Microsoft Buyout of Ailing Sony Possible

imashoe writes "BonaFideReviews has published an interesting article stating that a Microsoft buyout of Sony is quite possible sometime in the not-so-far future. From the article: 'All this added up, you have to ask yourself. Will the next Playstation you purchase post-PS3 run a Microsoft operating system and have backwards compatibility for PS1 PS2 PS3 Xbox and Xbox360? Putting your rabid love for Sony aside, this doesn't seem as far fetched as it once did, when the Sony name wasn't covered in enough red tape to fill the Grand Canyon.'"

Comments

Red Ink, not red tape.

[Ohreally_factor]

Idiots! Get your idioms straight. Are the slashdot idiotors native English speakers?

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[bigman2003]

I am *not* a grammar Nazi.

But that article was horrible. 'Thrown' instead of 'throne', a bunch of they're/there mistakes. 'Hurtle'?

I am starting to see the advantages of the print media- at least they had editors.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Ohreally_factor]

My apologies. The idiotor saw fit to merely present an excerpt of the story, so the unhappy turn of phrase wasn't CN's.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

Red ink? What "english" is this?

Here in England (you know, home of the English language) "Red tape" is a very common term for excessive bureaucratic processes that one sometimes has to go through. I've never heard the term "Red ink" being used to describe this.

Refer to Wikipedia for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tape

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[dsanfte]

If 30 seconds of reading can turn up these sorts of mistakes, the only explanations for errors in the article summary text are laziness or incompetence.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Mikkeles]

Well, when trying to purchase a company, a lot of Red Ink can lead to a lot of Red Tape ;^)

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Ohreally_factor]

Red ink? What "english" is this?

Here in England (you know, home of the English language) "Red tape" is a very common term for excessive bureaucratic processes that one sometimes has to go through. I've never heard the term "Red ink" being used to describe this.

Refer to Wikipedia for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tape

And you claim to be a native English speaker? Well, I guess even England has ignorant and uneducated people.

Red ink refers to the accounting practice of recording finacial losses in red ink.

red ink
n.
A financial loss in business.
The condition of showing a fiscal deficit: a firm drowning in red ink.

[From the use of red ink to record debits and losses in financial records.]
(Dictionary.com)

Please see this article for an example of use of the term in English financial journalism.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Qbertino]

German has a simular term. It's called having or "being in the red numbers" (in den roten Zahlen sein) or "writing red numbers" (rote Zahlen schreiben) which all mean making loss. The same as the english "red ink" used to write 'red numbers'.

Cutting through red tape means having to make a big issue to be able to enter somewhere (as in cutting the red tape across the street of a new bridge).

So it should be "red ink" and not "red tape" when talking about Sonys losses of lately. Though the two idoms sound simular, they bouth mean different things.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[McFadden]

Before you make patronising remarks, check you actually know what you're talking about. Speaking as an Englishman (you know, one of those guys from the "home of the English language"), I can assure you that 'red ink' is in very common usage. Just because it doesn't describe the process you mistakenly thought it did, doesn't mean it's wrong. The term "in the red" shares the same etymology.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

it also goes toward the credibility of what they're saying. after reading what he had to say - especially the "thrown" for "throne" bit - i started thinking it was LESS likely Sony would sell to MS, than more.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Nimey]

That doesn't excuse CN from posting this bullshit rumor.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[SeeMyNuts!]

But the odds of Microsoft wearing a Red Hat are quite low.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Ilgaz]

" Are the slashdot idiotors native English speakers?"

but the grandparent could be a grammar nazi or a real one.

He is just half way away.

(to GP: Sorry, I am not native english speaker too!)

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[musakko]

Idiots! Get your idioms straight. Are the slashdot idiotors native English speakers?

You can go on correcting some people until the cows come home to roost - and they just never learn

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[kfg]

On the other hand, depending on your gaming politics, some of the mistakes are deliciously ironic. Take the very first sentence as an example:

"Like many of you, it's hard for me to remember a time when the word "Playstation" was synonymous with gaming."

KFG

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

[My english is better than most other people's german, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
Though the two idoms sound simular, they bouth mean different things.

<politely>
Dear sir, you made a mistake right there. Best Regards.
</politely>

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[aurelian]

Cutting through red tape means having to make a big issue to be able to enter somewhere (as in cutting the red tape across the street of a new bridge).

Is that a German idiom as well? I'm certainly not familiar with it in English, where 'red tape' is always used to refer to bureaucratic requirements which are considered burdensome by the user. (It's frequently used by company directors and managers wanting tax concessions, or complaining about things like human rights legislation or health & safety requirements..)

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

> But that article was horrible. 'Thrown' instead of 'throne', a bunch of they're/there mistakes. 'Hurtle'?

u might want to consult a dictionary.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=thrown
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hurtle

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[bigman2003]

Damn, I hate when anonymous cowards make these idiotic posts. There is no person to pin this on.

Take a look at the difference between 'hurdle' and 'hurtle'...and the aforementioned 'throne' problem.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having lived in England for a year, I can attest that the Brits have intimate knowledge of red tape. Standing in line is a way of life over there.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, it is usually referred to as being 'in the red', I have not ever heard 'red ink' used over here.

( Not the GP UK AC )

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[ozbird]

Red Ink should be measured in Libraries of Congress, not Grand Canyons.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[TubeSteak]

Stay tuned for the largest train wreck in console history.

Stay tuned for the largest train wreck in article history.

Fixed that for the author.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[ceoyoyo]

To instead of too... but more importantly, lots of sentences that took some puzzling out. Bad grammar makes you sound uneducated, but this guy's was so bad it was hard to figure out exactly what he was trying to say.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[baomike]

'Thrown' instead of 'throne',

Hey, at least they didn't use "WC".

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

>>to GP: Sorry, I am not native english speaker too!

Yes, we can already see that. Its redundant.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[gEvil (beta)]

...i started thinking it was LESS likely Sony would sell to MS, than more.

I believe you meant to write "then more."

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[gEvil (beta)]

You act as if CowboyNeal had nothing to do with posting such a piece of crap article.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its the same thing, you idiot. One is metaphor and the other is in literal sense. And your metaphor comes from his literal meaning.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[KDR_11k]

u might want to consult a dictionary.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic when those too-lazy-to-type-yo fucks try to go grammar/spelling nazi on someone?

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[blixel]

A few then/than mistakes as well.

"With the PS3 now touting the largest price tag for any console in the history of gaming and higher then most mid-low end PC's..."

Should be "higher than"

"...making the PS3 no more then a video game system..."

Should be "no more than"

"With pockets deeper then the Atlantic Ocean..."

Should be "deeper than"

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the LoC is mostly in black ink while GC's mud often has a reddish hue so ...

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[fufubag]

Alright, I am embarrassed to post this, but I really can't tell if you (gEvil) are joking or not. I was going to go to town making fun of someone correcting grammar.... but then, I thought of myself, 'you moron, do you lack any grain of comedic sensibility?'

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots! Get your idioms straight. Are the slashdot idiotors native English speakers?

You're new here, aren't you.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Afrosheen]

Yeah, u r right.

  That reminds me of a funny thing on IRC yesterday. I was in #asterisk, and some guy typed out a 2-line-long question..but at the beginning, instead of people, he substituted PPL. My natural smartass response to his question was, "What is PPL?". Someone else responded 'Pigeon Packet Loop'. I shot back 'yeah I heard fog causes packet loss' to which someone replied 'so does that make 'PPP' 'Pigeon Packet Poop'?

  It just got wackier from there.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[buraianto]

Where does the term "being in the red" come from, if not from the color of the ink?

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually "Red Ink" has a place in the English (UK) language

Red Ink, or more commonly known as "make it bleed"

a teacher would normally mark your homework in red ink
I have my schematics (during design phase) audited with red-ink

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[rrdm2k]

I feel I should step in and fight to defend the honour of my fellow Englishman.

As it's already been pointed out, the phrase in England is "being in the red" http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/202000.html, obviously they both have the same origins but "red ink" is definitely not a common phrase in the UK.

You also link to an article from the Economist, an English magazine, yet the article appears to be written from Washington, DC. Perhaps the article was written by an American reporter for the Economist? or perhaps it was an English reporter who picked up phrase whilst in the States? My point is that it doesn't prove that the term "red ink" is used extensively over here.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Ragingguppy]

Ummm... Maybe he's not a native english speaker. Maybe the writer is from Japan and he is letting North America know whats going on. Your lack of Tolerance is quite disturbing. I don't want to talk to you anymore.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[gEvil (beta)]

Very wise move on your part. : p

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[iminplaya]

Speaking as an Englishman...

In New York?

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[jacksonj04]

"Red tape", at least in British English, is used to refer to excessive rules and regulations. For example, "There is too much red tape in getting employment nowadays". Could it be referring to EULAs?

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Z34107]

"Then" is used in relation to a series of events or cause and effect situations, such as First this, then that.

"Than" is used when making comparisons, such as more of this than that.

So, grandparent was perfectly correct in his post. Hope you were joking. 0.o

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[gstoddart]

I am starting to see the advantages of the print media- at least they had editors.

Had is the operative word.

I regularly read stuff in papers that have quite a few grammatical errors in them -- or things that pass a spell checker, but they've used the wrong word.

