Sony - Kaboom - Financial Meltdown etc

[eastyy]

downloadable content and games is fine.....i only just got broadband really ...trouble is my broadband Speed is still not quite as fast as i need it to be to take advantage of live and psn

wii though is fine...there small enough downloads

[Holio]

What I do like about the XBLA is the fact every game on there has a demo, yes there is shovelware, but you try it, and dont buy it, very simple. Some of the PSN games have demos and some dont, though I bought Wipeout HD straight off, cause of the all the rave reviews on forums about it.

The XBLA games are tied to your Gamertag, so if your HDD ever was corrupted, because you had bought it, you could re-download it anytime. Think PSN allows you to DL the item 5 times, but I'm not sure.

On other points made in this thread, I have yet to be impressed by Blu-ray, when I got a PS3, I was like, cool, now I can really see my favourite movies in glory, but I only have a 32inch 720p TV, and while playing Oceans Eleven on DVD through my XB360 and on BR through my PS3, and I really couldnt believe how little the difference was, maybe on a bigger TV, like 40inch and above, it keeps fidelity higher, but since I done that test, I havent bought another BR and wont do, sure they arent that more expensive than DVD's, but look at the current sales, you can pick great movies on dvd up for under a fiver, and you can play them on various players and various locations, not just on the TV that my PS3 is on and lend them to family members. So for now, DVD is plenty good enough for my entertainment needs.

[Brats]

Since smaller games have moved to downloadable rather than available for a few quid on a rotating rack, the scene seems to have blossomed. I agree that selling cheap games via disc based media is possible, but the new games you get on these racks are universally terrible.

The try before you buy nature of downloadable games is a huge advantage. Plus you don't need to pre-order a certain number of DVDs in advance. DVD distribution is still a problem and publishers have to 'book' places at DVD mastering sites way in advance. If you over order on DVDs, you risk a large loss. if you under order, it could be weeks before you can requests a reprint, missing out on any possible hype.

Note that even though Alien Hominid was budget title, on disc it cost a lot more than Castle Crashers did to download (arguably a fuller, more complete release). That The Behemoth moved from a disk based model to a downloadable model, even though the price was greatly reduced, speaks for itself. In fact, I don't know of a single developer of publisher that is shunning downloadable content for disc based media. If the advantages for the publishers mean that we get more games of the like of Braid and Castle Crashers, then it's a big advantage for us too and far outweighs the issue that such games may be hard to find in twenty year's time.

I'm still not convinced that without downloadable games that these titles would exist. Last generation, Alien Hominid was virtually unique. What other games made by a two man team were released on consoles in the West in he last generation? And how many games in total since DL arrived have been released on XBLA, PSN and Wiiware. the change since DL arrived has been huge.

[charlesr]

I'm tending to agree with you on those points.

I disagree that games will become unavailable. You just won't be able to buy them. So it depends on where you sit with emulation or illegal downloads of games you already paid for. Unless the game depends on online-integration, but that can probably be emulated too in future. This topic is so far off topic, but it's interesting.

[Brats]

I think that argument that games may not be available in the future is pretty slim compared to the benefits DL games bring, to both developers and consumers. Plus at the rate old games now get re-released, the chances of a decent, current game being lost forever are pretty rare imo.

AFAIK you can still play PSO on the XBox online. Can you on the GC? And didn't the recent Wii release of Samba De Amigo include the extra content only available for download on the DC? Admitedly the conversion to the Wii was a bit crap, but the point I'm maiing is that good games rarely die, they just get re-released.

[JP]

It's pretty much as people who know about this stuff expected really. Manufacturing (TV) plants in Japan taking the hit quite simply because there's really not been any advantage for Sony to be running them.

The majority of the jobs going are the jobs that are lost each year through retirement, resignation or just not meeting the expected standards of employment and they won't be seeking people to replace these as they would do normally.

NEW YORK, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Sony Corp (6758.T), which is expected to report its first annual loss in 14 years, plans to close one of its two Japanese TV factories and cut more than 2,000 full-time jobs, the Nikkei financial daily reported.

CEO Howard Stringer will announce the move at a news conference on Thursday, when he will also release a downgraded earnings forecast, the Nikkei said, without citing sources.

Sony outlined plans last month to curb investment, close five to six plants and cut a total of 16,000 regular and contract jobs globally to save $1.1 billion a year in costs.

Analysts have been expecting further cuts as the maker of Bravia LCD TVs, Cyber-shot digital cameras and PlayStation game consoles struggles with weak sales and a strong yen.

But talk of cutting jobs in Japan has met internal company resistance, the Financial Times reported this week.

Sony plans to eliminate about 3 percent of its domestic full-time staff, or more than 2,000 workers, mainly through to natural attrition, by the end of the financial year ending in March 2010, the Nikkei said.

The company, which generates about two-thirds of its revenue outside Japan, is likely to suffer an annual operating loss of about $1.1 billion in the year ending March 31, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters earlier this month.

Both of the company's TV plants in Japan are located in Aichi Prefecture, in Western Japan. (Reporting by Ted Kerr, editing by Matthew Lewis)

Reuters UK
I'm still expecting Stringer to be consolidating the company under his control instead of the older approach of each area being a seperate part of the organisational group.

As I said before, it's always a shame to see people lose their jobs when things like this happen but this really should have happened a long time ago.

[DCharlie]

well, this is what gets me. T60 was supposed to get Sony to that one year of double figure profit and to raise the base profit figures from the dismal rut it is in. This included a ton of job cuts and mass restructuring and was to last 5 years.

As it got to the end of the T60 initiative and Idiea was asked about hitting the target he , reportedly (will find article) laughed and said "oh we were never going to hit that target". I'm not sure what sort of message that was to send about the management of the firm, but it soon lead to Stringer coming in. The assumption that an outsider would be much better equipped to slice through the Japanese corporate structure and culture that, i'm sure, was top-to-bottom at Sony.

