lol I already said which option I voted for.

I see you don't rule out the "bankruptcy" option as well... I am gobsmacked at how many people are choosing that one.

You don't have that option in the poll

What he means is that business as usual would quickly lead to bankrupcy. And he's right, in fact he gives it a longer timescale than is realistic. It would happen sooner because investors would cop on and revolt.

If the Yen keeps dropping they'll go bankrupt no matter what, and they won't be the only Japanese company to go bankrupt either if that were to happen.

^The Yen is rising...

I thought it was a few billion

This could happen by the PS3's 6th year... with profit from games like Gran Turismo, as well as increased royalties from softaware sales due to more consoles, and of course they would need to make a profit on every console sold. It is unlikely thinking about it more, but they should certainly make much of it back

Huh? It's the high Yen that's hurting them, a drop in the Yen would provide relief for Sony.

And no, recessions kill companies with bad business models and companies that are being disrupted. Healthy companies survive recessions and take over the assets of the failed company afterwards. That's why I'm predicting Nintendo buying a sony owned studio in my sig.

Healthy companies like Nintendo and Toyota will suffer, but not die. Sony will have to get healthy quick to avoid bankrupcy.

It doesn't need to keep rising, the level it is at right now is already bad enough. However it's true the Japanese Central bank coult intervene to save Japanese exporters regarding the currency issues.

In any case, Sony's troubles due to the recession go much farther than the Yen:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/business/worldbusiness/22trade.html

"Japanese exports plunged the most on record in November as demand for cars and electronics collapsed.

Exports fell 26.7 percent compared with a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said Monday in Tokyo, the sharpest drop since comparable data were made available in 1980."

That's an overwhelming drop especially considering the recession is just starting. All that's left to know is how big Sony's specific drop is.

What I meant is dropping against the dollar, i.e. going from 110 to 89, but yeah I guess rising would be the correct term, I stand correct.

And you cannot guarantee anything in this recession, Nintendo and Toyota might go bankrupt as well, Nintendo could probably avoid it by raising the Wii price though seeing as how well it is selling, but Toyota is already feeling the effects of this economy.

So no chance of things starting to look upward. The best SCE can do is just continue as usual. How about an option for SCE to have a good report, and start to become one of Sony's money makers. Based off VGC's numbers I have a very strong feeling SCE made a very nice profit for the quarter.

With full data between October 3rd, and December 28th things look like this;

Hardware

PS3 3.578M -358M
PSP 4.196M +21M
PS2 2.338M +12
Net -325M

Now assuming Sony looses $100 on every PS3, and gains $5 per PSP and PS2, that leaves them at negetive 325M in hardware sales for SCE. I think that those numbers are more than fair, and are probably a worst case scinario. In reality they proobably loose a litle less per PS3, and gain a little more per PSP, and PS2.

Software

3rd Party 52.3M +261.5M
1rst Party 10.9M +109M
Overall 63.2M +370.5M

These software numbers were pulled from the same time frame Oct 3rd, to Dec 28th. In these calculations I assumed $5 per every 3rd party game on all three systems, and $10 per every first party title.

SCE

Hardware -325M
Software +370.5M
Net Profit +45.5M

Now take into consideration that;

1. Of course these numbers were pulled out of my ass, but I think they are a far asssumption for losses and gains per unit.

2. VGC only covers the top 200 games across all platforms, meaning tons of software is not included in this data which can only help SCE.

3. VGC does not cover PSN, which again is only to the benifit of SCE.

4. Only Sony knows how much was spent on marketing, R&D, warrinties, ect. which can only be negitives.


Personally, I feel SCE is going to post a very decent profit for Q3 after all the other data is taken into consideration. In my data I did not take into consideration the price differance on the 160GB PS3, which may make the division money. So that is even another way that things could be even rosier than I made them. I strongly believe that come January 30th we will see SCE wipeout nearly all the debt to this point in financial 08, and look forward to a profitable year thanks to Killzone, Yakuza, MLB 09 The Show, and many other bright looking titles.