It's quite sad actually, because I've always assumed print journalists would do better.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[PastAustin]

I am *not* a grammar Nazi. But that article was horrible. 'Thrown' instead of 'throne', a bunch of they're/there mistakes. 'Hurtle'? I am starting to see the advantages of the print media- at least they had editors. must ask, is Sony placing to much faith in the Playstation

Yeah... I stopped reading at:
"one must ask, is Sony placing to much faith in the Playstation"

If you have a valid point shout it from the mountain tops. However... Use correct grammar. It really is not too hard. Otherwise you look unprofessional.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Xepherys2]

While I appreciate the colloquial differences between British English and American English, I would imagine that the English language lends itself to interpretation regardless of your country of origin. There are many casually used phrases and words in the UK that are never used in America... but we can generally still understand what is being said, if for no other reason than context. Just something to think about.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[gEvil (beta)]

You know, you're right. The name Brent Kirkwood does have a very Japanese ring to it.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[cplusgorbachev]

But 'Red Tape' is also valid in this arguement, I mean Sony has quite literally red taped themselves out of businesses by having so many divisions that interfere with each other. They are 'in the red' BECAUSE of red tape. The over beaurocratic music division has essentially doomed most any of their music products by trying to grasp too hard, which also dictates their electronics, and now instead of being a solid high-quality but more costly product, it's just a more costly, more locked down and yet cheaper product in quality. Total loss. Any by always having scapegoats and hiding behind the beaurocrasy of it all nobody gets blamed, but the ship still goes down.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow: Your life surely is... mmm... exciting, to say the least.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its redundant.

Yeah, whatever...

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[jzfredricks]

You must be new here - you spelt 'grammar' correctly and capitalised the proper noun 'Nazi' :)

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to be clear in the US nobody uses the term red ink either. They say "in the red" here as well. Red tape means the same thing as it does in the UK. How anyone could confuse these two is beyond me. The article author really did mean red tape and thus made no error in that spot as far as I can see.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[continuouslife]

Whoa, that was wacky!

WOKKA WOKKA WOKKA!

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[jzfredricks]

For those of you dying to know...'red ink' is also cricketing term used to describe when a batsman is 'not out' (and sometimes for any other notation that the scorer might want to stand out, like a maiden). It's less used these days with electronic scoring, but I think it's still fairly common in grassroots cricket.

For example; "By Jove, Watson, I think Mr Bradman will be getting some more red ink today".

Wiki links;
Maiden Over
Not Out
Sir Donald Bradman

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Lovemoose]

Fair comment, but "red ink" is still not a commonly used idiom in UK English, while "red tape" and "in the red" are.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Ohreally_factor]

No, you're mangling it beyond recognition. And mangling a few of your own.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Ohreally_factor]

PPL is extremely vulnerable to man in the middle attacks, especially when that man in the middle is a shotgun wielding vice president.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[glitch23]

Not sure where you got "thrown" from because the text is the following: Like many of you, its hard for me to remember a time when the word "Playstation" was not synonymous with gaming. Sony has held the all mighty hardware throne for an astounding eleven years at the time of writing this.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[unitron]

"...when the Sony name wasn't covered in enough red tape to fill the Grand Canyon.'"

One can be covered in red tape, i.e., bureaucracy, as well as red ink, i.e., financial losses, and theoretically there could be enough of either to fill the Grand Canyon.

Sony, nowadays, is probably wrestling with plenty of both.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, by trying to be both a hardware company and a "content" company they have brought this upon themselves.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

they each mean different things

"both", however spelled, is simply the wrong word.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[spudgun]

if this ever happened the console would go the way of IE6
MS sees no competition
MS drops development.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[runderwo]

I thought he meant "crown" instead of "thrown" ;)

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[thirdrock]

You can go on correcting some people until the cows come home to roost - and they just never learn

You can lead those cows to water but you can't make them cross their "i"s or dot their "t"s.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[LupusCanis]

I'm also English and I have never heard the term red ink used, ever. I've heard red tape and "in the red" more times than I can count however, maybe it's in common use locally where you are, but in England as a whole, it most certainly is not.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[LupusCanis]

Why did this post get a +5? Red ink is not part of Commonwealth English, it appears in dictionary.com, yes, but that just means the phrase exists in AMERICAN English. The equivilent is "red tape" which means exactly the same thing. Now, the Chambers online dictionary, geared more to Commonwealth English than American, contains an entry for red tape, but none for red ink, implying, naturally, that the term "red ink" is American-only. It's not as if we don't have a phrase for it, it's just a different one, Americans are not ignorant and uneducated because they use the word "aluminum" instead of "aluminium" or "zuchinni" instead of "courgette" or "eggplant" instead of "aubergine", so I resent your comment.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[LupusCanis]

My bad, for some reason I put in "red tape" instead of "in the red". Replace every instance of "red tape" with "in the red" please.

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[McFadden]

Do a search on Google. You'll find it's far from localized. You just need to get out more...

Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[LupusCanis]

Doing so gives me a ton of unrelated articles, American news sites and sites selling printer cartridges. Try again. And for the record I get out plenty, I simply have never seen this term used, ever, by anyone, in conversation, in a newspaper, in an article. Hell, even on the internet before. I, however, have seen "in the red" used hundreds of times.

Rabid love

[wahgnube]

What "rabid love for Sony" are we talking about here? Don't we all hate Sony?

Or is that different on Saturdays? Hmm.

Re:Rabid love

[N3Roaster]

It's rabid love for Sony in connection with game consoles (after all, you can run Linux on the PS2 and we all love Linux) and rabid hate for Sony in connection with music and movies (DRM, UMD, weird proprietary connectors for apparent reason other than annoying people).

Re:Rabid love

[Directrix1]

I would describe my attitude towards Sony as rabid love relative to my attitude toward's Microsoft.

Re:Rabid love

[m50d]

And people say Americans don't understand sarcasm...

Re:Rabid love

[Anonymous Coward]

toward's Microsoft

Who is Toward, and why do you say Microsoft is his? I thought it was Bill's Microsoft.
(Reminds me of Popular but Incorrect Rule #3: "Add an apostrophe wherever you want".)

Re:Rabid love

[mrchaotica]

Amazingly, Sony has been so evil recently that I actually wouldn't! Just like Apple switching to Intel, I didn't think it was possible 'till it happened.

Re:Rabid love

[Anonymous Coward]

Rabid love means fucking sony up the ass with a chainsaw strapon.

Re:Rabid love

[doodlebumm]

I would describe my attitude towards Sony as rabid love relative to my attitude toward's Microsoft.

And my love of Microsoft is just below shoving a red hot poker 20 inches up my ass (BTW, that is something that I don't like).

Re:Rabid love

[Directrix1]

I concur.

Re:Rabid love

[Anonymous Coward]

You concur he doesn't like it? How do you know?

Oh, I see.

Man, you slashdotters are kinky.

Re:Rabid love

[rblancarte]

Is it just me, or outside the horrible grammar and such, is this article making the mistake that Sony is ONLY the Playstation line of game consoles? If I go to Sony's web page, I see a ton of things that have little to do with gaming (directly) - Stereos, Walkmans, TVs, etc. How can these guys say that Sony is "Ailing"?

Sony has been around way too long (60 years this May 7th) for one simple launch will kill these guys. That is like saying that Itanium would kill Intel. Just short sighted reporting.

IMHO, what this is is nothing more than Just Another ailing Tech Site that is trying to bump up their hits by posting some crazy article that speculates some crazy stuff and then get it on a site that will generate some traffic. Hell, the name of the guy who reported this is a freaking LINK to that crappy sites front page.

Now that I see this - this is bogus, nothing but what I said, trying to boost readership at the expense of slashdoters.

RonB

Re:Rabid love

[Mr. Gus]

Are they really saying that? :(

Re:Rabid love

[bluephone]

With all the typos and mixed metaphors in that article, I can only assume they meant "rabbit love" where in we crawl into a hole with Sony and make thouands of little baby Sonys.

Re:Rabid love

[TheKidWho]

The Playstation is what keeps sony alive. What with all their R&D and whatnot. In the 80's it was the Walkman that brought them fame, in the 90s/early 00s it was the PSX. If the PS3 Fails Sony is screwed.

Re:Rabid love

[Anonymous Coward]

If I go to Sony's web page, I see a ton of things that have little to do with gaming (directly) - Stereos, Walkmans, TVs, etc. How can these guys say that Sony is "Ailing"?

And that's just the hardware side of the business. Don't forget that as well as Sony Electronics there's Sony Music and Sony Pictures.

To quote from Sony Corporation Of America's website (not Sony Japan, not Sony Europe, etc.)

Revenue for last fiscal (ending March 31, 2005):

Sony Corporation: $67b
Music Group: $2.3b
Pictures Group: $6.9b
United States $18.4b

Microsoft, in contrast, had a total annual revenue for the period of $36.8b (roughly half if Sony's).

The article talks about $2b a year utterly bankrupting Sony (assuming they simply sell consoles at a loss and don't recoup from game licensing, accessories, additional HD TV sales, gaining ownership of next gen DVDs through market share, etc.)

I'm not quite sure how a loss that barely makes it in to the couple of percent range will cripple a company so badly that it gets bought up by one with half the total revenue and no interest in the majority of the larger company's business.

Microsoft is a software and very specific hardware firm. They would be incredibly badly served by trying to take over an electronics, movies and music giant that's a far bigger company than they are. They're doing very well with the controlled growth they have right now.

