Sony Freezing, Cutting Employee Wages.. (First Time in Company History)

[Jordahn]

NJ5 said:

Procrastinato said:

You're gonna make me post the MS layoffs, and include the contractors, as is included in that 16K number?

If we're talking game divisions, one of those two divisions has axed thousands, and closed a myriad of studios over the past year. The other... 0. I know people who work at Sony, MS, Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, Atari, and a myriad of other game companies, as well as people at AMD, IBM, nVidia, HP, etc. None of those places is anywhere near as pleasant to work at today, thanks to the economy, and Sony is doing admirably well for the awful situation they are in -- SCE in particular. If they have to make any serious cuts, it'll be a loss to Sony, and the industry as a whole, since many of those people will probably not find jobs in the game industry for several years (although independant studios are hiring like crazy, since all the big studios layoffs has made tons of "sweatshop" work for them to scramble for), and thus, will leave for good.

 

Nintendo, Microsoft, Intel, IBM and HP are all posting profits, while no analyst expects Sony to turn profitable with the measures they announced so far. Their losses are too huge for that.

As for Microsoft's layoffs and cuts in the gaming division, all that proves is that Microsoft is a more cautious company than Sony. Sony only began restructuring when they started losing money, while Microsoft acted preemptively to avoid getting in the hole in the first place.

 

Not neccessarily.  All the companies with the expection of SONY and Nintendo that you mentioned primarily makes products for productivity such as computer and computer related products.  So products bought from these companes will take priority over a/v entertainment products that are SONY's primary line of products.  Of course Nintendo took a less expensive route in Wii development that SONY did with the PS3, tus the Wii is profitable and more affordable to the average consumer.  This doesn't mean that Microsoft isn't more conservative.  It's just that examples you gave are inconclusive of your assessment.