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Games Entertainment

Sony Bets Its Future On PlayStation II Console? 330

Posted by Roblimo from the corporate-high-rollers dept.
max_cool writes "Sony has announced that it is splitting its stock in preparation for a strong PS2 release. This could make many people very wealthy or destroy the company. Daily Radar has a full report on Sony's strategy and why they think it will succeed."
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Sony Bets Its Future On PlayStation II Console More

Sony Bets Its Future On PlayStation II Console

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  • Playstation II: It's alive, it's on the stock market, and it wants revenge. Plug it into the internet and watch the fun. =)

    Anyone else think that marketing slogan "it's alive" is kinda silly? As /if/. Does it impliment genetic algos? No. Does it find patterns in things? Nope. Uhhh... can it reproduce? Well, kindof... if you consider the save game cartridges to be "passing it's genes on"...

    Okay, I'm done ranting now..

  • I'll take that bet; I plan on being one of the "makes a ton of money" people on this one.

    ----

  • I'm no financial Genius or anything, BUT...Usually a stock split helps companies even if they're not about to release a new product. Stock splits (as i understand) split the stocks (duh) so that more people can buy in. I think that this is a marketing ploy by sony to make more money (damn capitalist pigs).


    -Tim
  • Exactly. A stock split is generally considered a bullish attitude from the company. Regardless of the success of the PSX2, Sony will do absolutely fine.
    signature smigmature
  • If the stock market went by pure mathematics, then it wouldn't exist. :) Yes, the monetary value remains the same, but more people can buy into it, thus making the company seem like a wise move, so even more people buy into it, and so forth.

  • Risky? Hrm... (Score:4)

    by betaray ( 1268 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @03:49PM (#1404283) Homepage
    I don't understand why anyone would possibly think that this is a risky manuver other than because Sony told them it was. Stocks split all the time. Sony is currently weighing in at 270. Stocks constantly split as they approach the 300 range. This is an awesome marketing ploy if they can convince everyone that they are willing to bet the entire company on this new system. In reality however, if the PS2 flops, stock split or not, sony is still going to be in business. They are far too diversified to let one product destroy them.

  • No alternative? (Score:3)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @03:49PM (#1404284)
    Perhaps the most important reason that Sony has chosen to split its stock is that it has little alternative. The company is building its entire product line around the PlayStation2. If the console fails, Sony's entire market plan will be lost. The company has already thrown its dice on one roll in the PlayStation2, and this financial move is simply the final step that proves that Sony's entire future is based on the PlayStation2. It's all or nothing for the company now.

    If the PS2 is a runaway hit, the company will be in its best shape ever. If not...well, Sony's hoping they won't have to deal with that alternative.

    If not...then Sony better have one HELL of a backup strategy. The article is saying "Sony is hoping this stock split will be a success." HOPING? What kind of business practice is THAT? Sure, it's good business to take risks, but what if your risk turns into a Bad Move? Are you going to say "Oops" and pull the white sheet over the company's head? Not smart. Sony needs something to be able to recoup it's losses in the event of the PSX-2 being a flop.

    Sony, if I may make a suggestion.....Sell off your AIBO dogs at Cost + 20%. That way, you still make a decent profit, and we get AIBO dogs cheap. ;)

    (P.S.: Yeah, this looks like a huge move on Sony's part, but there are MANY divisions to that company. If the PSX-2 fails, it will hurt them badly, but it won't kill them.)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Good timing (Score:3)

    by Johan Jonasson ( 77338 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @03:50PM (#1404285)
    It's a gutsy move if there ever was one, but the timing is pretty good, not to say perfect. Just take a look at the competitors. Both the X-box and the Nintendo Dolphin are falling behind and won't be out until who knows when. There's a lot of money to be made if they put themselves on the market at the right time.

    However, they might meet some resistance from the Dreamcast. If that happens and the resitance is enough to shake Sony up a bit, then they are in
    dangerous waters with everything riding on a single product. This will be exiting to watch.

    - JoJo
  • Yeah, I agree. I read the article, and it makes it sound like splitting the stock is some kind of wild and crazy margin'ing technique. Stock splits simply make it easier for the average Joe to buy shares of the company. The market captialization for the company remains the same. The average lot people often buy when they purchase a specific stock is 100 shares: Sony (SNR) closed at 270 today, so it would take $27,000 to buy 100 shares, vs $13,500 if they do a 2 for 1 split. No big deal. Sony is a large company; I doubt *everything* rides on the PS2. I have a Sony TV, VCR, Satelite, DVD player, receiver, walkman... :) .02, Todd
  • I personally expect them to live quite happily on the playstation 2 for quite some time.

    Given the old playstation 1, (which is still selling quite nicely here in the UK despite its age and the advent of the dreamcast), is/was technically inferior to similar models.

    This underlines again the old adage that it is the games that makes the console, not the console.

    The best killer feature of this console is that it is riding off the success of its back-catalogue of games, by retaining backwards compatability.

    Oh, and the DVD thing is kind of good.

    I love my PSX, and I can't wait to get my hands on a PSX II. If only to get my bloody son of the PC....

  • Bullshit... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Splitting stocks is common. It is usually done whenever a stock reaches levels where it is no longer seen as easy to trade in, because the price is so high many people want to buy or sell odd lots.

    Sure, it may be risky to be seen as a penny stock, however, Sony Corporation is currently at about 270 USD, and a split at that level can hardly be seen as them betting their future.. I wouldn't even consider it taking a risk.

    Actually, 270 USD is quite high, and they might benefit from a stock split, even without further price increases.

    Somebody better research more before they make silly claims.

  • I haven't bought a game system since SNES was the thing to have. Just judging from the great reviews I've heard and its specs I'll be buying one though. That and it can run old PS games which will be cheap after this comes out will make it a great buy.

    --Ryan

  • Why this could be worse than better for Sony. (Score:3)

    by vitaflo ( 20507 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @03:55PM (#1404292) Homepage
    From the article:
    The Stock Market is Strong. After a market slump in the Far East, the time is right for a move like this. In the US and worldwide, tech stocks are generally moving upwards.

    Well, they were until today. While you can't base a trend on one or two days, there is legitimate fear (at least in the US) that the Feds will raise intrest rates, and that is affecting the stock market, and we can see that right now, with the NASDAQ falling like crazy today.

    Secondly, to know the future we must know history. No market leader in any game console generation has been able to take market lead in the following generation. Playstation 1 leads the current generation, can it lead the next as well? History is not on Sony's side.

    Thirdly, price. The .18 micron technology is hard to produce, and I've heard reports that Sony is having a hard time churning out enough chips. Tack on the fact that this thing will either be very expensive ($400+) or a HUGE money loser for Sony (which they will then hope to make up for with software profits) and it becomes a very sticky situation either way.