The only way it would make sense for Microsoft would be if they could take Sony Computer Entertainment and leave the rest of Sony. Sony, however, gains a huge amount beyond direct console sales. A bankrupt Sony would be forced to sell off pieces. An intact Sony would likely have no interest in destroying its future TVs (cell), its future DVD players (blu-ray), its movie business (also blu-ray) and its appeal to the massively profitable 18-35 demographic that spills over from gaming to those big TVs, car stereos, etc.

Since Sir Howard Stringer took over Sony, he's made some incredibly tough decisions to get Sony, as a whole, back on track - so much so that he's become a major persona non grata in his own home country of Wales where he made tough choices and cut a huge number of workers. Here is a man who's clearly willing to do what it takes to make Sony profitable and who, more than anyone else on earth, has very detailed figures on the costs of the PS3 - yet he's not chosen to sell off Sony Computer Entertainment.

So, overall, we have a company with double Microsoft's revenues, with areas Microsoft's just not interested in, making them far too big to buy out in the entirety (which the original article appears to have totally missed). Piece-by-piece, SCE might be affordable for Microsoft but that requires Sony wanting/needing to sell - something they've shown absolutely no signs of.

Re:Rabid love

[swv3752]

In 2004, it was Spiderman that made them money. Sony is lieterally too diverse for any single product to sink them. It is the same reason that Microsoft will not buy them. A) Microsoft does not have enough money to buy Sony, at least if you are talking about the whole megacorp. (And I do mean that in the Shadowrun sense. The only way they could be more diverse is if they bought Honda and Kraft foods.) B) Too many groups would be opposed to the merger: Dell, HP, and most other computer manufacturers, the other RIAA members, the other MPAA members, the EU, Japan, and maybe the US Gov.

Re:Rabid love

[lysergic.acid]

Seriously. Sony-BMG is also one of the big four major labels through which most smaller record labels get their distribution through. Heck, they own Columbia Records, Epic, and RCA/Artista, and do business with literally thousands of other indie labels. There's no way Sony's gonna be bought out by Microsoft because of a few poor performing electronics items. Their entertainment holdings alone probably make much more than Microsoft does annually.

Re:Rabid love

[Hal_Porter]

They couldn't buy just Honda. They'd need to buy Honda, plus some oil wells, gas stations and reprocessing plants. Then they'd give away expensively built vehicles that would only run on SonyGas refilled at the service station for $50 bucks a time and sue people that 'hacked' them to run on regular unleaded.

Re:Rabid love

[WhiteWolf666]

You aren't looking at the whole financial picture. Sony's got a lot of revenue. Revenue, however, does not = profit. Sony made about ~800 million in proft FY2004. FY2005 may end up in the red once they finish adjusting. They operate on a 2% operating margin. They also have about 7 billion in long term debt.

Microsoft, on the other hand, made about 9 billion in profit FY2004, and will end up around 13 billion for FY2005. Microsoft carries no debt load. Microsoft runs on a 40% operating margin. They've also got 40 billion in cash reserves.

Microsoft could _easily_ purchase a controlling stake in Sony (say 20-30%), bill it as an "alliance", and then gut the company for the pieces they wanted.

The essence of the problem is that you've got Sony, this behemoth of a company that operates in near-free market conditions (nearly no profit, low margin), versus Microsoft, a smaller company that operates in near-monopoly conditions (vast profit, huge cash reserves, very high margin). Sony, because they operate in a competitive framework, ends up vulnerable, and $.5-1 billion means there is little room for colossal failure.

Microsoft can book a $2billion loss for years, and not even break a sweat. If Sony had a $2 billion loss in _any_ of their departments.... the very existance of the company will be at stake.

Of course, you have to remember that the Japanese banking system (with government help) is generally more than willing to cover this kind of debt with extensive loans (that smell like grants). But to be frank, the landscape really isn't very fair; you can't force a monopolist to compete in a purely financial sense with a company operating on a competive field, because the monopolist has so much extra profit margin.

Sony's not in bad shape, but $2 billion up or down on the balance sheet will make a huge difference. Microsoft can include a $2 billion loss as part of the business strategy. Sony can't really afford a lot of mistakes that size, and they'll see extensive corporate restructoring (if not a buyout) if that occurs.

Re:Rabid love

[WhiteWolf666]

And don't look at the market cap numbers as buyout targets.

MSFT has ~$34 billion in the bank. A buyout backed by that kind of cash .... well, lets just say that if they picked a company that wasn't loosing money (like Sony, who tends to break near even) MSFT could purchase assets in the hundreds of billions dollar range.

You really can't underestimate the financial power of $12 billion in operating profit and a $40 billion war chest. There really isn't a company in the world MSFT couldn't consider buying.

Re:Rabid love

[boa13]

IMHO, what this is is nothing more than Just Another ailing Tech Site that is trying to bump up their hits by posting some crazy article that speculates some crazy stuff and then get it on a site that will generate some traffic. Hell, the name of the guy who reported this is a freaking LINK to that crappy sites front page.

I propose we tag such stories with "trafficwhore".

Re:Rabid love

[ces]

Microsoft does not have enough money to buy Sony, at least if you are talking about the whole megacorp.

Actually Microsoft probably could buy Sony if they really wanted to. One thing people here seem to be forgetting is in the corprate M&A business you get to use your stock as currency along with any cash on hand (as well as debt such as bonds but lets not complicate the issue).

Lets take a look at the numbers:
Microsoft (MSFT)
Market cap: 283.13B
Cash on hand: 34.70B
Debt: 0
Revenue: 41.36B
Gross profit: 33.59B

Sony (SNE)
Market cap: 47.47B
Cash on hand: 3.76B
Debt: 8.88B
Revenue: 61.95B
Gross profit: 15.60B

So while Microsoft has only 2/3 the annual revenue of Sony, it has roughly 6 times the market capitalization, 9 times the cash on hand, and more than double the gross profit. In addition Microsoft carries no debt.

If Microsoft wanted to buy Sony all they would really have to do is offer Sony shareholders some mix of MSFT stock and cash in excess of Sony's current market captialization. (probably something along the lines of a 10-20% premium depending on the exact mix of cash in the offer)

Now as others point out the question is if Microsoft would really want Sony. Other than the games division none of Sony's business lines are in areas Microsoft has expressed an interest in getting involved in. At the very least there is the risk of annoying other Microsoft partners, not to mention potential anti-trust problems.

Now Microsoft could try to convince Sony to sell its game division, but I somehow doubt it is for sale at any price it would make sense for Microsoft to pay.

Re:Rabid love

[ces]

And don't look at the market cap numbers as buyout targets.

True but MSFT's $280B market cap is one heck of a warchest on its own. Many buyouts are financed by nothing more than the aquiring company's stock.

You really can't underestimate the financial power of $12 billion in operating profit and a $40 billion war chest. There really isn't a company in the world MSFT couldn't consider buying.

Well not exactly. I think Microsoft might have trouble pulling off a buyout of an oil major or GE. Aside from those few companies the triple threat of huge market cap, huge cash reserves, and huge operating profits does mean MSFT can aquire pretty much any company they can get past the shareholders and regulators.

Article

[Wellington Grey]

From the article: Stay tuned for the largest train wreck in console history.

Seems like he's really positive on the idea.

-Grey

Re:Article

[SeeMyNuts!]

What's worse is they propose this name for the final merger: Sosoft.

They say they will branch out into micro micro PCs in addition to cosmetics, where every piece of glitter is a full-fledged PC and your skin will be oh so very soft.

Re:Article

[Elminst]

Of course he is!

Everyone loves a train wreck!
All the crashing, and sceeching and maybe even some blowing stuff up!
Who doesn't love a train wreck?

Anti-Trust

[y86]

This would be a major anti-trust issue. Then Microsoft would own almost the entire console market.

It's true nintendo is around... but it is such a small share holder in the industry.

If Nintendo's "Revoltion" does well, this could happen, if not, i doubt it.

Re:Anti-Trust

[bsane]

Its only an illegal monopoly if they use their posistion to stop competition. There's nothing that says they can't be the only one producing consoles...

Re:Anti-Trust

[Ucklak]

Sony isn't just Playstation. It's content as well.

They would own Sony Pictures, Sony Music, BD-DVD, home entertainment appliances.

That would put MS exactly where they want to be. In the living room and own content.
There are no MS Televisions, Web-tv (oops, MSN-TV) and Media Center are niche markets, and nobody understands or cares about "Plays for sure". With a brand name that takes care of all of that already entrenched, that positions them right where they want to be.

Re:Anti-Trust

[Hercules Peanut]

Its only an illegal monopoly if they use their posistion to stop competition. There's nothing that says they can't be the only one producing consoles...

Even if MS bought out Sony, they would still have to worry about competition from these guys

Re:Anti-Trust

[McFadden]

Personally I think a Microsoft buyout of Sony would be the best thing that could happen to Nintendo. Their credability and brand identity would really stand out as the only alternative to the Microsony behemoth instead of their current weak third position in western markets (obviously I'm talking consoles, not handhelds).

Re:Anti-Trust

[Kjella]

Its only an illegal monopoly if they use their posistion to stop competition. There's nothing that says they can't be the only one producing consoles...

