Ben-DutkaWhat does one do when facing a projected $6.4 billion net loss and a possible round of layoffs numbering as high 10,000?
Why, you turn to video games, among other things. In the face of the financial downturn, Sony has announced a new business initiative entitled "One Sony," which focuses on three core elements of the company: Digital imaging, game, and mobile. With this, Sony hopes to generate about 70% of total sales and 85% of operating income by fiscal 2014.
For the game part, Sony says they will continue to focus on giving gamers "exhilarating experiences" for both the PlayStation 3 and Vita, and they also intend to add new titles and subscription services to the PlayStation Network. The PlayStation Suite devices and content will be amped up as well and overall, Sony wants their game business to bring back 1 trillion yen ($12.33 billion) and an operating income margin of 8% by fiscal 2014. Beyond the gaming world, Sony plans to increase sales by "restructuring its television sector, expand its business opportunities in emerging markets, create all-new businesses, realign its portfolio and optimize resources."
There is no mention of the PlayStation 4; some analysts believe it'd be a bad idea for Sony to risk new hardware at this juncture, especially when the PS3 is finally starting to be profitable. Besides, they've got the Vita to focus on now, and most gamers say they'd be happy with the PS3 for quite some time. But Sony still doesn't want to fall behind Microsoft in the next console race, so… Maybe "Orbis" will be revealed soon.
With this news and the discussion about focusing on games and services without directly mentioning a console following the PS3, I find myself wondering about the Orbis rumors.
Considering that the most recent hardware rumor for the MS nextbox has it using a 16 core PowerPC based design, I am more and more convinced that the Orbis rumor and hardware specs were someone blowing smoke up our nether regions. More and more I believe that Sony will bide it's time. If Orbis is a real product, I am wondering if it will be some sort of entry level home PC with PS Suite onboard. The specs that were rumored were really quite pathetic compared to a 16 core bespoke PowerPC design, not to mention the complete absence of BC< which the Nextbox would clearly have with it using a 16 core PowerPC architecture which would appear to be a direct evolution of the existing CPU in the 360.
Last edited by TheHighlander on 4/12/2012 10:28:28 AM
I still think the simplest and most logical course of action for Sony when making a PS4 is;
strap two of the most recent Cell CPU cores together
give it a decent amount of RAM
Add a current GPU (not a design already considered entry level)…
just cellotape 8 cell broadbands chips together!
Bam! PS4 cpu
huh?
ya already thought of it.
although i prefer 8
Maybe the rumored Orbis spec is of a very primitive dev kit. SOmething cheap and easy for Sony to distribute while they perfect the final design of the PS4. I dunno, just a guess.
Dual Cell CPU sounds like the more realistic thing to do in regards to these PS4 spec rumors. I just don't see Sony taking a step in the opposite direction of the Cell. They put a lot of time, research, and money into that particular architecture if I remember correctly.
Slugga, Sony has spent billions just on the CellBE architecture. Not to mention all the related development on production of the processor and systems based on it. Plus the purchase of CellBE manufacturing facilities from Toshiba.
Didn't know they purchased the manufacturing facilities from Toshiba. Makes it even less likely they'd go another route here. I just wonder what type of GPU they could put with a dual CellBE..
16 core CPU?!!! Wow, that seems like a lot and expensive.
Could it be 16 threads in a 8 core CPU? That sounds more reasonable. If it truly is a 16 core CPU with 32 threads I'm worried about the PS4.
Ignitus,
If it's the in-order PowerPC core that is already in the 360, it's not actually all that difficult to put 16 cores on a single chip, because they are actually quite small cores. The do not have all of the extra logic needed for things like predictive branching and out of order execution. The biggest consumption of transistors and physical space on a chip is cache memory. 16 small cores would be possible.
I must agree though, 16 cores is a lot. The article wasn't very clear if it mean 8 dual threaded cores for 16 processes (the PPC cores in the 360 and PS3 are dual threaded). That would be more reasonable, than 16 physical cores. No where near as powerful or interesting though.