    Lastly, programming. Even if the thing sells like hotcakes, you need good games, and word on the street is that this thing is a bitch to program for. Final dev kits aren't even available to most developers, and those that have them site a steep learning curve for programming for multiple processors and the small amount of video memory present on the system. This could hinder game development by the smaller companies out there.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm all for PSX2 to succeed, as I think it's a phenominal piece of machinery, but for it to do so, Sony definitly has their work cut out for them.
  • First, I have to admit to a weakness for all things Sony -- just look in my living room (TV, VHS VCR, 8mm VCR, Receiver [2 of 'em], Cassette Deck, CD Player, CD Changer [300!!], Turntable, etc). But . . . I've resisted both the latest game consoles -- still smarting from the unfulfilled promise of the first two Nintendo systems; and DVDs -- had to wait for the DIVX fiasco to play out, among other things. In addition, I've never really figured out why I'd want a phone line next to the TV. But the PSX2 might be the system to push me over the edge. The combination of movies, games, and (more than likely) limited net.access in one box that isn't my PC is pretty appealing. So what's the projected price point?

  • I disagree. This is my opinion, and I'm not much of a gamer. The majority of "console gamers" that I've come across will buy the majority of sytems that come along. Me, well, I bought a playstation because I heard some good things about it, and alot of people I knew had it. I would buy a playstation 2 if it came out, for a few reasons:

    1. It's backwards compatible with old playstation games (as far as i know, if i'm wrong, let me know)
    2. Playstation has a wide variety of games available, games that interest me, not some fucking hedgehog or fat italian guy jumping around, but quality stuff, like tony hawk's pro skater.
    3. I don't have a 3, this is here because 3 looks better two, and adds meaningless content to this post.

    Bottom line, I'm pretty sure playstation 2 is going to sell like a mofo when it comes out, and this move is nowhere near as "gutsy" as people are making it out to be. Sony makes a whole hell of alot of stuff, and it survived quite well before playstation even came out.
  • I disagree. This is my opinion, and I'm not much of a gamer. The majority of "console gamers" that I've come across will buy the majority of sytems that come along. Me, well, I bought a playstation because I heard some good things about it, and alot of people I knew had it. I would buy a playstation 2 if it came out, for a few reasons:

    1. It's backwards compatible with old playstation games (as far as i know, if i'm wrong, let me know)
    2. Playstation has a wide variety of games available, games that interest me, not some fucking hedgehog or fat italian guy jumping around, but quality stuff, like tony hawk's pro skater.
    3. I don't have a 3, this is here because 3 looks better two, and adds meaningless content to this post.

    Bottom line, I'm pretty sure playstation 2 is going to sell like a mofo when it comes out, and this move is nowhere near as "gutsy" as people are making it out to be. Sony makes a whole hell of alot of stuff, and it survived quite well before playstation even came out.
  • Maybe they will jump on the Linux Bandwagon (tm) and open source their stuff. ;)
  • sorry for the double post. moderate one down, or both if you'd like...

  • Face it. Sony is a company with many feet to stand on, and have been on the leading edge of consumer electronics since I-can't-remember-when. Does anybody think they would risk going totally overboard over just one of several hundredproducts.

    This makes me think that Sony also has something else, real big, up their sleeve that the general public is not aware of yet. What that could be? No idea whatsoever.

    The PS2, being the dvd-player, game console, webtop box reinvented into one box will for sure have it's impact, but cannot possibly alone be responsible for this move

    Just my $.02

  • Re:Splitteroo (Score:3)

    by Johan Jonasson ( 77338 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @03:58PM (#1404303)
    I'm no financial genius either, but yeah, basically a stock split puts twice as many stocks on the market. Each stock will be worth half as much, but the stockholders will own twice as much stock in the company.

    But I don't think the main reason is marketing. I think that when they lanch a product such as this they want to free up some stocks that can increase in value. Or at least, they're hoping they will. Betting it all on one card...

    - JoJo
  • The Japanese stock market is in the beginning of (hopefully) a boom. Sony is a huge international brand and it is a very widely held stock. They sell a large number of diverse products. Playstation sales are not going to make or break this stock. This looks like a bunch of over dramatic hype to me.

    Disclaimer: I own zero shares of Sony.

  • Understanding the Stock Market... (Score:4)

    by Super_Frosty ( 82232 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @04:00PM (#1404305)
    It's obvious to me that Roblimo has a zero percent understanding of the stockmarket. The reason a stock splits is to lower the price of the stock so that people can afford to buy more shares. This happens approximately EVERY DAY in the stock market. Yahoo! has split about fifty times. Splitting a stock just drives up the price of a stock again by making it more attractive to low budget investors. It's not risky at all, and it certainly can't destroy a company. Notice how the article didn't explain how a split could possibly be risky! It basically raved about Sony. Sony is just making it easier to buy shares, and the hype is giving the split a lot of attention.

    I guess Roblimo must've bought into Sony hyper hook, line, and sinker.

  • supid (Score:1)

    by nas ( 29935 )
    I'm no expert but this article sounds pretty stupid to me. First of all, a stock split does not change anything. It is an accounting change. All other effects are purely in the heads of the investors. Secondly, AFAIK, Sony is a large company with many different products. They are not going to live or die on the success of the playstation2.

    Just my 1.3 Canadian cents.

  • Sigh. (Score:4)

    by spiral ( 42436 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @04:01PM (#1404307)
    Chances are this has absolutely nothing to do with the PSII. A quick bit of research [yahoo.com] shows that Sony stock has been climbing steadily from ~65 to ~270 over the past year (over 300% gain...wish I owned some!).


    $270 per share is generally considered "high", so the stock is split. Theoretically a split has no effect on the company's value (2*135 == 1*270); in practice this tactic increases the volume of trading and usually creates the illusion of increased value.

  • I've gotta think this is no problem. As I hear it, dreamcast isn't doing that great, nintendo 64 sales have basically stopped, and the playstation 2 has some very nice features. It uses DVD disks, but can play older playstation 1 cd's, is internet ready, and can play DVD movies too. All this, plus a huge number of games for playstation 1 that will almost certainly be improved for playstation 2, and I think you've got a hit on your hands. What I want to know is why will the Japanese get their version in March and the US won't until September or so?
  • Considering sony's current position, and the continued success of an out-dated system (the PSX being dwarfed in the technology sector by dreamcast and nintendo), it is a very intelligent bet that sony is making. When you consider that the PSX continually fills (on average) half of the ten titles on the weeks best selling list. Add this to best selling developers like Square, amazing sales and a loyal fan base, it doesn't take genious to see that the PSX 2 will sell. It may not sell as well as the PSX, but it will sell. And *if* Sony is able to interest even more top developers (ie: if it could grab RARE away from nintendo), the PSX 2 will sell big.

    Finally, Sony has another thing going for it -- nintendo's mistakes. For all of my life i have been a nintendo loyal (owning every system, save the virtual-boy that they have made). As you might expect i purchased the N64 when it first came out and was sadly dissapointed: one controller, no games, no memory packs; this wasn't the Nintendo i grew up with.

    Don't get me wrong, the 64 has great games...just not enough of them. The 64 has been, for me, enough of a dissapointment to cause me to consider switching to the PSX 2 when it comes out (having not seen a single *good* rpg on the 64 -- Zelda was good, but still -- it simply isn't enough)!

