You mean the bail out they were offered, I assume? Yeah, that's definitely not going to ease the nerves of ANY investors and lenders in Japan right now. If it can happen to one, it can happen to others and imagine trying to bail out Sony if it came down to that. A hell of a lot more than 2.7 billion, that'd be certain.

I don't think it'll get that far, because Kaz is obviously an intelligent businessman and seems to know what he's doing, but I think it's reasonable to say that there's some valid reasoning for panic amongst the lender types in Japan right now.

What? I hope that isn't how XBL works. When you buy something from PSN it is added to your download list and you can download it whenever and however many times you want. It makes PS Plus manageable even for small hard drives, as you can purchase the "free" games and only download one, finish with it or get bored, delete it and go on to the next one. Even redownload the original title if you want to go back. It's all tied to the account so you don't have to worry about your system crashing, and with the 1gb of cloud storage all your game saves will be safe too.

As for cloud gaming, it is still out of reach. The infrastrucuter is not developed enough to handle the load or reliability it needs. Until companies put the money and time into fiber optics are anyone but the lucky few going to be able to take full advantage of game streaming. Outside of full games, streaming could have a variety of uses that will set next gen apart from the last. Technology is advancing and the next decade will offer things we didn't expect could be available to the mainstream.

imo the purchase of Gaikai was a dumb move by Sony, sure cloud gaming could become a big thing in North America and Europe, but what about the rest of the world? Contrary to popular believe the internet it's not fast enough in most places to have an optimal cloud gaming experience. Sony could potentially screw over all of their consumers outside North America and Europe. Of course all I said could become true if they decided to go all out on cloud gaming, if you can still buy fisical copies of games then it's not really a big problem.

You don't think the Gaikai was a good purchase? The patents alone were worth the asking price. On top of that they did get the talent that worked there, the name, and the technology fits in very well with the direction that gaming and consoles will be going in let alone the range of devices and services they provide.

The bolded is exactly what it means, they have made several good purchases of late: aquiring a majoirty in Olympus, buying to 1st place in the music industry, aquiring Gaikai and its capabilities. All good moves. I'm not saying it would be a good thing to keep buying stuff up. Good oportunities aren't there every other month but the ones they've managed so far are good and if similar deals appear they could still pick some up, depending on cost of course. Sony is moving in the right direction, the last few years the company was just stagnating, business as usual while the TV indusrty slipped through their fingers. Now their projects long in the works are starting to hit the market and I would like to point out PS Mobile, probably their best integrated software platform move they have made. A little late to the party but it is already in a better position than Windows. Sony is making a lot of changes which is something they haven't done in a while.

I agree the credit rating is terrible for them right now and the more they spend now, the more they need to borrow later, but they can still get access to the funding and with the restructuring they might have more money to leverage. The worst decision would to have not done anything, not aquired future streams of revenue or methods to create cutting edge technology in their respective industries. 

Well good, that would be disasterous compared to the digtial distribution competition.

Yes, it wouldn't just isolate those outside NA and EU. The internet isn't developed enough in NA to handle the consumer base. Sony would be reducing their target market by 5000% or something. Well that is today, in a few years things might change. It might be first successful in Japan where internet is fast, then Europe, then North America, but it will still only be a service in the wide scheme of things. Sony has already "confirmed" physical media next gen, which is stilll the smartest move. Only next gen will most likely have simultaneous digital releases, just like the Vita is doing now. The PS3 can pull that off every now and then but next gen they will require digital availability day one. People talk that maybe when cloud gaming hits it will make the consoles the last consoles, but that depends on how developed the internet is by then, if not another generation of hardware is possible. Hopefully the world will have a fully developed internet structure to allow for streamlined services like that, until then there are options for everyone.

Actually, there IS one manner in which Gaikai could become quite invaluable to them. See, Gaikai and OnLive alike were both based out of California (Aliso Viejo and San Francisco, respectively), but the States is actually behind twelve other countries for internet speeds. Couple it with the fact that you still have a tonne of areas that don't have very good internet and it seems like a pipe dream.

However, if they were to take the technology and start using it in South Korea and Japan (the fastest and second fastest average internet speeds in the world), both of which are fairly game heavy cultures, they could make an absolute mint off of the infrastructure already in place. Especially if they make it viable for use with the PSP, Vita and smartphones.

Yeah maybe in some years with google fiber and some other services this could work out, but not in the next gen, probably the next next gen, with everything being cloud gaming that is.

But two countries alone will not make them profit in the long run. If they go all out with cloud gaming it has to be for everyone, not just a couple of countries.

I read discussion that Gaikai's patents were more valuable than the ones Onlive have, not sure exactly what though. This is by far the longest term potential gain.

Shouldn't revenue streams be bolstered immediately by buying EMI? I thought the EMI venture put Sony up top? Something like 1 in every 3 songs. Maybe it changed already but there is this article.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304830704577496851972013284.html

Olympus is long term, but very nice projected returns. That and it is the smallest of the  purchases and the selling off of the chemical division covered that cost, though that isn't actually related.