It's not like the Japanese restructuring, trimming etc hasn't been going on at Sony for years. They need Stringer to beat the company into shape. Internally it still sounds like they cannot work on an interdepartment level , the whole "leveraging the Playstation as a sales engine for other departments" has been talked about since PS1 days and they STILL haven't got there. :/

[JP]

T60 was always a bit...optimistic I think (Being polite there).

More jobs being confirmed as Microsoft sent out a press release earlier today. Their losing 5000 being lost starting with 1400 going as of today.

Microsoft on Thursday embarked on the first company-wide job cuts in its 34-year history as it announced plans to cut up to 5,000 workers over the next 18 months.

The news came as the world?s biggest software company brought forward its second-quarter earnings announcement, revealing the extent of the damage caused by a slump in PC sales and growing consumer demand for ?netbooks?, low-cost laptops which generate lower software revenues.

Steve Ballmer, chief executive, said in a statement that Microsoft was ?not immune to the effects of the economy? but indicated that there would be no change in strategy.

He added: ?We will continue to manage expenses and invest in long term opportunities? and will emerge an even stronger industry leader than we are today.?

The company-wide job cuts, out of a total of 96,000, will begin with 1,400 job losses on Thursday, Microsoft said.

The company came through the tech industry bust of 2001-02 with little damage, thanks to the continued growth of the PC business worldwide, and had been forced to make job cuts in the past only as a result of limited reorganisations of parts of its business, or to integrate acquisitions.
Microsoft shares were down 9.2 per cent at $17.75 in early Wall Street trading.

In an email to employees, Mr Ballmer said Microsoft was taking a range of other measures to reduce its expenses, including reducing travel budgets by 20 per cent, eliminating merit-based pay increases this year and scaling back plans to expand its headquarters campus in Redmond, Washington state.

Microsoft said its revenues in the second quarter grew just 2 per cent from a year before, to $16.6bn, lower than the $17.1bn that Wall Street had been expecting. Earnings per share fell 6 per cent to 47 cents, compared with expectations of 49 cents.

The shortfall reflected the sharp fall in global demand for PCs at the end of last year, as corporations cut back on IT spending and the normal jump in holiday sales to consumers failed to materialise.

Microsoft said the results also reflected the growing demand for ?netbooks?, many of which come with the earlier Windows XP rather than the current Vista operating system, or even no Microsoft software at all.

As a result, revenues from the company?s client division, which handles Windows PC sales, fell 8 per cent in the quarter.

The figures were a stark contrast to results from Apple the day before, which showed continued strong sales of MacBook laptops despite the economic slump. Apple shares were up 7 per cent at $89.14 on Thursday.

It's obviously a real shame for the people going into work today to find out they've lost their jobs but Microsoft certainly won't be the last major multi-national to be doing this over the next 12 months.

Financial Times

[Matt]

They only made $4.17 BILLION profit in it's fiscal second quarter, so people had to be sacked. ****ing corporations.

People should be first, always.

[eastyy]

Yeah ....i reckon alot of companies are just using the credit crunch as a excuse to lay off people....with lots of companys its not there not making money....just the directors want more money

[Brats]

Didn't we do this earlier on in the thread?

Communism is the ideal where the worker comes first. In Capitalism, it's the owners that come first. I'm not glad to see people lose their jobs, but it doesn't work any other way. Companies must always strive to achieve maximum profits. It's very little to do with the wages of the Directors, it's the backbone of the whole economy.

[DCharlie]

what i'm more concerned is that this is potentially the "big salary reset" for a whole load of people.

Somewhat weird in the industry i'm in is seeing large scale redundancy happening, yet people are still hiring. The net effect is that people go from one particular company in the industry to another for substantially less pay doing exactly the same job : "credit crisis... times are hard... etc" , person is looking for a new job ...

[Matt]

Didn't we do this earlier on in the thread?

Communism is the ideal where the worker comes first. In Capitalism, it's the owners that come first. I'm not glad to see people lose their jobs, but it doesn't work any other way. Companies must always strive to achieve maximum profits. It's very little to do with the wages of the Directors, it's the backbone of the whole economy.

Regardless, it's still a ****ty way to treat PEOPLE. I'm definitely not pro-communism, but capitalism is **** as well. There are other ways, it's called being decent. Seriously, laying people off is always bad. IMO it shouldn't be done unless it will save other peoples jobs. When a company makes over $4B profit in 3 months and still lays people off, it's awful.

When a "corporation" and profits are considered more important than the people working there, a whole rethink of how things work is needed. IMO of course.

It does seem to be an excuse to "streamline" organisations. My full sympathies to those who find themselves unemployed.

[averybluemonkey]

Virtually every major tech company making these layoffs are currently in profit. It's ridiculous.

[NekoFever]

Microsoft could be different because it has a ton of money sitting in the bank, but a lot of companies aren't being as evil as they look. If a corporation makes $4 billion but was forecast to make $4.5 billion, that money could have been earmarked for new projects and so cuts are needed.

For companies that aren't as liquid as Microsoft they often have to run on credit, and now that that's not readily available what seems like a big profit can still be dangerous. They might not have cash in the bank because their money is all credit, and they still have interest and repayments to make. A $100 million shortfall on a $4 billion profit could be $100 million that is owed to someone else, in which case cuts are definitely needed.

It speaks of how badly a lot of businesses have been run before this recession, I hope that if anything comes out of this it will be that relying on cheap credit is a really bad idea.

But yeah, it's clear that some are using the financial climate as an excuse to make the job cuts that they've wanted to for a while.