    I can say, finances affording, i plan to buy sony stock.

  • I've been holding off on a DVD purchase so I could get it all at once -- Sony home theatre system, big ass tv, and even a new VCR. There was an article in wired magazine about the Sony strategy a while ago. Maybe this is the start of the convergence we hear so much about. Screw Webtv... Oh and for the kiddies, they develop on Linux.
  • Interest rates in the US need to be hiked - and the market knows that. They don't see it as bad policy, they're all simply following suit. Interest rate fears lower the markets. They always have. The bears will soon be gone from CNNfn, and CNBC, and the markets will soon recover from these jitters. Let's not forget that the Nasdaq is higher than it was last week.
    signature smigmature
  • It's obvious to me that Roblimo has a zero percent understanding of the stockmarket. The reason a stock splits is to lower the price of the stock
    so that people can afford to buy more shares. This happens approximately EVERY DAY in the stock market. Yahoo! has split about fifty times.
    Splitting a stock just drives up the price of a stock again by making it more attractive to low budget investors. It's not risky at all, and it certainly can't destroy a company. Notice how the article didn't explain how a split could possibly be risky! It basically raved about Sony. Sony is just making it easier to buy shares, and the hype is giving the split a lot of attention.

    I guess Roblimo must've bought into Sony hyper hook, line, and sinker.
  • How could one product make or break such a huge company? Sony owns consumer electronics. There would hardly be a dent if they didn't sell a single PS2
  • First of all, a stock split does not change anything. It is an accounting change.
    Not quite. A stock split halve's the price of new stock, making it more attractive to first time buyers of their stock. Psychologically, people are more likely to buy stock at 150 than at 300.
  • Splitting the stock isn't really such a big deal with the value in the high 200's, but I would certainly seriously consider buying in to Sony at the moment. Don't be fooled for a moment in to thinking that the Playstation 2 could bring down the entire Sony Corporation, but I do appreciate it will play a significant factor in their stock value of the next year or so.

    Many consoles seem to have come and gone from the old Atari's to the Dreamcast, but Sony seem to have managed to convince enough people that Games Console = Playstation. You only have to take a look at the shops just before Christmas where the original Playstation was outselling even the Dreamcast in the UK!! Sony have got the best market position in this area at the moment, mostly because the Playstation Brand is recognized, even (and particularly) by non-gamers.

    With the market profile the Playstations has at the moment, I believe many people will subconciously wander in to the "Buy Sony" ethos, in much the same way your average boss used to think "Buy IBM" or your end user "Buy the latest version of Windows". Sure, PS2 is going to appeal to the serious hardcore gamer, but it's going to be instantly recognizable to the occasional user, and the buy,play,forget market who are undoubtedly going to represent the vast majority of sales.

    As for me, should be perfect timing - I'll have just about completed all 4 Tombraiders on my trusted old Playstation just in time to upgrade it :-) Oh, and get my broker to book me some Sony stock

    I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member

  • PS2 (Score:1)

    by Sarek ( 20380 )
    I can't wait to get the playstation 2, know alot of other people that feel the same way. I think they're on the right track splitting
  • Regardless of the article's view of Sony's stock split as a 'risk,' it's gonna be interesting to see whether PS2 sees the success Sony is hoping for. Despite the fact it's laden with features, the thing is expensive. And while backward compatibility is a good thing, there's always that risk of people being content with what they already have. Will the kid who got Playstation this Christmas be ready to move on so soon? More appropriately, will his parents?)

    I envision a slow start at best, although I intend to pick up mine first chance I get. :)

    -hal-

  • Splitting increases the liquidity of your stock. In the US, stocks trade in 1/16ths of a dollar ("Teenies") and thus if a stock moves at all it has to move by at least 1/16th of a dollar. This is not a trivial issue when the numbers get large.

    -cwk.

  • I'm no stock analyst by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd say that this move isn't as "bold" a bet as the article predicts. First off, Sony already has a huge base of support in the original playstation from folx like myself, who are waiting for the PS2 rather than jump the gun on the likes of a dreamcast. Secondly, Sony is a huge multinational conglomerate with interests all over the map. While the move to console type-systems and more integrated components is a step forward, it's not going to keep my discman from working. And finally, the PS2 is really gonna rock, imho. I think that this is a Good Thing. Sony doesn't make the very best components in the world, but they do have a tendency to serve the upper crust of the hoi poloi. I just hope and pray that they STANDARDIZE on something, so that all of these information "consoles" of the future can communicate.
  • Playstation II is far from the only product SONY is betting on. Their presence in the home entertainment industry is pretty solid. I also doubt that the PSX2 will be a failure, as it should be backwards compatable, double as a DVD player, etc... This type of integration may prove to be the future of consumer electronics.

  • Agree: It's bullshit (Score:4)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @04:09PM (#1404326) Journal
    I have no idea where the author of the article got the idea that there was something risky about the stock split - unless it was some hype from the marketing department of Sony.

    Stocks are split when they get too expensive, so that smaller players can buy in more easily

    At $270 it costs $27,000 to buy a hundred shares - the "round lot" quantum on the markets, below which you are typically penalized with higher transaction fees. Splitting, say, 3-for-1 brings the stock price down to 90 and the ante down to $9,000. Many more players can buy in. Typically they do, and bid the price up a bit, which is why stocks typically climb just after a split. (And larger players take advantage of that by buying on news that the stock is going to split - which also bids the stock up a little before the split.)

    $270 is way high, so a split is overdue. The split will almost certainly result in the stock going up. If the marketing droids can convince some fools that there is some risk to this and doing it is "daring", said fools will interpret the rise as a success for Sony.

    As for any real risk from the move, the only one I can see is a psychological hit if the stock ends up trading at a very low number. But if they don't split it beyond 3-for-1 they'd have to lose half their value after the split to drop below even 45. If the stock value drops by 50% they have some other problem - big time.

  • Historically, the makers of game consoles lose a lot of money at first as the hardware is often more expensive then they charge for it. Console companies usually make their money in the following years selling games.
    The PlayStation 2 is theoretically more powerful than the SGI workstations that created the original Toy Story! The custom chip in the console costs about $260 alone, and the console is expected to retail at $300 or so. They would likely have to sell it for $400 or even $500 to break even! So, it seems a bit weird that they would risk everything when they know that they were going to lose money. Or am I stupid and wrong?

    David
    When you choke a smurf what color does it turn?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I've always held the opinion that the real winner of the console wars will be the one that first releases an openly programmable console. Sure, you'd lose on charging for the dev kits, but your hardware sales would increase sharply (think PalmPilot).

    Take the C64 for example.. It enjoyed long-lived success because it had some neat commercial software, and the hackers made it into a great machine. Almost everybody and their cat had one. There are still some in service today.

    I think this is Microsoft's plan for their "X-Box", except you'd be tied down with Microsoft compilers and, of course, Windows.

    If someone like Sony, Sega, or Nintendo released a programmable console, it'd be awesome, crush the competition, and live forever.

    Dreamcast tidbits [min.net]

  • Give me a break!

