Yesterday Geoff posted up quite a scary piece about how Sony was about to fire 10 000 people and had made an eye watering loss of $6.4 Billion. The thing is that while Geoff was correct in his post, he was also wrong.
Thanks to a very insightful post over at VG247 it’s easier to understand that Sony’s losses aren’t as bad as previously stated by Sony themselves.
This is mainly because Sony had previously banked on receiving around 300 Billion Yen from the American government in the form of tax credits if they sold a certain amount in the land of corporate misgovernance and financial irregularity.
However due to their sales figures missing target and their TV industry pretty much going down the toilet, seriously who would buy a Bravia now?, they are no longer going to hit that target and therefore not receive those tax credits.
Which wouldn’t have been a problem IF Sony hadn’t already added them to their asset list, but they did and now they need to remove them and write it down as a loss. Like I lost R50 million last week when I didn’t win the lotto.
Corporate taxes are a mess and something that no humanoid should be able to understand but the bottom line of this entire sorry saga is that Sony hasn’t really lost $6.4 Billion, they only lost $2.7 Billion… yeah that’s still not good.
As a side note, we get a lot of flak at times for reporting on American sales figures and how they may affect the world, this is why that’s the case. If the PS3 had beaten the Xbox 360 in America Sony may well have been eligible for that 300 Billion Yen credit and wouldn’t be where they are now.
Also 3D sucks Sony, stop it.
It’s not bias it’s just the way the financially messed up planet works.
Last Updated: April 11, 2012
