Sony - Kaboom - Financial Meltdown etc

[Dirty Sanchez]

http://kotaku.com/5123292/sony-to-close-major-divisions-next-month

Let the speculation commence

[Flabio]

It's Kabooms all round by the looks of it:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/thousands-of-jobs-under-threat-at-microsoft

[Dirty Sanchez]

Strange, can't cut and paste from the article.

[Red Hogg]

http://kotaku.com/5123292/sony-to-cl...ons-next-month

Let the speculation commence

Love the Arrested Development screen grab there.

[nakamura]

`and the money-leaking PlayStation group is one of them`


But naturally the cost of making games in the HD era isnt that expensive!

[Spatial]

It's Kabooms all round by the looks of it:

[Darwock]

It raises all kinds of ethical questions that Microsoft are prepared to sack thousands of employess but continue to produce the complete shambles of a machine that is the 360.. how much have all the warranty returns cost the company I wonder? How many yearly salaries are the equivalent?

[Dogg Thang]

Doom. Wii wins. End of gaming.

This time next year, the only contender for GOTY will be Bratz: Ponyz All Upz In Ya Face.

[CMcK]

It a disgrace that a company making the kind of money Microsoft does is considering such huge job cuts.
The credit crunch is just the excuse some companies needed to make cuts and increase shareholder value.

[sofasurfer]

Whilst Sony may cut down some parts of their business there is no way they would kill of the Playstation side of it.

[nakamura]

Doom. Wii wins. End of gaming.

This time next year, the only contender for GOTY will be Bratz: Ponyz All Upz In Ya Face.

[prinnysquad]

It a disgrace that a company making the kind of money Microsoft does is considering such huge job cuts.
The credit crunch is just the excuse some companies needed to make cuts and increase shareholder value.

Seems like a reasonable assessment of the situation. It's astonishing that so many companies can fall so quickly. Their long term plans must be non-existent, all actions must be based around smash-and-grab short term-ism with profiteering scoundrels reaping the whirlwind then moving onto pastures new.

[MattyD]

Sony as a whole has been struggling for a couple of years now. It's no secret that Sony was more interested in using the PS3 as a vehicle to get HD and Blu-Ray into people's homes to boost their flagging consumer electronics divisions.

It's bad luck for them that the current financial crisis occurred when it did because their PS3 business model relies on absorbing huge losses in the early days in anticipation of a long-term profit, and not just from games sales. With things being how they are now it's going to not only be more difficult to absorb those losses but also to be optimistic about ever getting back into the black, especially since the machine has struggled so much.

[Flabio]

Seems it's not MS saying they're going to do it, but Wall Street analysts saying that they should do it to bump up the share price.

[NW2013]

Yeah, as MattyD says Sony's problems have been well publicised. Actually the PS division had been propping up the company for the last few years (decade?) but PS3 has obviously had a large impact. I think TVs are now Sony's big winner, a reversal of previous years.