Yah for all of the money that microsoft has lost in games, you dont hear as much in the way of corporate movements and the shifting of stock and such. I have to say that right now Sony appears to be more likely to leave. However I still think we see a PS4 first. And it probably won't be a super-ultra-tech machine.

 some people just refuse to believe that the wii is dominating. They will finish first, case closed.

Really have pity with Leo-j.

Sony is not the financial juggernaut that some think it is. This is not the Sony of five years ago. This is probably closer to the Sony of last year, and this is what Sony had to say for itself last year before the PS3 started ripping massive financial chunks out of the company. Now you will know, and knowing is half the battle.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/22/ap/business/mainD8ID49VO0.shtml

AP) Howard Stringer, the first foreigner to head Sony, tried to allay investor worries about the future of the Japanese electronics and entertainment company Thursday by pointing to a budding recovery in its core electronics business.

Stringer, wrapping up his first year at the helm of Sony, was facing shareholders for the first time as CEO at an annual meeting.

Speaking at a Tokyo hotel packed with more than 7,000 shareholders, Stringer stood with Sony President Ryoji Chubachi, and assured stockholders Sony Corp., founded in 1946, was "on track" for a turnaround.

"Now in its 60th year, Sony has entered a period of re-emergence," he said at the meeting, shown to reporters by monitors.

Stringer said Sony had succeeded in cutting costs and reducing losses in its electronics sector. The company will focus on key products to achieve further growth, such as high-definition TVs, digital content and the next-generation computer chip called "cell," he said.

Foreign chief executives are still relatively rare in Japan, and Welsh-born Stringer has drawn a great deal of attention here _ part of the reason why some shareholders were showing up at the meeting for the first time to check him out.

Stringer faced some disgruntled investors who demanded to know why Sony was losing money. In the January-March quarter, its losses widened to 66.5 billion yen ($578 million) from a 56.5 billion yen loss a year ago.

The questions from the floor seemed to reflect the larger doubts that have arisen recently about whether Sony will ever regain its past glory epitomized by in the Walkman portable player.

Sony shares have lost nearly half their value over the last five years. On Thursday, the stock rose 3.6 percent to 4,940 yen ($43).

One shareholder, who identified herself only by her surname Kasahara, said she bought Sony shares at 14,000 yen ($120).

"I bought shares in mighty Sony," she said, stressing her unhappiness about their plunge. "What are you going to do about this?" she asked, drawing laughs from the crowd.

Sony has been struggling to boost profits amid intensifying competition from cheaper Asian rivals, including booming Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea. It also got beaten by Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod in portable music players _ once Sony's stronghold with its Walkman players.

Sony has also fought to catch up in flat-panel TVs, where global demand is growing, by setting up a joint venture to produce liquid-crystal displays with Samsung.

Nobuaki Tsubouchi, a 64-year-old retired salesman and individual investor in Sony, said he was disappointed by Stringer's explanation.

"I wasn't convinced how he was going to bring back the legend of Sony," he said after the shareholder meeting. "There's this big gap with our image of Sony from the past. We have such big hopes."

Both Stringer and Chubachi acknowledged that more work remained to be done.

In addition to cutting costs, the company is focusing on key sectors and ditching barriers between operations for speedier communication, the officials said. The new line of flat-panel TVs has proved a hit, and Sony is also counting on good returns from "The Da Vinci Code" in its movie business, they said.

Sony's losses have been largely due to massive restructuring costs, including job cuts, plant closures and dropping money-losing units, as well as research and development expenses for its usually profitable game division, were behind the red ink.

Uncertainties about Sony's video-game business have weighed on investor sentiments.

Sony has a lot banking on the PlayStation 3 video-game machine, the upgrade for the successful PlayStation 2, but delayed its introduction by several months to November.

Although Sony's electronics profits are gradually improving on solid sales of flat-panel TVs, digital cameras and camcorders, worries remain over the risks in the gaming business, which requires expensive investments but may not turn a profit for years.

"We are working hard to create a global Sony, a Sony that can pride itself on its technology," Chubachi told investors.

Yah Sony isn't really doing so well right now.

