| Bodhesatva said: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSTFA00309420081209 8,000 jobs in total thus far. It sounds like these immediate cuts are in the Electronics Division. We'll see how this goes. |
It may be reasonable to lay a lot of the blame for this at Ken Kutagari's feet. His engineering, mismanagement, and lack of communication led to the PS3 being released at $599 and selling at a significant loss. It's his doing that the PS3 will never be profitable and may end this generation having lost much of the profit the PS2 made.
If it wasn't for those extra billions lost, couldn't Sony have kept these 8,000 jobs around?
Consider the case with the PS3 -- before it launched, Sony had invested too much for it ever to be profitable and there was too much vested in it to let it fail. If Sony would have canceled the PS3 before launch, it would have cost an untold number of companies tens of millions each (any company that had a significant development in progress for the PS3). This would have really hurt Sony's position if they ever wanted to make a console again.