    Since when does preforming a stock split when the stock is trading for 200$ plus set a company up for ruin? All they have done is doubled the number of stocks out there.

    I day trade. It make no differenct to me if I have 200 shares of a 100$ company or 100 shares of a 200$ company. I have invested 20000$ into each of them and I will make the same amount of money when the stock doubles.

    This is all FUD.

    Quack
  • NASDAQ's only down like 5% after a 80% run-up. If anything, this is a good time to buy under-valued tech stocks. :)

    As always, don't be a nimrod and do that technical analysis or buy with momentum, analyze your prospective stock picks and think of the long term. The most embarrasing thing I can think of is when someone says "What do you think of XYZABC stock?" and I ask "What do they do?"... "I don't know... someone told me about them..." Ick. The stock market is not a game. :)

    As for Sony, I don't know that anyone who's tried to make their game console a kitchen sink device (Internet, games, computer, CD-player, etc.) has ever suceeded. People will probably always think of the consoles as a game playing device and not much more. When was the last time you played a CD (music) on your Sony PlayStation? I doubt anyone does it that often-- I didn't even know that the Playstation could do it until I RTFM. :)

    I could be wrong. Some friends at work are waiting for PSX2 so they can save money on buying a DVD player. :) I'm happy enough with my dedicated DVD player. I feel that they're going to be a big money loser if they don't hit the magical sub-$300 mark for an A/V component. They might do well to consider embedding a Tivo in there. :)

    I actually only own like 2 PSX games (I'm a newcomer to the thing, I only got my PSX like a month ago. There has to be a tremendous category killer or new category to inspire me to consider buying any more games for it.

    I own more Sony crap than anything else electronic I think. Its usually very good stuff.
    _______
    computers://use.urls. People use Networds.

  • They closed today at 270. Splitting to 135 (or whatever it ends up being) doesn't seem such a risk for a company as diverse as Sony. It's not like they don't make stereos or tvs or anything else to bring in revenue.
  • Stock splits aren't always necessarily always helpful. True, they allow a larger number of people to buy in that wouldn't otherwise, but it's by no means a guarantee that the stock will continue to go up. Sometimes the stock will actually fall (it happened to disney) after a split.
    I'll go ahead and say that the inner workings of the stock market are a complete mystery to me. So some over paid analyst on wall street THINKS the company might or might not do well in the coming quarter--this is supposed to be a measure of actual worth? my dad thinks i might do well in my classes this semester--should i get a 4.0?

  • I would believe this horsecrap about Sony having so much at risk with PSX2 if we were talking about any other company.

    Sony has long, well-established, profitable product lines in many different markets.

    Sony's brand is among the best in the world in nearly every market it is in.

    Sony is stable, with a long history of success, vision, and innovation.

    If PSX2 fails, it will hurt. But there will be profits from Walkmen, camcorders, PCs, industrial products, televisions, and stereos to fill the gap.

    Worst case, Sony misses an opportunity to be the first one through the door in home electronics convergence. Big f$%^@# deal. They'll have more than enough money to do it right thee second time.

    If I could put money on Sony's bet, I would. Sounds pretty safe to me. Now, as to whether I want a game console as the center of my home nervous system...

    -cwk.

  • I don't see how the psx2 can get any better than psx =) cept the fact they took off the i/o port on new psx , I called sony and asked why and they said "people were making 'non-licensed' things for the psx and that it can screw up the psx" now is it me or has anyone else had trouble with "pro action reply" with burnt games ? =)
  • Has anyone else seen that that article makes almost no criticism if the split? It seems to be taken for given that the P2 wil lbe a runaway success, etc. IMO, the P two will be an interesting platform, but it will have to have the support of the gamemakers for it to do anything at all. Will the independant guys support this platform? It's a given that the technology is there, but considering the quality of many games produced, I'm not sure if it will provide a vast improvement over existing games. (Then again, many people are open-jawed, GrApHiCz RuLeZ idiots, so I'm buying stock.)
  • Give me a break. Sony has so many products
    and technologies (including licensing on the
    CD format, lots of other electronic gadgets,
    etc.) plus they have a very large and
    successful record label and a successful
    theater chain, do you honestly think that
    something with the comparitively low sales
    volume is going to destroy them?
  • Give me a break. Sony has so many products and technologies (including licensing on the CD format, lots of other electronic gadgets, etc.) plus they have a very large and successful record label and a successful theater chain, do you honestly think that something with the comparitively low sales volume is going to destroy them?
  • What's all the hype about PlayStation II anyways? I think I'd rather invest in a good GeForce 256 for Gaming needs .(note there are no X drivers for it :| ) But for gaming it would do well. Is the PSII 128 bit?
  • I don't see the connection alluded to by this article between a stock split and the success of the PSII.
    If I have 100 shares of Sony @$100 each, and it splits 2-for-1, I then have 200 shares@$50 each.
    Both before and after I have the exact same equity in the company, and the only difference is how investors view a $50 stock as opposed to a $100 stock.
    I can see that given this investor mindset a $50 stock is more likely to be dramatically affected by the success/failure of PSII.
    But in either case, the publicly owned shares of Sony are already owned by someone other than Sony, so how does it help/hurt the company? Anyone care to explain?

  • A stock split is not done in anticipation of a product launch. A stock split is done for the reason of inviting more investment capital into the fray of the company. (It's entirely Sony's decision what to put in their press release - but they should not entirely assume that their stock price will gain due to a product that could possibly not have the rosy release they predict)

    For instance, let's say a company's stock costs $500 USD. So, I'd have to pay $500 to get one share of the company.

    Now scratch that and say that the company split the stock at $500 with a 2 for 1 split. The stock halves, and everyone gets twice their shares. Now let's say I buy the stock - two shares at $250 a share. It was easier for me to buy the latter way rather than the former way because I had more options as to how much I want to invest in this company.

    The point is that you can't buy 1/2 of a share of a company. A split makes it easier for people to invest in a company.

    Now, on to my second point. Sony announced that it would center its business around the Playstation long ago - July, 1999. The idea is that with the huge boom that Playstation experienced, Sony realized that there is a market in "set-top boxes." However, the set-top boxes have to do more than surf the web - they have to be able to entertain and be usable by all types of people.

    Hence, Sony actually restructured the company to be centered around the idea that the future's money will be made through connectivity. Sony appliances will be able to talk to each other, and be easier to use. Imagine just hitting the "web" button on a Playstation console and your TV automatically switches to the proper mode, video resolution, etc.

    That's what Sony is talking about and they've already made numerous claims as to making Playstation the console that everyone will use.
  • Yeah - the markets got hammered today. What bothers me is this idea that Sony's future is supposed to revolve around the PS2. I just read this article [yahoo.com] forecasting a decline in the stock since it is so high and prices in gaming and consumer electronics are "weak."