Thats the problem with bringing the undeniable truth into a thread. Often the thread seems to die. Which is unfortunate it did take me time to go dig up the article. Which is very relevant, because many boosters bring this Sony is a financial power house argument to bare on these forums. When it simply is not true. Sony has been struggling for profitability for years now despite their Playstation brand. They have made a lot of poor decisions across the board, and they suffered financially for it. They have also had massive legal issues.

That means that Sony is many times more likely then the others to abandon their console development operations. While it is increasingly likely that they will shift their focus towards software. Were the PS3 to not perform up to the Game Cube in world wide sales. Sony would have very little justification to develop another console. This is just a financial reality.

I seriously hope some more comment in this thread. The proof is burned into this thread, and that is the answer to the claims that Sony can do anything, because Sony is incredibly wealthy. The reality is far from that. Anyone claiming it is is painfully ignorant of the real situation.

Microsoft:  They don't need to make a profit on this generation.  They're far less in the red than they have been previously so if they don't make a profit on this one, chances are they will on the next one.  This is doubly true if their next console proves not to have hardware hangups.

Nintendo:  They can squeeze profit out of any console it seems.  Even at the bottom of the barrel they're still churning out a profit.  The Nintendo DS alone is strong enough to float the company I think, but with the crazy Wii sales... well, let's just say Nintendo may need a few Money Bins for various holding and swimming purposes. 

Sony:  They don't have the deep pockets Microsoft has nor the bizarre ability to profit from just about anything Nintendo has.  Compound that with a weak market position and the situation doesn't look too good especially coming from such a strong position as they had with the PS2.  Still, they're not novices to this business so it's foolish to count them out too soon.


In total, Sony is standing at the edge of doom, Microsoft is standing right behind Sony trying to give it a push, and Nintendo is watching the two slap each other silly in the comfort of its own mansion while counting its money and listening to Mario jingles.

Nintendo: As long as Nintendo makes money on their consoles (like they did with the GC) they will stay in the race.

Microsoft: The XBox is only a stepping stone to their next destination. They are trying to get their OS into the mainstream TV market. People don't accept PCs hooked up to the TV yet. The XBox is an iteration closer, the 360 closer still. I think their next one is going to be what Sony tried to do this time: The be all-end all entertainment system. So there will be another.

Sony: Sony may have lost a lot of money, but they were at one time a success and I don't think a one time failure is going to deter them from trying again. But they might not have the resources this next time that they had last time.

Good God! Dodece just keeps making sense! I love Dodece!

It's all about money folks. Partially the will to stay in the business but even that will is rooted in ability to gain a profit. Not just break even but gain a profit.

The lady called Kusahara who invested in mighty Sony and Nobuaki Tsubouchi, the 64 year old retired salesman, feel that their investment is being wasted. THESE are the people who are going to ultimately pull the plug on any money losing ventures.

Wasn't Stringer brought in to "efficiencize" the company? He cut divisions that were bleeding money and had no hope of decent returns. Ken Kutaragi ALONE is the ENTIRE REASON why Sony even GOT into the videogame business in the first place because they saw this as a minor fad. This feeling still exists in this company I believe to this day. And the moment videogames stop bringing in money they will do away with the division. They only tolerated it because it kept making cash. Kutaragi being for all intents and purposes pushed out is a bad omen for the PlayStation as far as I'm concerned.

XBox 360 has usurped their role in nearly all regions. The places that may fight the PC for gaming dominance you see 360 on a gradual rise where PS3 still living off of the rapidly fading momentum of the PS1/PS2 is in stagnation and in some cases decline. In the console gaming capital of the world, Japan, BOTH MS & Sony are marginal in the 7th gen. Sony beats MS here but is that saying much? Nintendo has locked up that region on both sides, handheld and console, and the only contenders are the declining but still strong PS2 and the underdog handheld the PSP. When PS2 finally goes off into sunset PSP is all alone and even though they made impact in recent weeks how long can they sustain it? They can't beat the DS anymore. Impossible. DS has over 3 times their sales in Japan when they launched practically at the same time.

With PS3 doing horrible business and losing tons of money due to lossleading production costs and lackluster sales of games, R&D becomes that much more difficult. Can they reasonably convince worried investors to go for another R&D expenditure for the PSP sequel? Has the PSP offset its production costs yet even today? Has the R&D investment been made up for and is it actually making Sony money?

