Sony on the brink of corporate upheaval, drastic changes

[makingmusic476]

Khuutra said:

makingmusic476 said:

Guys, Sony won't be leaving the gaming industry. >_<

At worst, Sony just won't drop the price of the ps3. With the drop to 65nm RSX at the beginning of the holidays, and the drop to 45nm Cell at the beginning of 2009, ps3 hardware costs are getting lower than ever. As shown through the holidays, the ps3's sales are drying up at the $399 price point, and probably won't be very high at the beginning of the year. Low sales + lower hardware costs results in much less lost on ps3 hardware overall.

This combined with more big 1st party releases next year than ever before (Killzone 2, White Knight Chronicles, and InFamous all in the first five months), plus the new revenue source found in Home (whereas before it was just a money sink) should lead to Sony losing much less in 2009 than previous quarters, if not making a profit.

When they begin breaking even on every ps3 sold near the end of the year, they'll be doing fine. They may be far in third place, but they'll be profitable.

And that's assuming things are at their worst.

This is a worst case scenario? "They won't drop the price on the PS3"?

 

For SCE, I believe so.  They managed to pull a profit last holiday quarter, and the same is likely this holiday quarter, given that they're losing less on the ps3.

The ps3's sales are dying at $399, and it's likely that'll continue into 2009.  As a result, they'll be losing even less on the ps3 than they were before, especially with further reductions in the cost of hardware.  After that, it's up to software sales, particularly the first party stuff (of which they'll be releasing quite a bit early next year), to pick up the slack.

Aside from that they'll probably weed out some of their weaker studios, like the team working on the NBA series.

These things should be enough to offset the effect of increasing/decreasing currencies, plus most of their software is developed and manufactured nowhere near Japan.

Edit:

Really, outside of hardware (and most ps3s are made in China now anyway), most of SCE's workforce is housed outside of Japan.  They have far more development studios in North America and Europe than in Japan (though R&D on new hardware takes place mostly in Japan - but how much R&D would they be doing right now?).

As a result, the currency issues should effect SCE far less than other parts of Sony, as a larger portion of the division's expenses (salaries and the like) aren't being paid for in Yen.