Whatever. I don't think anti-trust laws do any good when Microsoft can use their Windows monopoly to ship "free" (read: subsidized by Windows sales) software which come preinstalled on all Windows machines. Or when they can offer such cuts on "MS-only" shops that it is cheaper to pay a Microsoft tax on all machines than to actually pay for what you ship. If Microsoft had been a foreign company, it would have been slammed to hell in the anti-trust trial. In fact, that is what it seems EU is doing and why MS is asking USA for help. To paraphrase a quote about leaders "He may be a bastard, but he's our bastard" I think the current state is "They may be an abusive monopoly, but they're our abusive monopoly". So I don't expect any anti-trust laws to do anything at all.

Re:Anti-Trust

[bsane]

I don't think anti-trust laws do any good...

I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Antitrust laws obviously don't work under the current administration since MS lost the trial and then the DOJ essentially asked for the case to be dropped.

Hopefully the reason for dropping the case is the one you state. The other reasons aren't as happy.

Re:Anti-Trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't anti trust laws supposed to stop leveraging into other markets from an existing monopoly? I'm not sure I'm just asking. I mean it would seem to me that it would raise a red flag when the monopoly OS vendor just suddenly becomes the main console video game vendor in a market that has established itself for decades.

I think Nintendo is going to triumph this round regardless. If they spank the competition well enough they'll probably take the crown next time around too. It's actually sort of commical how bad Sony has dropped the ball.

Re:Anti-Trust

[jcr]

nobody understands or cares about "Plays for sure".

I beg to differ. I think most people understand that "plays for sure" means "doesn't work with your iPod."

-jcr

Re:Anti-Trust

[Perseid]

Microsoft, having been found guilty of anti-competitive behavior before, follows a different set of rules than most companies because of conditions of their settlement.

Or so the theory goes...

Re:Anti-Trust

[Queer Boy]

Nintendo is the new Apple.

Fanboyism at its best

[Gothmolly]

Firstly, Sony makes more products than the PSP. In case you didn't know that.
Secondly, why do we all have a "rabid hate" for Sony? They make excellent midrange CD players, for instance. I have an actual Walkman from back in the day, which still works.

The "news" slant would be something like "Wow, this article says that MS might by Sony".

Apparently the "accept trollish submission text" method is what we have here.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Ohreally_factor]

why do we all have a "rabid hate" for Sony?

DRM rootkits.

Where have you been?

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[wfberg]

why do we all have a "rabid hate" for Sony?

DRM rootkits.

Also, The NeverEnding Format Wars (MemoryStick, BlueRay, etc.), PS3 Delays And High Price (Save Up Suckers), MP3 Players That Really Only Play ATRAC, Trying To Get Us To Buy MD Even Though We Told Them A Zillion Times That Tape Sucks Come On Philips Dumped Their Digital Tape Ages Ago, and last but not least Every Kind Of Hardware They Make Except For Playstation Is Being Made By Some Other Taiwanes Or Korean Company For Less Money And Higher Quality.

They're a company in decline.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Ohreally_factor]

Those examples certainly add up, but even taken together, they've got nothing on the rootkit fiasco.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with your points except "Trying To Get Us To Buy MD Even Though We Told Them A Zillion Times That Tape Sucks". What does tape sucking have to do with MD, a 2.5 inch DISC encased in a plastic shell with a metal shutter?

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

In the new company, the rootkits will already be available in Windows, so the CDs will no longer have them.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Traiklin]

High Price (Save Up Suckers)

please do tell what the price of the PS3 is going to be.

what's that? you say SCEA hasn't announced a price yet? bullshit! you just said with certainty that the PS3 will be a high price.

please, get your head out of your ass before you post, SCEA or any of the SCE haven't announced a price for the system. You have Ken saying it will be 50,000 yen, an analysist firm giving us TWO price points of $497 and then suddenly $900 (without any reason as to why it suddenly jumped in price), and the Euro Vice president being misunderstood when he was saying prices.

remember the analysist firm said the 360, Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, PSP, DS and so on would cost well over what they actually do?

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

MD is an optical disc, not digital tape.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Ilgaz]

People should take a tour in a TV studio or movie studio and see the "real" Sony empire.

If you are in business, it looks real funny when you read things like "Sony can't sell iPod things, they are doomed".

There is "Sony" involved somehow in the production. Always.

They should start to advertise the "Professional" Sony to end users/customers so they don't get false impressions. There are people thinking "betacam" or "digital betacam" has something to do with beta video tapes :)

(beta was better of course!) :)

Besides jokes, Sony has a real image problem. It is obvious.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[fistfullast33l]

Microsoft has a lot of cash on hand, but I think buying Sony would be too much, too quickly. Not to mention that Sony is huge, making products in a lot of areas that Microsoft has no prior experience. Music, Movies, Television, and consumer electronics. Microsoft makes software and video game hardware. Sony might be in a rut, but their products are so diversified that if one industry has it bad, the rest will recover. Not to mention that these guys complain about losing money to music piracy, but what is really happening is that they are making less money. They're not in trouble, they're just not as profitable as they once were. Sony isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Plus, I'd love to see an American corporation buy out a Japanese one. The Japanese will not let that happen.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Gothmolly]

If I don't buy massmarket CDs, and I wisely stayed out of the memory card wars (CF slot, only thank you), then how does Sony's stupid marketing affect me? How do their dumb market ideas affect the average person, EXCEPT when said average person is too ignorant or too oblivous and falls for the glitz?

Basically, Sony did dumb things technology-wise, and early adopters and idiots jumped on their bandwagon.

Sony is evil here how?

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[interiot]

In the professional world though, Sony can push a format like Betamax or BluRay through, and the market will eventually accept it, even if it means somewhat higher prices.

Also, the corporate world is often conservative and sticks to long-established names longer than other markets do... how long did shops continue to purchase genuine IBM P/C desktops, long after the market had moved on?

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

There are people thinking "betacam" or "digital betacam" has something to do with beta video tapes

The original Betacam format records on cassettes loaded with oxide-formulated tape, which are exactly the same as its consumer-market oriented predecessor Betamax, which was introduced 7 years earlier by Sony in 1975. A blank Betamax-branded tape can be used on a Betacam deck, and a Betacam-branded tape can be used in a Betamax deck.

The only difference between Betamax and Betacam is that the former records in composite format (much like VHS, U-matic, or 1" type C videotape), while the latter records in component format and at a much higher linear tape speed, resulting in much-higher video and audio quality over Betamax. A typical L-750 length Beta cassette will yield about 3 hours of recording time on a Betamax VCR at its BII speed, while it would only yield 30 minutes on a Betacam deck or camcorder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacam

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

rying To Get Us To Buy MD Even Though We Told Them A Zillion Times That Tape Sucks Come On Philips Dumped Their Digital Tape Ages Ago

Umm... MDs are not tape... The D stands for DISC.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

MD isn't tape, you know... MD stands for MiniDisc, so We Told Them A Zillion Times That Tape Sucks Come On Philips Dumped Their Digital Tape Ages Ago won't make much of an impression.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[ClamIAm]

MP3 Players That Really Only Play ATRAC

My $40 Discman plays VBR MP3s encoded with LAME just fine.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Tim C]

MD is a magnetic disc, not an optical one.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[AnalystX]

MD is a magneto-optical disc, not a magnetic one. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_driv e%5D

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony is evil here how?

Perhaps you missed the part where he said DRM ROOTKITS.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

"Well, listen, if we take into account Blu-ray, HD, we see Blu-ray players at 1000 euros or more, [PS3] will be extremely cheap when compared to that. When we look at the gaming aspect, it is true that today consoles were generally well below 500 euros (roughly $614 U.S.), and I would say that we will be in this price range. It will be costly for a game console and extremely cheap when we look at the technologies it will integrate."

That is a direct quote from Georges Fornay, the president of Sony Computer France and the vice-president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Mateito]

"back in the day" is right.

During the 80s, Sony made some very very solid mid-range hi-fi products. I have one of the first ever 5-disc CD changes, and its still going strong (except the the need for a reboot every now and then). You also have to give them credit for the walkman, the discman, and for their involvement in a number of good standards that have moved moosic and data storage forward.

However, modern Sony music kit is less "Hi-Fi" and more "oooooh... pretty flash lights", and although modern fabrication techniques mean that good manufacturing comes out of pretty well anywhere these days, Sonys switch from "Made in Japan" to wherever they went caused a drop in quality from which they never recovered.

In the data space, Ive had more problems with Sony media than any other brand, and that goes from 1.44MB floppies to DAT tapes to SDLT to DVD-R.

I dont hate sony, but I dont buy anything they produce any more.

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Ilgaz]

When someone says "Betacam", they speak about Betacam SP, not original Betacam.

Speaking about the SP format, it takes 20 mins with a huge transformator to "erase" the tape if you have to. Magnetic fields are that high.

Soon (not yet), when people in industry says "Betacam", it will mean "Betacam Digital" or "HD Betacam".

Re:Fanboyism at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

Secondly, why do we all have a "rabid hate" for Sony?

For me personally, poor build quality on the PS2, always shipping crappy lasers just to save a few bucks.

Rootkit support will be double plus good

[LiquidCoooled]

If MS bought out Sony, the rootkits could become undetectable just like the current US gov ones built into Windows ;)

Re:Rootkit support will be double plus good

[xusr]

that, and every Blu-Ray movie you buy will require an 183 digit activation code.

Re:Rootkit support will be double plus good

[steveo777]

It'll be more like a drop of blood to make for damn sure you're the guy who bought it. Like in Gattaca

Re:Rootkit support will be double plus good

[ScrewMaster]

No, I understand they will only be using the DNA activation feature for DVD releases of CSI.