Sony I'm telling you is about to leave the videogame business. The end of Kutaragi spelled the end of an era. We're just watching the slow inevitability right now.

Both PlayStations, 1 & 2, were the immensely RECORD-BREAKING dominant consoles of their generations. They increased a 50 to 60 million populated industry to a 100 to 120 million populated industry of buyers. Beat all competitors by a large wide and distant margin. Every 2nd was a distant 2nd including the N64 & the XBox marketshare wise worldwide. Yet with all this dominance they could only profit comparatively a little bit. There was a good series of articles called "The Truth About Nintendo" (does anybody have a mirror of these wonderful articles?) I found that are gone now that display how even in Nintendo's worse periods in the console race their profits were healthy ensuring they could still continue making systems. All they needed was the will and with a company who only basically makes games I'd say that will was intact. Yes a lot of this was from the handheld sector but that's just the beauty of their setup. One holds up the other and even the consoles still made them money. Just less of it than in times before. They were never in danger.

Here's one blogger who never understood this:

http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/index.cfm/2005/9/16/Its-a-Revolution-No-Really

Even if Wii & DS somehow failed they could give it another go if they had the will because they still had the money. It WAS important for the Wii to win however but they could have gone to the well a couple of more times before calling it quits and taking all those beloved characters home with them (perish the thought!).

The Playstations were by and large dominant but their profits didn't reflect this. It's what I call a Pyrrhic Victory (thanks for Wikipedia's vocabulary expansive properties!). They lost a lot just to win a little. I think PS2 profitted Sony only $2 billion which is a lot but should be much more seeing how they quintupled the amount of system sales and more importantly game sales. To maintain a profit they would have to remain that same level of dominance. This wasn't gonna happen this time around with how this generation was shaping between hungry Microsoft and vengeance-fueled Nintendo. But not only did they lose that marketshare majority, they also lost the marketshare plurality, but they have ALSO become the marketplace minority. If in plurality they would have broken even or only lost a little bit. In minority their bleeding money like someone cut the juggular.

For this reason and this reason alone, the Playstation business, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is in fatal trouble. Further compounding this is the fact their other divisions are having difficulty as well. Music business has been in decline ever since the 'net opened up downloading (Michael Jackson may just get that Sony/ATV catalog in full yet). Movie business is fickle but I think it's one of their healthiest divisions with the blockbusters they put out. Not for sure though. Their various electronics businesses are getting cramped by powerful competition. So Sony has less to draw from to offset SCE's losses. Investors ain't having it. Sony can't exist as an underdog like Nintendo due to their business model of lossleading. The investors simply won't stand for it and they will pressure the execs to pull the plug to stabilize the company. Gaming is a hard business to maintain profits in. It makes big money but it's volatile and easy to wreck as an industry.

As for Microsoft, they have seemingly endless money which staves off concerns from investors. But Microsoft may not have the will to continue in a business that is only one of many many parts of their businesses. Microsoft got in here to offset Sony's aims for the living room while also diversifying the company to prevent stagnation. But unlike a Sega or a Nintendo their existence is not dependent on gaming and they can leave it at any time. They are not making money yet on this XBox 360 project as far as I've heard (though Halo 3 is a step in the right direction) and if they continue to not make money in this business they may leave simply because they don't feel it's worth it to continue. Losing so much money even if it's not wrecking the company will cause the will to fade. If Sony goes maybe this affects the will also. Microsoft may be trying to transition the XBox into a whole new hardware computer made by Microsoft effectively removing it from the console business altogether.

The way I see it Sony will be forced to leave due to lack of fundings by the protests of the investors and Microsoft will choose to leave due to great investments not paying off in profits.

Nintendo, the heart and soul of the videogame business, is seemingly the only one who knows how to make this machine work. They wrote the bible on it so it's not surprise. Every competitor including the originator of the business, Atari, has failed in the short run or the long run to be able to keep going in the biz. For Nintendo to leave would also take a lack of money to continue killing the will to continue. But as we see that's not happening anytime soon.

With Nintendo leaving the videogame business will be dead and the computer gaming business will be the only game left in town. Cell phones & the like on the periphery. But thankfully we don't have to worry about that.

John Lucas