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theprof00 on 22 July 2009
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Aiemond said:
theprof00 said:
@Xen,
perhaps DS costs are even less than wii costs.

And it's not just the wii either, there just seems to be this idea that no handheld games should make it to any of the consoles, even through emulation or direct port. Sony and Nintendo have this belief that they should be separate, which really bugs me. I'm probably not looking at the big picture though. They are both very successful businesses with lots of skilled, experienced business people.

@Xen, and the Golden sun thing: don't forget DS and DSL have the GBA slot :P

 

Now, I will say this about Sony now: They are bad a business. This is what got them into the mess they are in now. They became arrogant, did not read the market correct and just generally fucked up. Not only that, other divisions were doing bad and SCE was helping to offset that. Now, Stringer had his hands tied due to the old guard (CEO is accountable to the board. If he did too much and they did not like it, he'd be kicked) but now seems to be in charge. I think he is a good business man, I think he will do good and help Sony to do better. But, it will take a bit of time and they can't die in the mean time (unlikely but possible: whole company is sick, it is not just one division. Also, big companies are harder to turn around compared with smaller one). Lastly, on PSP: The bigger technological item does not usually win the mass market. When it came out everyone said it would beat the DS but they did not factor in history or really even look at how the market works. Not only that, piracy helped kill it for awhile. It is doing better now, and making Sony money, but if they had read the market better when they were making it, they could have done much better.

 

Nintendo right now has a good model and a good strategy. They totally screwed up in the 64 era (which led into the GC). Why did they screw up? Same reason Sony did this gen: they thought they could do whatever they wanted and a good competitor came out against them. Iwata though, is good at reading the market and taking smart risks (and ones that may not be good are low budget enough to not kill the company). Nintendo is in good shape atm, and will be unless Iwata makes a large blunder (he could, but I don't think he will as his personality and style is different than the previous CEO (who did have an attitude like the Sony old guard. Yes I know his name, no I can't spell it so I am not going to try :P).

 

 

I agree with most of it, but disagree that they are a bad business, because despite having posted a loss recently (due to the bad economy) they have done remarkably well. Sony hopes for dominating an entire industry with every new product they make, but that doesn't mean they made a mistake if they don't "win".

MS runs their business in a similar way. But MS has Windows. Sony wants a windows, and they can only do it by trying their hand at everything. BR isn't Windows now, but it has a very good chance.