    I was thinking about getting some Sony stock, but now I guess I'll sink that into Linuxcare. ;)

  • Well (Score:1)

    by Inkey$ ( 115300 )
    Well,the original wasn't bad (as far as consoles go),and from what ive heard the PS2 will be sporting some pretty mean hardware.Of course,you cant do anything on a console compared to a computer,gaming included,but noone wants to take the time to learn a computer,so everybody gets consolitis,and the few people that know computers are looked down upon.I wouldn't trade my computer for any console,ever.Sure,you can play some games,but if you ever want to do anything else,your screwed.
  • I dont know but the release notes for 3.9.17 say they added support for the GeForce. That might just mean 2D or it could mean some DRI stuff, its not very clear.

  • Re:First Haiku (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Your haikus suck ass
    Do Rob and Hemos pay you?
    Fucking /. drone
  • Yup.. Sony is absolutely dependant on the playstation. Their tv, vcr, minidisc, stereo, camcorder, dvd, professional equipment, etc. production will not weigh in at all. And now that their stock is only half(there could be some wierd ratios besides half too) the value it was before it seems that sony is doomed if playstation won't make it big.

    So what if sonys stock is split(maybe in half). It just means that the prices for a piece of sony are more affordable. No this does not free any stock for people to buy it just doubles the amount of sony's stock while maintaining the same total value. What's the difference between selling 10000 shares for half the price or 5000 for normal. Absolutely nothing.

    More likely the split will be a boost for sonys share-value. People generally have a tendency of being reluctant to buy stuff at high prices. After the split sony seems cheaper and traders will have an easier time offering higher prices for it(not that they don't base their decisions on the big picture anyway).

    And this article actually goes to mention yahoo and amazon as examples of when to split stock. Those are the companies with the most "air" in their stock prices anyway. Most of the value for yahoo or amazon is based on future expectations and nothing concrete such as sonys production facilities etc. Stock price should, after all, mostly be based on the actual value of company.

    The site hosting the article will be in my proxys access control list to save bandwith from bullshit.

  • "the company put its future almost entirely in the hands of the PlayStation2"
    wtf? Isnt Sony a powerhouse in other consumer electronics areas?
    I would think so.
  • Note that it wasn't Roblimo that wrote in with the story, it was a Slashdot reader. While you might possibly nail Rob on neglecting to edit the story so that it is 100% factual, is that really the right thing to do?
  • Isn't saying that a stock split might destroy a company going a little to far? Sure, it might cause some harm, but a big fish like Sony isn't dying anytime soon.

    Besides, Playstation2 isn't a bad thing to take a risk on. I've been slobering over the specs for some time now. Going to pick one up for myself once its released.
  • Maybe a $5000 dollar PC if you spent $300 on the box and $4700 on the mouse...
  • I really don't get this report. It is well known that (logically) stock splits have little real impact, but keep stock prices at a psychologically attractive level. The perpetual hype over stock splits adds a "momentum" angle but it hardly seems that the added volatility would take down Sony. It isn't like this is petfood.com, or something.

    I'm not sure we should be reading financial reporting from a gaming site. What is next? "Alan Greenspans get fragged, Clan Fed fights back with an interest rate boost!"

    tj
  • I actually think this might be a scheme for them to raise a little more operating capital with very little effort on their part. From what I understand, they have been having problems manufacturing the emotion engine. By splitting their stock and making the entry point for new buyers a little more obtainable, they may raise a large sum of money ( not that they're ever hurting for cash ) that they can funnel into their manufacturing.

    OB Disclaimer: I am not a market analyst.

    Just my $.02.....
  • Usually Stock splits are to make the stock more attractive to the buyer. Buying 10 shares of Ebay at $400 a share doesn't sound as good as buying 40 shares of Ebay at $100.

    Normally on average a companies stock falls %2 in the first 3 months after the split. Sony is playing its cards right by releasing its new groundbreaking product when they split their stock so they can avoid the %2 split fizzle syndrome.
  • Correcting you:

    "a stock split puts twice as many shares on the market. Each share will be worth half as much, but the shareholders will own twice as many shares in the company."

    Sorry - but there is a difference.
  • I've put off buying a DVD player as well as movies until I get my PS2. I think there are a lot of people just like me out there.

    Although I must agree that I don't listen to audio cd's on my PSX right now. And when I found out I could I didn't do it for very long; however, when I was on vacation my roommate used my PSX as a cd player almost everyday, so much so that my PSX had some problems loading games for a while. (it's all fine now, kind of weird though).

    I think the point that you're missing is the relationship between playing movies vs. playing video games is alot closer than you might imagine. A lot of games now a days are really just walk through movies, and your PSX is required to be attached to your TV anyway, so you're not going to watch a movie and play on your PSX at the same time anyways.

    On the other hand, the CD player just isn't related closely enough. Sure, I might not want to watch TV and listen to music at the same time. But my CD player isn't connected to my TV to start with - in fact it's in a completely different room...

    As far as kitchen sinking, I think Sony is making some huge mistakes, the PS2 will ship sans modem - that means No internet, and will continue to ship without defaulting to 4 control pad inputs. Which is a huge mistake that the N64 capitalized on. Both of these moves show that Sony is marketing this machine to the single player market (Anyone want to watch me play this movie by myself?), and not moving into the multi-player market that Dreamcast is launching itself into.

    The biggest regret I have for buying a PSX over N64 is that there are many more games for the N64 that support 4 players. Whereas the PSX is hurting in that category, because game manufacturers know that PSX owners don't buy the 4 player adapter because they think of it as an "Add-on" as opposed to something they're "Missing". If you didn't get that try this analogy: The 4 player adapter is to the PSX as the Light Gun is to the N64. Not a lot of Games that let you use a Light gun on the N64... Not a lot of 4 player games on the PSX.

    Here's hoping that the PS2 will have a modem and 4 controller inputs standard.
    Joseph Elwell.
  • The article mentions a DVD player as well as the now-standard Web browser. I have held off on buying a DVD player, and this might be a good excuse for me to make the jump. I have ignored the console market since my Nintendo (still have it) but they seem to be doing more and more neat stuff. I am a sucker for multi-function devices. Give me a toaster that answers the phone and I will probobaly buy that, too.
  • Okay... lemme break it down this way...

    You buy 1 share of RHAT at $100 a share

    if it goes up 1 point it goes up %1

    you make $1

    now lets say that RHAT splits, now you have 2 shares at $50

    if it goes up 1 point it goes up %2

    You make $2
  • So sony is betting their entire company on this. That's just silly. For one thing, stock price really doesn't effect a company all that much. As much as everyone would like you to think otherwise, stock doesn't really effect the company that much.

    The other problem with them "betting the company" is the console market is just not *that big*. I don't think they could do that if they wanted to. So if somehow, this console thing screws up, all their other divisions (cameras, laptops, home audio equipment, dvd players, and dozens of other things) are not going to be able to support the company?

    This is simply the company trying to make money.

