As has been said repeatedly already, that was a very poor article. Hunches and opinions, little more. Nobody ever brings up the actual reasons why people should be concerned for Sony's well being and it has almost nothing to do with the Playstation name at all.
The end of their fiscal year in March 2012, they had a net income of -456 billion yen (5.79 billion dollars) and another loss this first quarter. They have $135 billion in debt on $166 billion in assets (ycharts.com for this one) and their stocks still haven't rebounded. Their stockholders have already shown that they were getting testy (though I would be too if it lost 1/3 of the total stock value in two years) and you don't want angry shareholders. They're now two steps from Junk level bonds from S&P and Moody's and are one step away at Fitch and that causes some pretty serious issues when it comes to having to pay interest on their debts. There are more problems, but those sum things up nicely.
The Playstation brand, even with the lukewarm reception and sales of the Vita, is at least getting close to breaking even this fiscal year and has been reasonably profitable otherwise. The Vita might be doomed or it might not, it's hard to tell at this point. Even still, the entire gaming division isn't even close to being their dominant business. One article speaks of hope that the gaming division would hit a billion dollars in profits this year. While nice, that wouldn't help the corporate situation much if they keep on their current road.
This is all just my own opinion, of course, with facts tossed about, but I think people should be more concerned about Sony turning into the next Kodak if they don't fix their business.







