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Buy a PlayStation 3 and Sink Sony
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Sep 25, 2006 10:00 AM
from the there-be-sharks-in-them-there-seas dept.
from the there-be-sharks-in-them-there-seas dept.
sonnyweathers writes "There has never been a more perilous time for Sony than 2006. But if you think you can save the company by buying PlayStation 3 consoles, you're wrong. Analyst Evermore believes that selling 6 million PS3 consoles will make Sony a ripe target for takeover — perhaps even by Microsoft."
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they are sony minions I tell you! (Score:5, Funny)
"DON'T buy our console!"
Re:they are sony minions I tell you! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:they are sony minions I tell you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:they are sony minions I tell you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, on the other hand, MiniDisc was actually successful in Japan... so something has to be said about Sony's mindshare there.
Parent
Re:they are sony minions I tell you! (Score:5, Funny)
Ignoring the fact that, you know, the systems are made in Mexico.
Parent
What would Microsoft do with all that content? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What would Microsoft do with all that content? (Score:5, Interesting)
To say that I am
Imagine how awful things would be if MS owned a bunch of "traditional" content (besides software.. which has grown up with "piracy" and the market understands how to deal with it..and the providers have grown up figuring out how to stay alive inspite of it)
When one umbrella organization owns content and technology, the interests of one are going to suffer due to the other. Sony makes this plainly evident. I suspect that the content people at Sony are furious that the technology people haven't invented a remote "extort-money" button for the latest Sony-Style line of kitchen radios.. and the consumer electronics people are livid that they keep getting memos suggesting that they invent a TV that plays ONLY Sony Pictures movies from the content arm.
When I talk about stuff like the broadcast flag, etc at work, I can still posture the argument that it's not clear that we make money by playing well with that thing vs ignoring it or taking a more consumer friendly approach. If suddenly "we" benefited from crap like the broadcast flag, those arguments would be DOA.
(Just like slashdot - there is not a singular hive-mind mentality inside Microsoft, and it should be clear that not everyone is 100% thrilled with everything that gets MS's name attributed to it. I can only imagine that there are good engineers at Sony as well that are upset with what has happened to their company.. )
Parent
Re:What would Microsoft do with all that content? (Score:5, Funny)
Please come to my office at ONCE.
Bring a chair.
Steve.
Parent
Re:What would Microsoft do with all that content? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, my only 1:1 "interaction" with Ballmer was when he held the door for me at the entrance to the health-club most MSFT guys go to in Redmond. He had forgotten his health-club id card that morning. His money more or less built the whole place so I smirked as he explained who he was to the person working the card scanner. "Ballmer.. B-A-L-L-M-E-R..".
I can attest that when asked who he was, he did not shout "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!"
Parent
"Save Sony?" (Score:5, Interesting)
What do I have to do if I happen to like watching the company most actively pushing DRM on us flounder and collapse? How can I personally help to hasten that demise? Work a little harder? Be a little less greedy?
Actually, that's a strategy that could possibly save Sony -- abandon DRM loudly and publicly, and tout themselves as the Kings of Unrestricted Media. A big campaign of "We trust you to not steal our stuff, but Microsoft and Apple think you're thieves."
Hey, if they're going down the toilet anyway, try a little innovation! Work a little smarter, not harder.
Re:"Save Sony?" (Score:5, Informative)
"Our ideal," Kutaragi said, "is for consumers to think to themselves, 'OK, I'll work more hours and buy it.' We want people to feel that they want it, no matter what."
It was the article's author that summed it up as "Want a PS3? Work a little harder!"
Parent
Re:"Save Sony?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony is too big, and has an vested interest in too many areas. Thus they cannot serve only the consumer in any of their divisions. As long as we see movies with the word "Sony" in the opening credits, we can be certain that Sony hardware will embrace DRM to the fullest extent possible.
If Sony could have their way, the only media and hardware channel between the movies they produce and the consumer would be Betamax®, oops, I mean Memory Stick®, oops, I mean UMD®, oops I mean Blue-ray®. And if someone is reading this 5 years from now, insert whatever DRM infected crap they're currently pushing at the end of that sentence.
Dan East
Parent
Re:"Save Sony?" (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not an issue of cold facts, it's one of perception. Keep in mind that at this time Sony was widely loved for having produced the Walkman, which was 1979's version of the iPod. I'm not saying Sony went out to deliberately screw the people who adopted Betamax. Far from it, it's obvious that they wanted Betamax to dominate the market. But it didn't, and people felt like they had wasted a huge amount of money trusting their beloved Sony (feel free to adjust a $1000 price tag for a VCR for 25 years of inflation.) When they spent that money, they didn't know it was a gamble or that there was a chance they'd "lose" -- this was Sony!