Re:Rootkit support will be double plus good

[LoveTheIRS]

Why make other rootkits undetectable when there is already a good one built into Windows called "Microsoft DRM".

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone at Microsoft know anything at all about running a consumer electronics company? Okay, they've tried to enter the field in a very narrow area with X-Box but does anyone seriously think that gives them the experience they'd need? This sounds like insanity. They have enough problems in their own markets.

Re:Huh?

[arth1]

Did the writer mean red ink? Is it environmentally a good idea to put red ink in the grand canyon?

Well, that would explain Red River then...

Anyhow, this article is as insightful as my dog's arse. Reading your average penis cream spam is more enlighting than this. Is there a way to moderate down the submitter and approver of this drivel?

--
*Art

Re:Huh?

[westlake]

They have enough problems in their own markets.

We should all have Microsoft's problems. No debt. Forty billion or so in spare change. A 90% share in our core markets.

Re:Huh?

[Ohreally_factor]

You mean the Colorado River? I hadn't thought of that.

Re:Huh?

[timeOday]

But Microsoft has only ever been really successful in one market, and it was a new market so they didn't have to push anybody aside to take it. Microsoft's forays into Sony's world (the livingroom, game consoles, portable music) have all been money-losing failures that fall back onto the Windows/Office monopoly for survival.

Re:Huh?

[MindKata]

From a longer term perspective, what if a PC/Console machine becomes the centre multimedia player in the living room. A machine that could combine e.g. IPTV, Web radio, Voice over IP, MP3 player, Games machine, Video recorder etc...

Then they will be in direct competition with Sony in other markets. That could most likely be the longer term goals for consoles which both Sony and Microsoft are working and aiming towards. The so called "technology convergence".

read TFA with a grain of salt

[Vandil X]

Sony has held the all mighty hardware thrown for an astounding eleven years at the time of writing this.

I'm sorry, but with an error like that in the second sentence, I'm guessing the author is not an informed source and likely not an authority on predicting future console market trends.

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[NekSnappa]

Like many of you, it's hard for me to remember a time when the word "Playstation" was synonymous with gaming.

I believe he meant to say that he can't remember when it Playstaion "wasn't" synonymous with gaming. And that's in the first sentence!

Add that to the use of 'there' when 'their' in the last line of the second paragraph. It becomes quite clear that this article has all the journalistic value of the typical Slashdot post.

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[Anonymous Coward]

"'Sony has held the all mighty hardware thrown for an astounding eleven years at the time of writing this.'

I'm sorry, but with an error like that in the second sentence, I'm guessing the author is not an informed source and likely not an authority on predicting future console market trends."

You misunderstand what people do with their Sony products. After the root kit debacle a lot of people threw them away. (;P)

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[TubeSteak]

Sony has held the all mighty hardware thrown for an astounding eleven years at the time of writing this.

I, for one, am interested in seeing this piece of hardware which was thrown 11 years. I mean, was it thrown forwards in time? Backwards? Is Sony sitting on some really cool hardware from 2017?

More details dammit!

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, what our u saying about Slashdot readers?

For those who are sarcasm-unaware, the errors above are intentional. :)

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[mederjo]

How about "all mighty" for "almighty" then? Noone seems to have picked that up. I do not think I have seen any one write "all mighty" like that before, all though I am sure some one must have.

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[Lehk228]

thrown is quite correct, sony gear has done stupid shit and made people throw it across the room for quite some time now.

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[HiThere]

Don't those mean the same thing? I thought that all mighty only became one word when you capitalized it.

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[MindKata]

"I'm sorry, but with an error like that in the second sentence, I'm guessing the author is not an informed source and likely not an authority on predicting future console market trends"

That's interesting. So if they make a mistake, then their whole argument is, in your opinion, wrong. So working by your theory, if for example, a cab driver makes a spelling mistake, then he cannot find his way, driving across a city?

Your logic is flawed. I suspect you don't like what is said, and so want a reason to hang onto that belief.

Personally, I think its unlikely Sony could fail, but I also think the article is right in showing the extra cost of the PS3 could hurt Sony's chances.

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[jzfredricks]

Sony has held the all mighty hardware thrown for an astounding eleven years at the time of writing this.

I'm slowly decoding this message! I think what the author is trying to tell us is that Steve Ballmer, the mighty hardware throwing clown, is ALREADY in charge at Sony...and has been for 11 years!

Oh...the irony...if this is true, it's one motherfucker of a rootkit

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[AK Marc]

Add that to the use of 'there' when 'their' in the last line of the second paragraph.

Great. So they not only screwed up and tried to use "their" when "its" was correct, they also screwed up "their." At least I have no doubt that they would have used "it's" in place of the correct "its."

Re:read TFA with a grain of salt

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's just in orbit.

If A then B

[Anonymous Coward]

If B then C... if C then D... HEY LOOK IT'S X!!!

Seriously how do you get from, "The PS3 is going to be expensive" to "Here comes the buyout from Microsoft in 2014!"

If the writer can accurately predict buyouts 8 years in advance he should be in the stock market, not doing gaming reviews.

Re:If A then B

[Anonymous Coward]

Very simple. The PS3, with its blue-ray drive, is going to cost $700-1000 to make. In order to compete with MS and Nintendo, they're going to have to sell it for $300 or so. Sony is gonna lose a ton of money.

Best case, they lose only $300 per unit. How many games would they have to sell to make up that loss?

And with the blue-ray/hd-dvd format war, they're unlikely to sell many blue-ray disks, so they're not going to make much money there either.

Sony is totally screwed.

Re:If A then B

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm suprised the origional article even got posted to slashdot. The source article is not even X-Files quality conjecure. Let's be honest, the game division of sony is a small drop in the bucket for Sony. They have so many different product divisions (e.v. tvs, audio, movies, music, computers, robotics), it just hard to imagine that Sony couldn't weather the failure of the PS3. Moreover, if that were the case it would be the sale of the PS3 to someone else, not the sale of Sony. Lastly, do we really think that the most dominant force is gaming for the last 10 years is not going to be able to make the PS3 a success? I think it's premature to count Sony out just because they have had delays.

Re:If A then B

[/ASCII]

I doubt they will make a $300 loss on the first batch of hardware, but it is possible. On the other hand, it should only ake a few months to ramp up and streamline production, start implementing cost-cutting design changes (The cost of making Blu-ray drives will be next to nothing before long, exactly as it happened with DVD-readers and CD-readers before) and move production to locations with cheap labour, lowering the production costs a few hundred dollars. Some of these cost decreases will trickle down to the consumer, but most of it will be swallowed by Sony to keep their hardware losses managable. Don't expect that the average loss on the PS3:s produced during the first year after release to go above the $100-$150 range. If every consumer buys a controller or two (Sony will probably double the price of controllers because they are wireless, just like Microsoft does), and three or four games, they should be able to break even on the year of the lanch.

Re:If A then B

[kubevubin]

Honestly, if every anti-Sony person in the world had enough money, I'd say that the ideal way of getting rid of Sony would be to purchase the PlayStation 3 console with absolutely no accessories or games whatsoever. Sure, there will be plenty of people who purchase 3-4 games with their console, but I don't think that would be enough to recoup the costs of selling so many other consoles at a loss.

Seems unlikely

[metamatic]

Acquisition isn't typically the way Microsoft operates. They prefer to license the key pieces of technology that they want, and they only do that when they think they won't get away with simply copying them.

Re:Seems unlikely

[mOOzilla]

You mean like AutoRoute, Axapta (Dynamics), CRM, GreatPlains, SendIt (Windows Mobile Server and ISCA 2000 Server)? They where all aquisitions not licensing.

Re:Seems unlikely

[mOOzilla]

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/InvestmentandAcquisi tionsList.mspx

Re:Seems unlikely

[flipper65]

While I do agree with the general consensus that this is BS, your assertion that M$ does not work via aquisition is way off base. There were something like 58 aquisition and a couple hundred major investments in the last 10 years. You can see them here.

Re:Seems unlikely

[metamatic]

Thanks for the stats, you illustrate my point exactly.

Microsoft typically invests in companies, in return for licenses to use their technology. They don't typically buy entire companies, certainly not ones the size of Sony that have a diverse product line.

Re:Seems unlikely

[BardicStorm]

Except that, if you look at the list, aside from one in 2002 and in 2003, their investment essentially stop after 2001, whereas their aquisitions continue on through 2005.

Looking at that list, you get a sense that they used to put more into investing than aquisitions, but their focus seems to have changed.

Also, if you consider that an aquisition usually costs quite a bit more than investments, then it would seem that even in 1999 and 2000 (the seemingly biggest investment years), more was spent on aquisitions even then.

Re:Seems unlikely

[Yaldabaoth]

This is true -- when I was a microserf, the attitude was that if we can build it for less than we can license it, then we'll build it ourselves.

but that was like six years ago, so ...

Re:Seems unlikely

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems you haven't been paying attention.

Can you think of *ANY* product except for WinNT and Word that they built rather than acquired.

MS-Dos; Their entire business software unit. Their entire computer game unit. Their anti-spyweare. Groove.

Every major Microsoft product in the past 10 years has been an acquisition and not built in house.

