duplicate positions can be axed. Think PR, marketing, etc. Assets can be shared, etc. It's a minor type of cutting studios, but they went from 2 studios to 1, so....

"Sony will cut or sell divisions other than SCE"

It could well be related (it would be nice to know if that merge was already in the pipes). Merging the studios could be the first step towards downsizing it (besides the cost savings you mentioned). I also chose that option in the poll.

I believe they'll have to do much more unless SCE is somehow granted some special status at Sony during the recession. No PS3 price cuts until SCE is profitable comes to mind, and they may have to find some additional revenue sources too (charging for PSN would be too drastic).

@Bodhesatva: There must be some studios at Sony which aren't profitable or can be restructured to make them more profitable.

A big problem in predicting all this is that all the middle-of-the-road cost savings at SCE that I can see could have quite bad consequences too. That's why I'm not ruling out a more extreme measure such as discontinuing the PS3, although I don't think it will happen.

Research will be cut, Sony won't aggressively cut the price of the PS3, software will continue as a profit making business, and will not be aimed towards producing system sellers.

Either business as usual or downsizing other divisions. SCE is too important due to the emergence of Blu-Ray IMHO and they should be on the verge of breaking even with the PS3 while the PS2 and PSP are already profitable.