Now, compound that disappointment with the rest of the restrictions and proprietary media that Sony's shoveled out the doors or supported ever since they entered the production side of the entertainment industry. ATRAC, the copy bit in DAT tapes, Macrovision, Memory Sticks, CSS, HDCP, (and the rootkit fiasco) and you can't help but notice a pattern of general contempt for their customers evolving over the years.
So if a pissed-off grumpy old guy wants to whine about getting burned by Betamax, let him. He's got tons of evidence on his side, even if the facts are slim.
(A lot of people who paid thousands of dollars for non-HDCP HDMI televisions a few years ago are about to enter that same ripped-off state, so look for a fresh crop of bitter young technophiles to adopt a similar attitude towards the makers of their plasma TVs.)
Parent
Re:"Save Sony?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about what you just said. "abandon DRM loudly and publicly." Go outside your home or office right now and run up to 10 people and ask them if they know what DRM means. Help them out even, let them know DRM stands for Digital RIghts Management but tell them nothing more. You'll be lucky to find one person who can tell you what DRM means. So how exactl would your suggestion help Sony again? And why is Apple so successful despite its use of DRM with iTunes?
Parent
Even better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Strange (Score:5, Insightful)
Dan East
Re:Strange (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of a generic fast-food restaurant. Imagine they have a "value menu" with the Stinkburger Deluxe for only $0.99, but it costs $2.99 to produce. Drinks, however are $2.50 and cost about $0.15 to produce. Similarly fries are $0.99 but cost only $0.10 to produce. The restaurant will go out of business if every customer enters, purchases one Stinkburger Deluxe, and leaves. But most people aren't satisfied just downing a Stinkburger, they want fries and a drink too. That's the idea here; it's called the "razor and blades business model [wikipedia.org]."
So if no one buys a PS3, Sony obviously won't produce six million. If people buy them and buy NO games, NO blu-ray discs, and NO accessories (extra controllers, etc.) then Sony will be in quite a bit of trouble.
Parent
Re:Strange (Score:4, Interesting)
Then, they're just a charity for people who need computer parts. What would stop this?
Parent
Re:Strange (Score:5, Insightful)
If Gamera the giant firebreathing space turtle lands on their offices, they'll bit in quite a bit of trouble too, and that's about as likely to happen.
Who the hell is going to buy a 600$ piece of electronic equipment out of spite with no intention of using it?
Parent
BREAKING NEWS (Score:5, Funny)
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 25, @10:00PM
from the could-things-get-any-worse dept.
An anonymous reader writes
Sony is going to have a lot of trouble withstanding an attack from Gamera, as not only does he possess great destructive power, but he is also a friend to all children.
Parent
Meh (Score:4, Interesting)
First, TFA suggests that MS could take over Sony's video game arm, not the whole company. Second, it pretty much assumes that MS would want it. Why exactly would MS need/want it? If Sony goes that in the hole over the PS3, meaning not only did they lose a ton of cash on the loss per sale, but also didn't make hardly anything in third-party licensing deals (something TFA seems to forget is the largest revenue driver for consoles these days), that would mean that the Wii60 combination dominated the market - all this after the PS3 sold 6 million units (see the faulty logic yet?). Both Sony and MS lost tons on sales of consoles with the Xbox and PS2, but more than made it up with first-party games, third-party licensing, and the like.
Stranger things have happened, but I don't see it. Microsoft itself is a prime takeover target with almost zero debt and huge cash reserves, but it's too big for an LBO (at least we think it is).
selling razorblades is nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)
There was the same talk about buying XBoxes just to "stick it to the man." Everyone who thinks they can hurt a company by vigorously buying their products, even if they were sold at a loss on the razorblade model, is deluding themselves.
First, they will crow that they're selling tons of units, which will look good to their management and drive forward their strategies, whether or not games are being sold at the same rate. Second, the base units just get cheaper to manufacture over their product lifetime, so at some point, you're thinking you are still shafting them while they take profits to the bank. Third, as I've said before, once you're talking about millions of customers, any possible "hurt" done by a few thousand boycotters or complainers is something a megacorporation can simply shrug off and ignore.
Kutaragi just doesn't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I know that if I want to purchase consumer goods that I need to work to earn money to be able to afford them. I have no problem with this, the problem I have is that Kutaragi's attitude is one of "The price is not our problem, the price is your problem, do something about it."
If you own a business, and your product is rejected by the market fot being too expensive, then you either deal with the lost sales or change your pricing structure. If you cannot do the former because it would hurt your bottom line, and you cannot do the latter because your have designed a product with a very high materials cost, then it's your problem, not that of your potential customers.
Economics 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
If we can find out who is making all the decisions it probably wont be hard to convince him that they aren't selling because they need to manufacture more units, maybe add a root kit to every box and recall the old ones.
Re:The Console Makers Hate Me (Score:5, Insightful)
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