    I am looking forward to the psx2 however.:)

  • Sony is a very diverse and mind-boggling-sized company. It's a little sensational to say its future is based solely on the sucess of a game console.
  • Numerically, yes, the shareholder will own twice the stock. Percentage-wise, no real change.
  • Rob might've said, "Gosh, this is just pro-Sony hype, and hardly qualifies as news." An article about the PS II itself would be interesti, but this is just a propaganda piece/ report of a stock split. Is /. going to report EVERY split that happens in the tech sector?
  • Yahoo! has split about fifty times.
    Really? That mean that that single, ten-dollar share you bought is now worth something up in the petabuck range! That's just awesome. Time to buy out Bill Gates.
  • The PSX2 is not only a console, it is a DVD player. I'd pay $400 for a high quality console and a sony DVD player built into one.
  • After going through some research, I would personally not buy any Sony stock. The price has jumped a tremendous amount over the last year from 65 to a high of nearly 300 and is currently near that high. Granted, some consumer electronic stocks has gone nuts, but Sony's sales and income growth were miserable this last year. The price to earnings ratio of 90 puts it up there with some of the more wacked internet stocks. The stock split is definately an attempt to gain more capital, not unreasonable.

    I did find out that Playstation by itself accounted for about 10% of Sony's income. That's pretty damn impressive. And Sony is betting the farm on PS2 to succeed. The next hurdle is seeing what happens in March 2000, when it's released in Japan.

    Is Sony stock worth the money? Probably not. I can find other companies to invest money into with better, more solid future returns. Just my opinion. Please don't pelt me with stones if Sony stock goes crazy this next year.

    -S. Louie
  • As to your question about the PSII being 128-bit, that depends on what part you are looking at. If you look at the bus to video memory its 2,560 bits wide. Internaly the system runs a 128-bit databus at 150 MHz though. The superscalar core runs at twice that speed (300 MHz) and its got gobs and gobs of other computational units. Everything from a MPEG macro-block decoder to multiple vector units (Think SIMD, that is G4, MMX, KNI...) This information comes from Microprocessor Report, April 19, 1999.

    CPU Core: MIPS III, MIPS IV subset + 128b SIMD
    two 64-bit integer units and an FPU.
    16K of scratch RAM, this is cool because its basicaly cache that you get to hand optimize.

    The real power shows up in the Vector units Unit 0 has 4 FMAC's (Floating point multiply accumulate, a += b * c), and one Divider. The second Vector unit has 5 FMACS and 2 Dividers.

    And of course everyone loves the 3.2 GBytes/second main memory bandwidth, and the 48 GBytes/second video memory bandwidth (remember those 2,560 bits of video memory data bus).

    There are plenty more fun facts to be had, but I have gone way past your question...
  • One of the main PR points that I have seen for the PS2 is that it will be backwards compatable with the original PSX. I don't know about Nitendo but I remember that Sega's Megadrive System (I believe in the US it was called Genisus) had the ability through a special adapter cartridge of playing all the previous Master System games. AFAIK these adapters were a flop.

    For the launch of the PS2 most developers are not going to release PS2 versions of their new games, focusing on the PSX standard so as to capture both markets. This reminds me almost of the Commodore [commodore.org] C=64 and C=128D (Remember these things before the Amigas). Consumers thought why buy the 128 when everything is written for the 64?

    Will the new PS suffer the same fate?
  • This is a pointless article by someone who doesn't have a clue about the market. Example:

    There are 500 shares of sony stock @ $10.

    If the stock splits then there are 1000 shares @ $5.

    Either way, there is $5000 worth of sony stock in the market. If the first goes up by $2 to $12, then the second would go up to $6 - same percentage change - that's all the market cares about.

    Obviously, this guy has never heard of market capitalization... (the total value of all the stock (not all stocks, just all the stock of a company) in the market at market price)

    On a less mathematical level, but more relevant to reality:

    Announcing a stock split usually indicates that a company expects large growth in the future - often people buy into stocks that split for this reason. (Please note that I do not own any sony stock, nor do I intend to purchase any in the near future) But announcing a split and not going anywhere is equally possible, if only to allow people to buy smaller amounts of your stock - if minimum purchase is 100 shares and the stock is at $300, a split might be wise to help out small investors.

    Cyano
  • There's so much wrong with this article it's hard to know where to start:
    This financial maneuver is a risky move that's generally taken by companies with massive upward momentum such as Yahoo.com, Amazon.com and, more recently, Qualcomm. A stock split is a responsible move which almost every successful publicially traded company makes. It is practically mandatory for a company with rising stock prices. The only exception would be Berkshires Hathaway, which has never split and now costs over $50,000 for a single share of stock. As Sony jumps into this stock split, its financial momentum is not as strong as the others, While I haven't looked over any filings for Sony, Yahoo, Amazon or Qualcomm, I can guarantee you that Sony has better "financial momentum" than all of those companies put together. They might have bright future prospects and stock price momentum, but Sony is a proven, succesfull, profitable, diversified company unlike the others. Perhaps the most important reason that Sony has chosen to split its stock is that it has little alternative. Well sure, it has to split, but that has nothing to do with a product launch. The stock is simply too expensive. The rest of the article talks about why the PlayStation 2 will be successful, but that's not really relevant to the issue of a stock split. I'm not familiar with Daily Radar, but they should stick to stuff they understand or learn a little about equity markets before posting garbage like this.
  • The PS2 looks like a good product to me, however I wonder if it will foster a whole new breed of ignorant users who will find their way to Usenet. (Actually my news server hasn't given me any new messages for a week, so I can't complain right now!)

    It seems that every time we get accustomed to a new lowest common denominator on the Internet, we manage to have a "improved" one.

    I think that the online PS2 community will be the largest community of wannabe hackers, warez fiends and crossposters ever. The PS2 is designed to appeal to an age group which is rapidly losing its ability to communicate intelligently or have a attention span longer than 30 seconds.
  • I know the development platform was running linux, but I'd love to know if the final platform will be running linux on the bottom. That would be a great win for linux. (would this then be - the first port of linux to a 128 bit CPU! that would be Kool!)

    The spec's looked great at the game developers con [gdconf.com] 1999. The demo platform was looking good at E3 99. (they were using laptops with RH to monitor and reset the development platforms on the show floor.)
    (FYI - word was that they didn't have enough physicists and programmers to fully take advantage of the specs sony published...I wonder how close the end PS II will be to the first published specs)

    I wonder if they are still charging royalties per each GAME made. (normally console makers sell the cousoles near cost (maybe even a loss?) and make it up on the royalties. (est $8-9 USD per CD, or $23-25 USD per N64 Cartridge.) hmmm - how would they handle royalties on a Java VM CD? (assuming you could then download play tons of non-graphic intensive java games without paying additional royalties.)

  • Really? That mean that that single, ten-dollar share you bought is now worth something up in the petabuck range

    I'm assuming that mode is not on in the original posting, so...

    Close - that $10 share was split into two $5 shares which in turn were split resulting in four $2.50 shares, etc. Of course, that assumes that the stock price hasn't changed between splits.

    Given price increases between splits, you wind up with a wonderful increase in quantity AND total amount. Following a split, many shares (in today's tech-happy-rollercoaster market) quickly climb to close to their original value.

    So yeah, one original Yahoo share @ $10 has now gone into warp speed and represents about 50 shares, each worth $443 - about $22,000 - hmmm - sure beats inflation...