Re:Seems unlikely

[metamatic]

MS-DOS was licensed from SCS, who weren't acquired. Microsoft's streaming media technology was partly licensed from Vivo and Real, who weren't acquired, partly stolen from Apple, and partly written in house. They bought a ton of 3D technologies from SGI, who weren't acquired. Their speech recognition technology was licensed from L&H, who weren't acquired. They licensed B2B technologies from VerticalNet, Radiant Systems and others--again, didn't acquire them.

Sure, they've purchased plenty of software companies to get well-defined software applications. However, Sony doesn't fit that model. If they bought Sony they'd be purchasing a company with no real desktop software products, and a large number of diverse technologies. So I still think a 'strategic investment' in return for technology licensing of the stuff they actually wanted would be the approach they would take.

Slow news day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be.

Whilst I think Sony are digging a hole for themselves with their insistence on BluRay functionality in the PS3 at a time when the technology hasn't even been released to early adopters, thus rising the price of what is primarily a game playing machine to stupidly high levels, I don't think that they would ever agree to be bought by Microsoft, or merge with them.

I also don't think that it will cost anything like the ridiculously high manufacturing costs that have been mooted by various parties. The BluRay drive will probably end up being the only major cost difference between the consoles, and will initially add on maybe $100 - $200 to the price, collapsing to +$50 within a year and then being a negligable difference thereafter. The long term benefits may be good for Sony and the PS3 when they're selling an established system + player for the same price as the XBox360 and making the same loss as Microsoft on it.

But for 2006, and probably 2007, it's not going to be nice for Sony.

Sony is not PlayStation

[The Ape With No Name]

They make all kinds of stuff, including this new handheld digital recording gizmo our department bought for doing ethnographic interviews. It is totally fly and it fills a niche (midrange price/high quality) that we couldn't do otherwise because its competing devices are 10 grand.

If M$ buys the console part of Sony, so be it. But I doubt that even Microsoft can absorb something as big as Sony. Sure, they may have the cash on hand, but that is a really, really large operation.

Re:Sony is not PlayStation

[Jeff Benjamin]

It is totally fly and it fills a niche...

1989 called, and it wants it's slang words back.

Re:Sony is not PlayStation

[Anonymous Coward]

The contraction of it and is called, it wants its apostrophe back.

Re:Sony is not PlayStation

[mgblst]

Buy Sony, break it up, keep the playstation bit, and sell the rest. You think this is really hard stuff?? Come on, this gets done all the time. And it would be a huge boost for Microsoft - not only the playstation, but the PSP. Brilliant idea.

Maybe google should but Sony, before microsoft get there!

Is this a joke?

[hackstraw]

I mean, really. Sony has become the worst electronics company in the world because of their proprietary formats and the overall quality of their electronics has gone downhill, and even if they are able to sucker someone into buying or licensing their technology, its DRMed to hell so bad that you can't use it. Both companies are against open standards as much as possible, but MSFT is beginning to loose that battle, Sony keeps trying after 30+ years of failures in that department. I mean, besides the Xbox, the PS3 if it ever comes out, and some of the music and movies that I guess some people still listen to and watch, what do they have to offer customers? I can see it now, Sony and MSFT will be so big, DRMed to hell so bad, vendor locked so bad, that just their size alone would just make them their own customers :)

Kinda reminds me of masturbation. Everybody does it, but in reality, your just fucking yourself.

Re:Is this a joke?

[xusr]

"because of their proprietary formats and the overall quality ...has gone downhill..."

I dunno...that sounds perfect for Microsoft to me... ;)

"birds of a feather flock together" or some such rubbish

Re:Is this a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Kinda reminds me of masturbation."

o.O
fella you have some serious issues here... forget Sony and MSFT, you have larger issues at hand !

Continuing PS3 under Microsoft doesn't make sense

[Zweideutig]

In my humble opinion, Microsoft won't be continuing the PlayStation gaming console and the Xbox if they acquire Sony. It makes more sense to combine the merits of both consoles into one that combines the market share to put a serious force against Nintendo. If Microsoft were to buy out Sony, I see a lot of change happening. The Sony VAIO laptop and desktop computer lines would likely be spun off into a different company like IBM did. The Sony name could be used to sell a competitor of the iPod that runs some portable Windows CE-like OS. Sony's music and movie division would be great for helping Microsoft kill Apple's iTunes. Direct control over the label allows Microsoft to charge whatever they want (even free like with Internet Explorer, which would effectively kill iTunes.) I see the buyout of Sony a great move for Microsoft, provided they spin-off some things that aren't pertinent to boosting the value of the shares for us stockholders.

MS + Sony = ???

[Spy Handler]

Evil + Eviler = Evilest evil ever to do evil??

Re:MS + Sony = ???

[Ohreally_factor]

Frikkin' sharks with blue lasers!

Re:MS + Sony = ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgetting SCO are we?

Re:MS + Sony = ???

[WilliamSChips]

Anti-Google. Which, when it comes in contact with Google, will cause an explosion that will destroy all companies in the world.

What a load of crap

[Rik Sweeney]

So Microsoft are going to buy Sony, which includes Televisions, DVD Players, Walkmans, their music label, their film label, PlayStation...

Even if this was true, I expect a purchase would be blocked by one or more governments.

Re:What a load of crap

[Zweideutig]

They would probably spin off most of those divisions of Sony into separate companies, keeping things that boost their bottom line.

Re:What a load of crap

[Ohreally_factor]

Which would be what, exactly?

Re:What a load of crap

[Tx]

Well, they could just buy parts of Sony. I could see MS wanting the Playstation, PSP, personal audio products, maybe even the music and movies divisions. But I agree, this sounds like some fools random speculation, rather than anything even vaguely concrete.

Re:What a load of crap

[supabeast!]

"...I expect a purchase would be blocked by one or more governments."

Why would any government block Microsoft form purchasing a company that does business in arenas that Microsoft doesn't already, especially when there are numerous competitors worldwide? There's a possibility that the EU or US DOJ might get testy and demand that SCEE/SCEA be divested first to keep Microsoft from controlling the Playstation in Europe and the states, but aside from that, Microsoft buying Sony wouldn't really put Microsoft in a position detrimental to consumers. Even the ability to lock all of Sony's content into Microsoft's media/DRM systems wouldn't matter much, because the vast majority of content industries around the world would still be outside of Microsoft's control, and become even less likely to adopt Microsoft's standards just to spite a competitor.

Re:What a load of crap

[cyber-vandal]

You mean any more detrimental to consumers than they already are.

Re:What a load of crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Japan would not let this happen. Never, ever, ever. That's like saying we would let China buy Lockheed, or the UAE control our ports. Sony is too important to Japan. More likely as stated above Sony would divest to other (mostly Japanesse firms) and either implode or become a much smaller company. Last I heard this is what is currently going on at Sony. The new chairman is "cleaning house" slashing unprofitable productlines and preparing to sell off or lisence the associated IP.

Sony has made, is making and will make may misteps. However use of propritary hardware isn't one of them. From what I understand their slash and burn approach to cutting edge tech is acutlly quite profitable in many instances.

Predictions:

PS3 will be out, late as always.
PS3 will be in short supply for months.
PS3 will be under the X-mas tree of everyself respecting geek / yuppie faimly who can aquire one.
PS3 will move a ton of units.
You will love the PS3.
You will complain that you can't steal software... er it's DRMed out the ass.
Sony will be just fine.

-Lemur

Re:What a load of crap

[supabeast!]

"Sony is too important to Japan."

Why is Sony so damned important? It's not like Sony is the only big Japanese electronics manufacturer. Sony isn't a critical to Japan's...anything. Sony makes entertainment products, and if there's one thing Japan isn't short of, it's companies that make entertainment products.

Re:What a load of crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be more realistic, what on earth would make you think SOny would want to be bought? A couple of rough years? (At least with Sun and Apple they've had like a solid decade of rough years at various points in history) I don't think it would be possible for Sony to by bought by MS. Sony's market cap is close to $50b, that's not including their actual assets, that's just stock. Shareholders have to want it to be taken over or you have to pay a premium over the current stock to do a hostile. MS simply isn't that large of a company when it's all said and done to come up with that kind of jack.

Now if Sony wanted it or if their shareholders did (and Stringer is a bit of a cult hero, he's primed to be a jackass if he fails though) it could be a different matter but there is nothing remotely realistic to this happening.

Moreover, should some kind of move be made that made it look like it might happen, I think there are some other forces that might make plays to increase the costs and to take Sony instead.

Re:What a load of crap

[Lehk228]

professional studio gear, and the IP obtained from SCE would surely be useful in xbox development

Re:What a load of crap

[Nexx]

Caveat: I worked with a consulting firm who sent people into various parts of Sony, including SCE, the gaming division of Sony, while working in Tokyo.

The internal scuttlebutt from a couple of years ago (right around their PSX launch) was that SCE is the one bright spot for Sony.

I sincerely doubt Sony will sell their golden goose, unless it's for a very stupidly large sum, and I think Bill Gates and Co. are too savvy to pay that sort of an extortionist fee. In all seriousness, I see Microsoft trying to do what they did to the Netscape Navigator with IE -- take an initial hit, but eventually outcompete with products that have superiour perception of value.

Re:What a load of crap

[Nexx]

Sony is an electronics firm, yes, but they also do lots of R&D with NHK, the national broadcaster.

Re:What a load of crap

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Even if this was true, I expect a purchase would be blocked by one or more governments

It certainly wouldn't be blocked by the US Administration, they might even give BG a grant to help out.

