Corporate Health of Sony, Nintendo and MS

[Soundwave]

Eddie_Raja said:

SpokenTruth said:

Several people seem to think that winning or losing in the console race is a direct indicator of corporate health and the security of that company's future.

Below is a list of a few current (end of 2015) aspects of each that company that should shed more light on exactly how successful or in danger they are.  Unfortunately, this will compare the entire companies rather than just their game segments but for the sake of a company being solvent, it's relevant.

 

Company	Nintendo*	Sony*	Microsoft
Cash and Short Term Investments	$7.6 Billion	$15.7 Billion	$96.5 Billion
Total Assets	$11.3 Billion	$132.0 Billion	$176.2 Billion
Total Liabilities	$1.5 Billion	$107.6 Billion	$96.1 Billion
Total Debt	$103,000	$18 Billion	$7.5 Billion

* - All figures converted from Japanese Yen to USD.

So I want to highlight two big things here that I have known, and no one else ever seems to get:

1) Yes Nintendo has a ton of cash on hand, and no debts.  But Sony has WAY more cash, and if they got into trouble they have 12x the assets to sell off if they need help staying afloat.   Nintendo DOES NOT.  If they run out of money they are screwed!

 

2) There is no doubt that MS has far more money than Sony.  However they only have like 30% more assets.  They are fairly comparible companies in terms of size - MS cannot just bully Sony around and shove their way to victory like a lot of people seem to think here.

 

"Assets" are kind hard to gauge in terms of real actual worth, in a scenario where you have to sell off assets to raise cash, you're unlikely to get market value for those said assets. 

Like you can say you have this TV factory that's worth $100 million, ok that qualifies as a $100 million dollar asset technically, but if you're selling because the TV busniess is shit, it's unlikely anyone is going to pay you list value for that factory, say you end up getting $20 million for it.