    As to buying our Bill G, well, we have a little while to go yet :)
  • Let's look at the long term view here. I'm going to rate, purely subjectively and mostly guessing, where I believe the Dreamcast and PS2 are going to be at for Christmas 2000 (based on what we know so far).

    Let's say, strategy-game style, that there are four resources you want a game system to have:

    • Base: Established base of consumers, retailers and games
    • Tech: Best display of technology
    • Value: Best value
    • Games: Most desirable games

    Dreamcast

    • Base: 70%, very good for a new machine.
    • Tech: 75%, still nice, but the PS2 rocks it.
    • Value: 85%, internet gaming at a $150 price point.
    • Games: 75%, many games, some gems, but still not enough depth.

    PlayStation2

    • Base: 65%, available everywhere but still mostly for early adopters.
    • Tech: 95%, an amazing machine (amazingness varies from game to game).
    • Value: 60%, did it really need 1394 and USB ports?
    • Games: 75%, several very hot games plus the vaguely exciting prospect of visually enhanced original PS games.

    Result: Good start for Sony. Dreamcast holds firm.

    Now let's skip forward a year to Christmas 2001 and include Nintendo's next system (ignoring any Microsoft entry):

    Dreamcast

    • Base: 80%, widespread but not ubiquitous.
    • Tech: 65%, hard-working but humbled.
    • Value: 90%, not the coolest system, but hey, it's less than $100!
    • Games: 65%, loads of cult favorites but also lots of lackluster PC and PS2 ports.

    PlayStation2

    • Base: 75%, quickly catching up with the Dreamcast.
    • Tech: 90%, great second generation.
    • Value: 70%, good value for what you get.
    • Games: 85%, Sony knows how to come through with the goods.

    Dolphin

    • Base: 60%, another skimpy launch but consumers won't care much.
    • Tech: 90%, has more straightaway power but the PS2 does better in the curves.
    • Value: 75%, the big N knows how to deliver on cost.
    • Games: 75%, not many but Nintendo's own entries are amazing.

    Result: Wild-and-crazy three-way brawl. The Dolphin has a debut that takes the luster off of the PS2. The PS2 establishes itself. Dreamcast could end up either on top or on the bottom based on how well Sega puts together its software portfolio in this time.

    Anyone else out there want to venture their guess?

  • Trusting Slashdot Readers (Score:4)

    by Roblimo ( 357 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @05:39PM (#1404441) Homepage Journal
    Or I might just throw a link to the story out there so that all you mighty brains can pick it to pieces. I know as well as any other half-bright middle-aged American what a stock split does and doesn't mean, and I know that gaming products represent only a fraction of Sony's product line, but a news source that is read as near-gospel by many gamers reported Sony's stock split as a risky move, and took it as a vote of confidence in a game product.

    Enjoy the irony! And please note that many Slashdot readers have debunked that hype for those who *don't* know that a stock split is a ho-hum financial maneuver for companies whose share prices have put round lots (100 shares) out of reach of the very small-time investors who are most susceptible to hype.

    More and more, before posting a story like the one above, instead of adding my own words to it I find myself thinking, "Fifty others will say exactly what I would anyway, so why not let them?"

    Slashdot has some amazingly bright readers. The debunking always gets done, one way or another, whether by me or by you.

    - Robin

    PS - remember the Jesux "Christian Linux" hoax that took in ZDNet and Wired a while back, but got exposed here? I had a pleasant IRC conversation with Pudge, the perpetrator, earlier today. Real nice guy.

    (I'm often on #slashdot at irc.slashnet.org if you want to continue this discussion, BTW.)

  • Upgrades don't always work either. Take a look at the failed Sega 32X add-on for the Genesis. That tanked rather quickly. Also, the Game Boy Color is backwards compatable, there are games that take advantage of the new features while still being able to be played on the old, and there are an increasing amount of games that are GBC only. Nintendo plans on keeping the backwards comapatability going in the next-gen GB as well. If handled properly, b/c can be very useful. I think I'm gonna wait for the Dolphin, though. I've heard of few problems with that, whereas the emotion engin in PSXII is glitchy, or so I've heard. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
  • You are probably both correct. Sony does make the bulk of its revenue from consumer electronics (TVs, stereos, VCR, Walkman(s)), corporate, and industrial sales. They make a fair number of the components in PCs (perhaps only the high end models these days, due to the commoditization of CD-ROM, floppy, and DVD drives).

    If your statement that Sony gets a $7 license fee per PlayStation cartridge is true, that's a huge royalty when measured against the retail price of each cartridge. It's even more astounding when measured against the wholesale price of the units, which is the only money that the cartridge developer ever sees.

    One question I have about the assertion that Nintendo was a $5 billion company before Pokemon: $5 billion in what, sales or market capitalization? Perhaps they had $5 billion in annual sales. But, according to Marketwatch, Nint endo's market capitalization [marketwatch.com] (another name for the total market value of the company) is only $2.9 billion.

    I'd like to own a company that's worth that much, but it's tiny compared to Sony's market cap [marketwatch.com] of over $110 billion.

    --

    Dave Aiello

  • comes from sales of playstation. That is phenomenal.

    PS2 is close to 'bet the company'

  • The article in Daily Radar is quite comical, actually. I am sure the analysts from Wall Street brokerage houses that browse Slashdot got a laugh out of reading this article because it makes so many, how should I put it, questionable conclusions.

    Let me begin by pointing you to the Fundam entals page for Sony on CBS Marketwatch [marketwatch.com]. Sony is currently valued by the market at around $110 billion -- this is the market capitalization. There are, according to this page, 411 million shares outstanding. Over the last 200 trading days, an average of 205,100 shares have been traded each day, or 4/100ths of 1 percent of the shares.

    I compared this stock to General Electric [marketwatch.com], which is another extremely large, established company. In spite of the fact that General Electric is worth about 4 times as much as Sony (comparing market caps), 3 times as many shares in GE as a percentage of its total number of shares outstanding trade each day.

    This means that GE is much more liquid (easy to trade) than Sony. That is potentially a good reason to split Sony stock, because the easier it is to buy or sell a stock, the less wildly the price tends to swing. Liquidity is considered a good thing by institutional investors and people who trade stocks for a living. By contrast, lack of liquidity is the reason that Internet companies move up and down fairly violently on a daily basis.

    The reason that some stock market newcomers think stock splits are indicators that the company is moving boldly is that recently, many companies that have announced splits have seen their stock prices soar immediately afterward. This initially happened with Internet-related companies like Amazo n.com [marketwatch.com], but it has gotten really out of hand lately, with companies like Qualc omm [marketwatch.com].

    Stock splits are really market neutral events. If a stock is at 100 the day before the split, and it splits 2-for-1, it's value at the open should be 50. I say "should be" because a stock often does not open at exactly the same price as it closes, so if there is a 2-for-1 split, the stock should open at around half the price of the close the previous day.