Don't forget SWG

[dsanfte]

Don't forget Star Wars Galaxies. And Everquest I/II depending on how jaded you've become.

Re:Don't forget SWG

[dhakbar]

Those are both products of Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Movies, which is an entertainment branch that is almost entirely unrelated to their electronics division.

Just an FYI; Sony's corporate structure is aggressively divided. It makes for no surprise that the different groups often end up at odds with each other.

Re:Don't forget SWG

[BootNinja]

not to mention the fact that they tend to eschew standard connectors for proprietary ones that only work with other sony products.

Nothing to see here

[bobbutts]

Exciting headline, but no story to back it up. It's a little early to put the nail in the coffin on the PS3 already. I don't see how the author makes the jump to the buyout. This opinion article doesn't belong on the frontpage of anything.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

But on www.drobe.co.uk/riscos/artifact1543.html
there is some real M$ related action :-)

Mis-categorized

[Doomstalk]

You forgot the "Laugh, it's funny" logo.

Likely not even a good uninformed source.

[Anonymous Coward]

Running a quick whois on the domain, we can see that the site is based out of Macomb, MI. That is not an area associated with computing in any significant way. I doubt anyone based in that area would have any connection to Sony, Microsoft, or the industry in general, that would allow them to make such statements with any degree of certainty.

Call me crazy here...

[Lawfer]

...But am I the only person in the world that doesn't trust a news source that doesn't run a spell/grammar check on an article before publishing it?

MS will only help their death spiral

[argoff]

The problem is that SONY isn't a software company, or a media company - they are a hardware (electronic device) company. They have alienated a lot of their customers with DRM crap and content controlls and have lost a lot of hardware sales because of it. So now the hardware side of the business is getting weaker, but the content side is getting stronger. Because of that, they will almost certinly impose more DRM crap, piss off more customers, kill more hardware sales and feed a vicious cycle that could kill the whole company.

Would you believe a reporter

[Anonymous Coward]

who doesn't even know the difference between "there" and "their".

Re:Would you believe a reporter

[XnavxeMiyyep]

I've heard of reporters like that. Usually, their unreliable!

DON'T RTFA.

[xigxag]

Just don't. You will want your five minutes back. You were warned.

Re:DON'T RTFA.

[Tim C]

I ignored your warning, but it's ok, I didn't make it past the first paragraph. Talk about run-on sentences - the final one is so long, even the author forgets that it's a question and leaves the question mark off the end.

Re:DON'T RTFA.

[k31bang]

Just don't. You will want your five minutes back. You were warned.

waaaaaaay ahead of you.

Quiet bad spelling

[RealGrouchy]

I can't force myself to read this article. Call me back when they get a proofreader.

- RG>

Re:Quiet bad spelling

[Anonymous Coward]

umm... that would be "Quite bad spelling", then

Rabid hate?

[DrXym]

It's not rabid hatred. It's recognition of the fact that Sony has become the most fucked up, schizophrenic, self-destructive company on the corporate landscape. Assuming they get a clue and stop spiking their own (and otherwise high quality) products with intrustive DRM and proprietary formats, there is no reason to assume they will be hated any more. The funny thing is Sony stuff is excellent and attractive, but clueful people aren't going to buy a system which has been crippled when plenty of other manufacturers also make excellent, unencumbered and often cheaper gear.

An example of how they could get a clue and repair some of the damage they've done to their reputation. A slashdot article a week or so back suggested UMD (for Video) might be on its last legs. This would be a defeat for Sony but they can gain a lot of kudos and a lot sales if they did something when it went bye-bye. That thing is simple - uncripple the PSP. The PSP is already excellent at playing movies, but uncripple it so rippers can use the full display resolution. For extra points Sony could give away something akin to iTunes that helps people rip / convert music & clips but also buy titles online.

Re:Rabid hate?

[the eric conspiracy]

Sony has become the most fucked up, schizophrenic, self-destructive company on the corporate landscape.

Nah, that title belongs to GM. Sony has a lot going for it with some great products, and is quite profitable. Sony also has a new CEO who seems to be making some headway in clearing out a lot of the underbrush that is preventing Sony from achieving what it is capable of (which is a LOT more than Microsoft).

Re:Rabid hate?

[oliverthered]

Assuming they get a clue and stop spiking their own (and otherwise high quality) products with intrustive DRM and proprietary formats, there is no reason to assume they will be hated any more.

Are you talking about Apple, I thought they were doing quite well with their intrustive DRM and proprietary formats / technology. (Though I won't buy Apple because of their naty law suits, propriotray everything and tonne of DRM)

Apple has lots of cash too ...

[willtsmith]

Apple has lots of cash too, but I doubt you'll be seing anyone buying/merging with Sony at all.

1st it's a Japanese company, and I don't see those guys allowing Americans to come in and wreck their management structure. Second, years of losses does not necessarily equate to going under. Sony is a powerhouse consumer electronics giant that is arguably the leader in the field. GM has been posting record losses lately as well, but do you really think that anyone could buy GM?

Yes, Sony does have to get those Playstations out the door this year. And when they do, it will be an incredible success regardless of costing $150 more than a stripped down Xbox360. Sony has way too much mindshare out there and tons of fans waiting to buy the machines. Once the PS3 goes out the door the videogames get sold to those rabid fans and thats how Sony makes their money. Oh yeah ... that and they sell all those blu-ray fabs and jump-start blu-ray way past the point where HD-DVD will ever be able to catch up.

Re:Apple has lots of cash too ...

[gnuLNX]

"but do you really think that anyone could buy GM?"

Yes of course lots of companies "could" by GM. The question is why in Gods name would they? GM is most likely a doomed company.

Re:Apple has lots of cash too ...

[LoveTheIRS]

I respectfully disagree. A stripped down 360 is a good machine that fulfills it's primary purpose, which is to play games. Sony is trying to put a bunch of secondary features into the PS3 that hardly anyone can use. No one can run Blu-Ray movies at full resolution. Consumers are going to want to know what they are getting for their extra money with the PS3. When the greasy haired sales man rattles off a bunch of features that have no practical value, consumers are going to buy the Xbox 360 instead. Blu-Ray is not going to make it into homes because the PS3 is over priced for it's primary purpose. Furthermore, Microsoft will probably be coming out with an Xbox 360 revision that has a HD-DVD. When it is applicable, Microsoft will have a competing HD-DVD product to Blu-Ray.

Re:Apple has lots of cash too ...

[Chazmyrr]

Most of my consumer electronics are Sony. Receiver, DVD, TV, Playstation, PS2, etc. I have a rack full of PS and PS2 games and accessories. When I bought my PS2 on launch day, I thought $300 was a bit pricey. I could justify it to myself because stand alone DVD players were similar in price. I already had a DVD player but it would be nice to have one for the second TV as well. DVD offered clearly better picture quality than VHS on the TVs I already owned.

I have zero interest in a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD stand-alone player. I don't have an HDTV because HD programs only started being shown in my area two years ago. Even now, the selection of HD programming is very slim. My TVs probably have at least 5 years left on them before I start thinking about replacing them. Now, I'd be interested in a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive for my computer, but that's a different story.

So, I don't have HDTV. My existing DVD player outputs higher resolution than my TV can display. I have no desire for a Blu-Ray player. Why am I going to spend $500-$750 on a PS3? I'm not. I don't care how many killer games get released as PS3 exclusives. Until the price is $300 or less, I won't even consider it. Even then I still might not since I'm not happy about DRM.

If the PS3 costs substantially more than the XBox, Sony loses this generation of the consoles. It gets too expensive and Nintendo might even make it back into 2nd place.

Nintendo didnt so why would sony

[majortom1981]

IF Nintendo didnt accept the buyout offer from microsoft why would sony? I do not think any japanese company would accept a buyout from an american company especially microsoft.

Old

[Anonymous Coward]

April 1st was a week ago.

Re:Continuing PS3 under Microsoft doesn't make sen

[xusr]

Free music will never see the light of day. Not from a major label, anyway. And that's ok: record companies are businesses, not philanthropies.

Even if that were the case, I don't think that just one label's offerings for free would totally kill iTunes. There are a lot of other things going for iTunes than just Sony's music.

Yeah, they are really strapped for cash

[bshellenberg]

Sony still makes billions a year. Where they lose it here, they make up for it there. You would assume that a "journalist" that is shouting about the imminent death of a fortune 500 corporation would think of this. Then again, maybe thats why he isn't writing for the Wall Street Journal.

M$ does not have that kind of money.

[Zapdos]

Last year Sony had $67 billion in sales, MS had $41.4 billion.

Re:M$ does not have that kind of money.

[rbarreira]

What about expenses? I agree with you that MS couldn't buy Sony, but that doesn't make a correct proof unnecessary.

Objectively speaking, I have no idea of whether this would be possible or not, but if I had to bet right now, I'd say "no".

Huh?

[jyoull]

"...when the Sony name wasn't covered in enough red tape to fill the Grand Canyon"

I've heard of mixing metaphors before, but that's a doozy. It really takes the cake and eats it too. I'm between a rock and a hard place trying to sort out this barrel of monkeys.

Much obliged to any word wizard out there who can 'splin me the bit about red tape all over the Sony name, and the grand canyon. I mean, tape doesn't take up a lot of space. That'd be a lot of tape. Did the writer mean red ink? Is it environmentally a good idea to put red ink in the grand canyon?

Even the console piece difficult to swallow...