Why do I cringe when I read that Sony intends to add new "subscription services" to the Playstation Network in order to increase revenue?
As for the PS4 release. History has shown that the first year or two of a consoles life is typically not profitable. If they expect profitablility to increase between now and FY2014 (4/2014-3/2015) would that indicate they plan to release the PS4 later than that (2015)?
Why do you cringe? They already have subscription services. This is simply expanding the SEN to cover a wider range of content and services. Every MMO game with a subscription model is a potential additional subscription service for SEN/PSN.
Its the opposite for FY.
FY14 would be from 2013 to start 2014.
So you could expect a PS4 early 2014 by your logic.
Maybe if all goes as planned or better… We will really see new kick ass hardware by 2014 😀
Last edited by Neo_Aeon666 on 4/12/2012 11:50:26 AM
@Neo
I'm pretty sure you are incorrect. I just went back and read three articles which referred to the current 6.4 billion loss as being for the 2011 fiscal year.
The number Sony's fiscal year begins in April. That means that they plan to be profitable by the fiscal year 2014 which is 4/2014 through 3/2015.
Subscription services are plenty on PSN.
There is Music Unlimited, the new Hulu thing, Netflix, CoD Elite, PS+, MLB.tv, various MMO's… the list goes on. I'm pretty confident they'll continue to provide network access for free.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 4/12/2012 1:53:59 PM
Ah… Well I can tell you the Future Shop and Best Buy brand are in FY13 at the moment. (I work there) We are in 2012 and since it ends in 2013 it is called FY2013. I was pretty sure all companies were on the same time length. No? Like some kind of universal company language XD
Last edited by Neo_Aeon666 on 4/12/2012 4:58:20 PM
I think they need to adjust prices on their TVs. They are a premium product but they also carry a steep premium price kind of like apple. Only they don't market like apple so they have a harder time getting people to buy their products at least so it seems
I can't wait to see what they'll do with the vita though. Loving mine so far
I think they need to get out of the low margin TV business all together, and license their technology to others. That way they can let others take the risks in the low margin world, and concentrate on innovations and the premium and early adopter markets
They'll be fine. Hirai isnt a moron so im more than sure whatever their planning will go through without much trouble. Besides it sounds like their trying to get money back which would make sense…what could of cost so much money… Oh right the Orbis.
I get the feeling that the PS3 will be fine even if put up against MS new box. Its all about angle. What? Are we worried about better visuals? Look at how Nintendo was the most profitable. By now means did they have the best console when it came to specs.
If anything I'd say Nintendo and MS would be catching up to Sony with their new consoles. Just my opinions of course.
Devs have already said that the WiiU is no better than the current 360/PS3 hardware in terms of video performance. Focusing on Sony, when WiiU comes along, Sony already has a perfect repost. The Vita integrates well with PS3 with the various cross platform play options, all they need to do is get some Vita/PS3 interaction in PS3 games using the Vita as an intelligent controller and they have everything that WiiU has, and more. In that respect, the PS3 can compete with the WiiU easily with no changes to the hardware. Since we know that we're capped at 1080p, even if the 360's successor came in 2013 with full 1080p, it's really not a huge leap up from the PS3 we have already. The biggest thing would be that developers of certain kinds of games on that new console will have lots more RAM to play with, so porting to PS3 would be more difficult. That would be the only real issue if Sony holds fast for a few more years.
@TheHighlander
"In that respect, the PS3 can compete with the WiiU easily with no changes to the hardware."
Except that the PS3 controller costs $300! 😉
Costs $300 today, may cost $249 or less by December. Not to mention the fact that unlike the WiiU, it isn't tethered to the main console, it can play it's own games and bring it's own processing resources to the party. Plus it doesn't become useless when the PS3 is turned off, and can even be used when away from home…
Using the vita as a controller for the ps3 doesnt sound very appealing to me.
Pros: touch screen interface for added features.