    This brings us to another fallacy in the article. It says that a stock split is a "financial maneuver that is a risky move". The stock that traded for 100 per share yesterday was not issued by the company yesterday -- it was issued at some time in the past. The trade at 100 that took place yesterday was between two participants in the stock market who (probably) had no relationship to the company.

    So, when the stock opens at 50 on the next day, after splitting two for one, not only did the people who traded the stock not lose anything (since they automatically have 2x the number of shares), but the company did not lose anything since they did not own the stock that was traded yesterday. Of course, any stock that the company is holding on its balance sheet (generally called treasury shares) did not increase or decrease in value, since the number of shares doubled while the price was cut in half.

    I could go on with this analysis all night, but let me jump to the end of the Daily Radar article. The author makes the statement:

    The company is building its entire product line around the PlayStation2. If the console fails, Sony's entire market plan will be lost.

    All I can say about this is that he must mean that the company is building its entire video game console product line around PlayStation2. Sony does a lot more than produce game consoles. In addition to its video game console business, it owns 11 different recording labels [sonymusic.com], a TV and movie production business [sony.com] which produces such insignificant products as the TV series Dawson's Creek, and Sony Electronics [sony.com] which makes everything from chips to Jumbotrons.

    That's why the company is worth over $110 billion, and that's just a few reasons why this article is so humorous to people who enjoy analyzing businesses and buying small pieces of them.

    --

    Dave Aiello

  • I think this is just shirking editorial responsibility. Granted, slashdot is unique in that it is an interactive forum, but that is not sufficient reason to drop all editorial control. A few readers may correct it, but many posts with equally high scores frequently purport otherwise. Whom is the naive person to believe? If slashdot says so, it must be true, right?!?! This is not to say that every post must be edited, but those on the primary page should be, as they reasonably appear to fall under the review of the editors. If you're going to exercise no control over it, then atleast make it abundantly clear (to the average reader) and do it evenly (more than to just things that you don't oppose).

  • So Slashdot deliberately creates fake controversy? (Score:3)

    by raph ( 3148 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2000 @10:24PM (#1404525) Homepage
    Roblimo, if I understand what you're saying, you understood that this piece was stupid and wrong when you posted it, but you posted it anyway, possibly in the hope of stirring up controversy?

    It seems to me that Slashdot quite frequently posts articles with a controversy-inducing spin. The Gnome Napster article was one such case where I was involved. The hydrino one was another. "Crank or earth-shattering science?" How about just another scam artist who is good at exploiting people's desire to believe.

    I've noticed that wrong and stupid posts often get a lot more response than well-written, balanced ones. In the former case, people have a great urge to write in and correct the original post. Some of these corrections are sensible, but by Sturgeon's Law, most are themselves pretty bogus. Presto! Instant controversy. After a well written article, people tend to be content.

    So I think there is a danger that interesting and important stories are getting lost in the noise. I like the volume and rough-and-tumble nature of slashdot, but I for one would prefer a forum in which accuracy and footwork counted for something.

    ObOnTopic: anyone know the status of the Linux port to the PlayStation II?
  • If PS2 is a failure, then it could hurt Sony a lot (unless the reason it's a failure is that everyone keeps buying PS1 and PS1 games). Over 50% of Sony profit derives from their PlayStation business. So yes, they would still be profitable if PS2 tanked, but the hit would certainly be big enough to radically impact the stock price.
  • The PlayStation 2 is theoretically more powerful than the SGI workstations that created the original Toy Story!

    True enough, but utterly irrelevant, since Toy Story was not rendered in realtime. We'll see seom fantastic graphics on the PS2, but I'm guessing they won't be up to the standards of Toy Story (and certainly not at the resulution of 35mm film).
    --
  • I can see online gaming on the Dreamcast really taking off. (1) It'll take the pain out of getting online -- no more downloading Gamespy, searching for a server that's not too many hops away, patching your game up 'til it works etc etc.
    (2) Consoles will attract some more "fun" games. I'm personally a keen console gamer, and I'd far rather play something like Chu Chu Rocket online than an over-serious Quake clone. The chance to take part in a worldwide Bomberman league -- now that would be terrific.

    --
  • I'm fairly certain that the console itself will not be running Linux as its OS. Firstly, I gather the PS2 is a pretty unconventional piece of architecture, so the port would not be straightforward. Secondly, a games console needs a very different kind of OS to a general purpose computer. Since the console model relies on the hardware being a constant, the abstractions that a high-level OS like UNIX or Windows provide are an unnecessary waste of resource. Games coders need something much closer to the metal.

    That said, I'm sure Linux *could* be ported. The Dreamcast boots an OS off the game disk, so different games will run under different OSs, and we may see all sorts of new OSs appear to enable quicker/better/easier-ported games. The PS2 may turn out the same.
    --
  • If the Dreamcast "isn't doing that great", Sega can't have been ambitious enough, since the DC is exceeding their targets wildly. Most of the games publishers who were initally custards (of the cowardy-cowardy variety) and didn't develop for DC have changed their minds in light of the current DC userbase.

    The PS2 is going to be expensive. I'll get one (because I have one of every mainstream console since the NES) and I imagine a number of hardcore gamers and early adopters will too. However, initially the DC will have more games, will be cheaper, will have online gaming (by the time PS2 comes out).

    I wonder what form the PS2 broadband network will take. DC users are getting full access to the Web -- the kiddie filters can be taken off, and you can get every porn site, every weird-arse opinion on whatever web site you like. I guess Sony will dictate the content on their own network -- how dull!

    It's going to be a close fight, and it'll be a lot of fun to watch (and take part in)
    --
  • 7125337981875463314 packages at the going price.

    Or you could just buy all the ramen-producing factories and attempt to control the world by inserting mind-control chemicals into the seasoning packets...

    O_o
  • In fact, a stock split can be bad for a company especially if their share price falls enough that the institutions are barred from buying into them.

    Which is when reverse splitting is used.
  • Is it any surprise that the Playstation (1) is outselling the Dreamcast? The Dreamcast is at the "early adopters" stage: £300 or more when you include a couple of games, controllers, memory cards etc. Meanwhile, you can pick up a Playstation for £65 quid in the supermarket, as an impulse buy when you're shopping for groceries. Maybe £120 with a game, spare controller and a memory card.

    Those are very different markets. It's Coca-cola vs £100-a-bottle-champagne.

    The PS2 will cost more than the Dreamcast, and will not be an impulse buy for anyone but the very rich, for a good few years -- until like the PLaystation before it, it becomes ubiquitous, and the production costs fall.
    --
  • Or you could just buy all the ramen-producing factories and attempt to control the world by inserting mind-control chemicals into the seasoning packets...

    Too late - Bill already did it - that's why Micro$oft's software has been such an outrageous success. Unfortunately for Micro$oft, now that so many people are becoming rich (thanks, in part, to the wild tech stock market) they're able to afford better food and are no longer eating as much Ramen.

    Thus, as their Ramen consumption decreases, the Micro$oft mind control effect decreases and they start to notice other software. Obvious, when you think about it and look at the news headlines of the past couple of years....

    Of course, now that you & I have dragged all this out into the open, we can both expect visits by the "Boys From Bill" :)

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