I was following up on the job cuts made by Sony yesterday to see if we can expect them to hit the gaming division or not. I personally expected them to be in the other arb divisions of Sony like finance or property.
However it seems that may not be the case and we may not have seen the end of the job cuts. According to Katsuhiko Mori, a fund manager from Daiwas SB Investments, the 8000 job cuts may just be the beginning and we should be bracing for more cuts across the board while Sony attempts to ride out this recession.
The problem is, according to Katsuhiko,
“Sony doesn’t have any core businesses that generate stable profitsâ€
That statement knocked me over, how can Sony not have a single core business that is generating a stable profit? That is a very scary thought at the beginning of a recession and may mean that the Sony that emerges from this dip may be an entirely different beast than what we know now.
I see Sony’s problem being the general price of Sony goods. I was in the shops on the weekend looking at the nice shiny TV’s and every single Sony I saw had a comparable Philips, Samsung or Panasonic for 10%-20% less. The same story went with the sound systems as well.
Now it can be argued until the ends of time whether Sony’s TV’s are better but that is not the point. The point is that in times of economic hardship most people are willing to sacrifice a little bit of quality to save cash and when faced with a choice between 2 TV’s that seem equal then the cheaper one will always win.
I get the feeling we are only on the tip of an iceberg here.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
Last Updated: December 10, 2008
easy
December 10, 2008 at 08:28
i find it hard to believe sony does not have any ‘core businesses’ that do not make a stable profit!
sony is a massive multifaceted company, and to not have 1 profit making division sounds like absolute bs to me.
ewie
December 10, 2008 at 09:18
problem with Sony divisions is one year they may make a good profit and the next they are bleeding, take Sony pictures,
when spiderman release they make a lot of money but when
the other pictures bomb they make losses. They need more
big hits every year and not every second year.
Wolfy
December 10, 2008 at 09:54
the bigger they are ,the harder they fall
Scotty777
December 10, 2008 at 10:17
I wouldn’t quite put it that way man… Sony seems to be slowly crumbling… which means more and more pieces of it will be bought off…
Diabolik
December 10, 2008 at 10:20
Comparable Samsung tvs are 10%-20% than Sony? Which store did you go to?
LazySAGamer
December 10, 2008 at 10:33
Cheapest 42″ Plasma Sony from Amazon $1,250 (http://www.amazon.com/Sony-42-Inch-FWD42PV1B-Panel-Plasma/dp/B0009MBAJY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=audio-video&qid=1228897910&sr=1-2)
Cheapest 42″ Samsung $699 (http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-PN42A400-42-Inch-720p-Plasma/dp/B001KOTTNY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=audio-video&qid=1228897961&sr=1-2)
easy
December 10, 2008 at 10:51
then ms has quite a fall coming their way 😈
Fox1
December 10, 2008 at 10:51
I still say on the longer run Sony products last longer.
Locally you can get a Samsung or a Sony 32″ LCD TV for R6000 from Makro.
Fox1
December 10, 2008 at 10:53
Locally you can get a Sony or Samsung 32″ LCD TV at the same price.
Valante
December 10, 2008 at 11:09
I see Microsoft are letting go 2000 employees in the US 🙄
Arabian Knight
December 10, 2008 at 11:48
I bought a Samsung simply because it was R4k cheaper than the equivalent Sony then.
LazySAGamer
December 10, 2008 at 12:53
Nope, it’s a story about Yahoo firing people labeled with Microsoft for some unknown reason?
DarthPenguin
December 10, 2008 at 14:59
I bought Samsung cuase it looked a lot better than the Sony ones the same size did….
Took my 360 into the store.. connected it to one TV after the other with Gears of War.. the one that looked best I bought…
abe
December 10, 2008 at 20:13
What about Sony Entertainment Pictures??
Surely this piece of the pie alone can hold sony together!
ewie
December 10, 2008 at 20:25
Like i said up there, they don’t have enough hits every year. I mean they have spiderman where they made lots of money and then they have 10 duds. where they loose again.
Wie
December 10, 2008 at 20:57
In any case 90% of sony LCD TV`s uses SHARP panels in essence it is a sharp tv with a shiny sony plastic cover.
arf
December 22, 2008 at 22:09
I don’t know where LazyGamer shops, but maybe he should be re-named LazyShopper. Sony BRAVIA LCDs are pretty much the same price as equivalent Samsungs.
..and Wie, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, rather don’t say anything. Sony LCDs in SA are mostly the same panels as Samsung (Sony and Samsung have a joint venture to make LCD panels), Sony has indicated that they will buy Sharp panels in the future because the S-LCD factory is unable to keep up with demand. In any case the panel is only one part of a TV, the video engine is arguably more important, and few argue that Sony’s video engine is not superior to most of the competition.
LazySAGamer
December 22, 2008 at 23:16
Samsung 40″ LCD from Makro R11,511
Sony 40′ LCD from Makro R12,999
Like I said in the article I am not arguing which is better I am arguing which is cheaper, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Samsung so with people needing to pinch pennies why wouldn’t they save R1500?
Ethel Nicolas
January 29, 2010 at 19:28
their is a problem in the first place.