Cons:
you have to take your eyes off the screen and the action to look at the vita screen.
There are no L2 and R2 buttons
The control thumb sticks dont depress like the dualshocks do
I have a hard time putting wear and tear on a 300 dollar vita device when a 50 dollar dualshock does the trick.
They may come up with some snazzy applications for it to make it a must use for that purpose. Will have to see. Also just because you can doesn't mean you should.
@MyWorst,
Indeed, as many have said of the WiiU.
They need to start supportin' my Vita! I love it but it feels like it's having a dry spell…maybe a price cut this fall will happen after all.
My patience is wearing quite thin with the damn companies and thier god damned subscriptions. Premium Membership? GTF outta here. I pay nearly $70 for a game and they want me to pay more to unlock the rest of the game, or to access better qeues or whatever. We need to stop supporting these jerks. Sorry to say it but someone has to.
My question if why is Sony loosing so much money?
2 main factors.
Terrible market in LCDTVs and their TVs are too expensive for such a price sensitive market.
Sony took a tax loss related to some kind of tax deferment, not sure if they are paying ahead or catching up. But it counts into the billions doubling their losses.
Other HDTV makers are running into issues as well. Sharp lost a ton of money – without the tax thing, and Samsung's LCDTV operation is being restructured thanks to losing $700 million last year.
Basically it sucks to be in the HDTV business.
I was reading about this in another site yesterday. Its not fair to call it a 'loss' per say because supposedly it is actually money that Sony was going to save with some type of tax credit called “deferred tax assets†given to them by the U.S. government. According to the article, Sony must have fell short of whatever requirements it needed to qualify and now have to spend the money they were going to be saving out of pocket. They should have already had plans for this money and maybe thats there are these job losses.
The tax credits were basically a freebie from the Government that says if you make X billion in profit, we will give you a tax credit that will balance against the tax you would otherwise pay out.
But since Sony made a loss and not a profit, the billions in tax credits will not be granted ans so they are no longer part of the balance sheet. In sense it is a paper money loss, where money that Sony did not have is not going to be made available. It sounds like the tax credit acts as a positive offset against the negative tax charge normally paid. But without the profits to justify the offset, it has to be removed from the books, resulting in a larger pool of red ink than before.
What I don't understand about this though is how not reaching the expected level of profit results in taking this as a loss. However, according to Sony this is an accounting loss, not a real money loss. I noticed that they talked about this in last year's fiscal reports as well. So this isn't exactly something new or shocking.
Sharp lost $4.67 billion this year – without the tax thing, so I'm thinking that Sony might not be so badly off. The scale of the tax item is something like 300 billion yen as Sony were forecasting in February a net loss in FY2012 of only 220 billion yen. With the tax items the net loss recorded is 520 billion yen.
::blinks::
Lots of zeros in those numbers.
I love their TV's.
I wish I could afford one of their TVs.
i really hope $ony does not neglect their TVs!
yea there getting their a$$ kicked the past few years, but thats simply because their TVs have been CRAP!
and ridiculously overpriced!
they stopped making them in Japan and switched to try cut costs and that severely compromised the quality!
yet they were just as expensive as they were years ago when they were built in Japan with much better quality!
$ony can make a huge profit in TVs if they go back to what they use to be doing and make all their TVs in Japan with the famous quality they use to be known for!
also bring back the XBR range, i cant believe they got rid of it, its a massive brand name!
id be like calling the next playstation not playstation but something else.
when people go looking for a top of the range $ony TV they go looking for XBR and they just got rid of it!
now their top of the range is LX900, what the hell is LX?
seriously $ony why would you scrap such a well known famous brand name!?
gone is the famous synonimus clear plastic border around their top of the range series, every XBR had it!
stupidest move $ony has made since they paused 8 days and the getaway 3 in favour for eyepet!!!!!!!
in short $ony can go back to making a massive profit of their TVs, and again be top of the TV manufacture but they have to stop being so god dam tight a$$ed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!