I don't remember where it was posted, but someone mentioned that very little of the manufacturing itself takes place in Japan, the creation of is all broken up into cheaper labored countries :/ Granted I'm not really sure how that affects the overall picture, but I can't imagine it being as ridiculous as it could be if everything was done in japan.

maybe if they printed more yen that would depreciate its worth :) a powerful currency also means cheaper imports- basic items like food and other goods come in a lot cheaper. I guess its more important to feed people than sell PS3's.

Yeesh.

It has delayed BE by at least a year if currency alone doesn't improve. If currency can miraculously improve then it may be a bit different but global demand remains low on most electroics.  As it is, the PS2 is mainly viwed as a family console.. but what family would buy a PS2 over a Wii?  Family video game night is the new movies night in the US.

The issue I have with Sony's business practice isn't their ambition in being in so many markets, rather its the fact that all these divisions at Sony seem to be at odds with each other and don't communicate particularly well. The current economic climate only serves as a wake-up call to a company that has been bloated and mismanaged for the past fifteen years, so it is accelerating an internal restructuring that was long overdue anyway.

Sony products, taken individually, are generally very good, sometimes even being so good as to warrant the premium pricetag that goes with the boilerplate on the devices. The problem lays in so many of their gadgets being developed independant of what other arms of the company are doing, so interoperability suffers. At Sony, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Sony becomes their own worst enemy once you get into media formats. Whether its Beta or the MD audio cartridges of 15 years ago right up to UMDs today. Blu Ray. Memory Sticks. The list goes on.

Probably the best example of Sony mismanagement and compartmentalization is their online shopping & content delivery services. I've got a PSN account and have to buy PSN pre-paid cards to download things to my PS3, then I have to have another Sony account with its own pre-paid cards to shop at the eBook Store with the eBook Library software to support my wife's PRS-505 reader. Where do I buy all these gadgets? I'm not really sure of that either, because there's Sony Style's site, and then there's also SONY/BMG's myPlay store. I can't remember what I've bought where, what all my Sony related logins and passwords and mailing addresses are, and which of their gazillion numbers and contact us pages are relevant if I need warranty service. It's really all quite ridiculous.

How much money do you think it costs Sony to run (at least) 4 or 5 different Web sites that all sell the exact same thing only packaged differently? Nothing is consistent with 'the Sony experience.'

To put it another way, does anyone think Apple would be as successful as they are today, enjoying their renaissance, if Apple hadn't made 'the Apple experience' so simple? You buy ALL the gadgets from the Apple Store (whether real brick & mortar or the online version) and once you have the gadget, you get all the content for it through your iTunes install (and the content doesn't discriminate whether you're running iTunes on your PC, your Mac, your iPhone, your iPod, or even your Apple TV). See? That's not the case with Sony. If I buy an eBook from the Sony eBook store, I should be able to read it on my Vaio, my PS3+Bravia TV, my Ericcson mobile phone, or even my PSP if I want to. No, I wouldn't actually do that (I don't even own all those devices), but it would be appealing to have that choice if I wanted. Same goes for music. Same goes for movies.

Sony, as a company, has no idea where they're going. If somebody would go in and blow the whole thing up, like Steve Jobs did with Apple, Sony could be 10x more succesful with 1/10th the workforce, while still having all the product lines they do today. The products ARE great. Their R&D has transformed all our lives, even for those of us that have never owned one Sony branded product.

It's their vision and marketing that sucks.

A ha! You've found the answer! It's Nintendo's fault! After all ... the DS does print money.

^omg its all the DS fault...nooonoononono

@Dryden once again you posted an amazing example of what I was thinking but had yet to say @_@

In another view I think that's where they are headed right now with certain products. I've been the advocate of saying that Sony's trying to form that "sony" experience. They got the PSN on PC and PSP, they're trying for a universal Sony account name, for your PSP, PC, PS3, and PS4 most likely, I have a feeling the next Playstation will use cell tech, same with they're next PSP. and the MPEG-4 format is staring to pick up steam in most of the Sony products. I strongly believe they're working on what your post would indicate ^^

Sony as a company is not so large that it cannot fail. In fact there is no such thing as a company that cannot fail given the right circumstances arise. For years Sony has not been healthy. The company had become overly diversified, and had invested heavily into areas that underperformed. This was why Stringer was brought in. He had a proven track record in regards to streamlining bloated corporations into leaner more effective entities with higher profit margins.

The notion that Sony was healthy before the economic crisis is quite erroneous. The company was getting healthier, and would have gotten healthier once it had moved beyond the previous managements doctrine of expansion through aggression. Sadly Sony was still not as healthy as one would like going into a recession. There was still much cutting to have been done, and more assets that needed to be sold.

That is why these comments are disconcerting it sounds like the old Sony mindset that prized expansion rather then restraint. That is the kind of thinking that can destroy a company. Behaving like it has the assets to continue in taking large risks is not a safe strategy. In fact its a strategy prone to blow back. All or nothing strategies are not what Sony needs now. What Sony needs to do is get healthy and robust. Not be overextending itself.

Yes Sony can go bankrupt unless its management starts to get its shit together. Now is not the time to attack. Now is the time to work on their defenses. All I keep reading from them is how their money pits need to stay in place. Now would be the time to get rid of money pits. Not to keep throwing your money down them. They should be thinking six months ahead right now, and not six years. They keep looking at the long game, and they could destroy the company in the short game.

@mesoteto

How will Sony do what the "Big N" did (Nintendo)?

Nintendo never lost profitabilty, just mind share and market size.