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Sony has an enormous cultural hurdle to overcome for any buyer. Just ask the guys at BMG who get told to effectively mind their own business on the record label side of things. Having the cash to buy a piece of Sony is probably only 5% of the battle. The other 95% would be trying to integrate with a company who's management is very antagonistic to any outside "interference".

Re:Even the console piece difficult to swallow...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why the 'sacking everyone' strategy evolved. In Sony's case it probably wouldn't be before time.

But IBM should buy out the PS3 division.

[Morgaine]

I don't think I need to comment on the adverse effects of the manufacturer of the Xbox buying out the manufacturer of the Playstation. It wouldn't be a minor thing.

Such a takeover could certainly be on the cards though, because Sony really is in trouble, for many reasons. (Many of them actually boil down to the old and very buoyant product-oriented "Sony Manufacturing" having been invaded and crippled by the regressive hoards of "Sony Legal". They've destroyed a great company.)

However, the only way a takeover is doing to work for games is if the Playstation division is first split off and acquired by some other major player. Since PS3 is based on Cell, IBM would seem to be a good candidate here, as a separate division of course. I doubt if it's in their business plan though. It's a scary area.

I don't like Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

But they're not idiots. They simply wouldn't design a console with the intention of selling it for $500. All these prices that get thrown around ignore the fact there will be a massive volume discount - the PS3 will sell over 10 million units on pure inertia. The blue-ray players they use for comparison might sell into the hundreds of thousands if they're lucky.

Predictions.....

[hptux06]

If the article writer can predict buyouts that will occur in 8 years time, then he must be good enough to tell me next week's lottery numbers, please.

I know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's take TWO large companies having difficulty bringing some of their most important, next generation products to market, mash them together, and everything will be better!

It's an entertaining idea, but I don't think there are enough MBAs in both companies for this to happen.

Interesting debate

[MK_CSGuy]

This will create an interesting debate about their products:
What came first, the unsecure OS or the Rootkit?

Not much of an article...

[Mike1024]

First line:

Like many of you, it's hard for me to remember a time when the word "Playstation" was synonymous with gaming. Sony has held the all mighty hardware thrown for an astounding eleven years at the time of writing this.

I would have said it's hard to remember a time when the word playstation wasn't synonymous with gaming. After all, Sony has held the console throne for a fair time.

I'm not sure I agree that a buyout is on the cards myself. If Sony's only product was the playstation, maybe, but look at their financial highlights; gaming only represents 10% of their income. Would Microsoft want a record label, a film studio or a consumer electronics business?

Sony's market cap is $48 billion. Granted, Microsoft might be able to stretch to this, but why not spend a little more and buy Apple for $59 billion? Apple is in the computer industry, and has the iPod. Seems like a much better purchase to me.

Just my $0.02,

Michael

Re:Not much of an article...

[emurphy42]

why not spend a little more and buy Apple

Because then they'd get hit with the "monopoly" label even worse than they already do. I don't believe the same is true of any of the industries in which Microsoft and Sony compete.

Re:Not much of an article...

[cyber-vandal]

I work as a proofreader, so that was actually painful to read. I've half a mind to mark it (you scored 92% lern2spell n00b) and email him corrections. And as for the ad links, someone please kill the cretin who thought of that one.

Re:Not much of an article...

[phorest]

Would Microsoft want a (1) record label, a (2) film studio or a (3)consumer electronics business?

(1)Yes, (2)Yes & (3)Yes!

(1) gets you revenue from all the purchases from iTMS + a valuable music catalog and an avenue to start up the MS Live Music Store (TM).
(2) gets you the contenet for IPTV and/or streaming video (think of the value of the catalog alone) and opens up the MS Live Video On Demand (TM) Store.
And (3) means they can go to-toe with apple as an upscale hardware seller/provider.
The Dells/Gateways of the world could always be persuaded to sign off if the margin is considerably greater than the clone-makers. Then the fanboys can fulfill their innate need to spend more money on software then is neccessary/warranted!

It make sense to me because with more products to hawk they aren't locked into relying on an upgrade market/new oem software only model.

Re:Not much of an article...

[phorest]

Then the fanboys can fulfill their innate need to spend more money on software then is neccessary/warranted!

Damn, I never previewed this...
Software should be hardware .

Re:Not much of an article...

[Darby]

Would Microsoft want a record label, a film studio or a consumer electronics business?

Absolutely.
It would allow them more power/profit in pushing their brain dead DRM crap. It would allow them tremendous leverage against Apple's ITMS and iPod.
If they bought every record label on the planet (obviously not realistic) then what exactly would Apple sell attheir music store?

This has nothing to do with the reality of MS acquiring Sony of course, but it's definitely something they would want.

Re:Not much of an article...

[zkwang]

Because Microsoft has been trying to enter the home media center market. They have developed the software and have thrown out the XBox 360 to become the home media center. But, not many people are buying into it.

What they are missing now:

Plasma & LCD HDTV's (Sony has the most popular line according to recent sales figures.)
Steroes
CD/MP3 Players & Other media devices
Movies & Music that can actually be bundled with the package

& Of course, the most important of it all, they will actually have a presence in Japan.

TFA = Smoking crack gives nice visions.

[JollyFinn]

Sony does other things than just the playstation consoles, the corporation has over 66 Billion USD worth of sales, the entire console market isn't anywhere near that figure.
Also sony corporation happens to have huge assets. As for cash flow statements, sony corporation made quite good operating profit they just invested it. So basicly they are probably not interested in selling their self to microsoft, it would be hostile take over probably.
And this kind of buy out is going to be killed by either japanese or american goverment by monopoly issues.

Finally the speaking of weak stock price for sony is *bull*. Check out the 10 year graph, if we ignore the bubble spike the stock is relatively high price.

These fan boys just look the part they understand and assume that part of picture is what matters.

uh, no

[buddyglass]

Contrary to the poster of this article seems to believe, Sony makes more than just Playstations. There's Sony Records and Sony Pictures, but then they also make monitors, laptops, desktops, camcorders, stereos, headphones and medical equipment. Not exactly Microsoft's core business.

Re:uh, no

[Anonymous Coward]

Medical equipment made by Microsoft, according to Microsoft standards of quality. That should be fun!

"Back in the day", Sony was great

[Opportunist]

Sony made great products. They made the best walkmen. They made some of the best VCR for a KILLER price.

Now they rely on their name to squeeze out mediocre hardware that suffers dearly from incompatibility and DRM.

Sony plus....

[radiosteve]

Apple plus Disney... now, THERE's a combination I could imagine. Microsoft buying Sony? Might be good for Microsoft because of the Sony content, but other than that, it would be a waste of capital. Plus, managing a behemoth like a Sony/Microsoft combination would be very tough for the kind of managers that Microsoft has today. Totally outside of their zone.

Hey Kids, How About A Rumor History Lesson?

[shoptroll]

Anyone remember 2-3 years ago when the Gamecube wasn't doing so hot and everyone thought Nintendo was going to go down the tubes after the DS has a lukewarm reception? Remember the articles suggesting the MS buyout of Nintendo?

Do we all remember where those rumors went?

In all fairness to Sony, like most industry rumor rags, this article completely and totally forgets to look at the other Sony divisions. Even if the PS3 is gonna tout a $500 price tag, they can probably afford to sell at a loss for a large period of time, and that really depends on how strong their launch is. For a while Sony was one of the leading manufacturers of TVs prior to the introduction of HDTVs. Sony still has a strong amount of brand name recognition that they can ride on for quite some time. Everyone here seems to forget that the average joe never knew about the Sony BMG rootkit schtick. Want proof? Try this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Sony+DRM+ 2005+site%3Acnn.com&btnG=Search Nothing on CNN. Further proof: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8& q=Sony+Rootkit&scoring=d&sa=N&start=60 No mainstream news ever really carried the story or the aftermath.

Let's also keep in mind that Sony is more about personal electronics and MS is really about software. The only convergence the two really have is SCE and Microsoft Game Studios. I could see maybe MS taking over SCE, but I don't think that'll happen.

Why does everyone think that MS is sitting on some magic pot of gold? If they have enough money to buy Sony, and Sony to me seems like the larger company (and probably has been around a lot longer), shouldn't Sony be the one buying MS?

GM is a LOT worse off than you think

[512k]

..at the moment, their market cap is 12.3 billion. by comparison Apples is 58.6 Billion, and Microsofts is 282.1 billion.

omegacorp ?

[Programmer_In_Traini]

Hum, I won't speculate on whether this will happen or not, because there are just too many variables right now.

but what did strike me when i read it, what were they called in robocop ?

Omegacorp ? one mega corporation controlling every aspect of your life, was that it ?

its funny, all we're shown in the movies, with the big corporations controlling our lives, we can see it coming now, not so sci-fi now heh ? is it :)

Re:omegacorp ?

[despisethesun]

Omni Consumer Products. And they were basically a caricature of American corporations at the time, bloated, plagued with internal politics, and more worried about quantity than quality (recall Dick Jones' rant about the ED-209. "Who cares if it worked?") In fact, by the later additions to the series (the terrible Prime Directives TV movies) OCP was facing a takeover by a Japanese corp.

Why I think this is bullspit:

[Opportunist]

1. A Japanese company being bought by an US company. An ELECTRONIC Japanese company. Since buying requires someone else willing to sell, this alone makes it VERY unlikely.

2. Sony > Playstation. Sony has its fingers in consumer electronics, cellphones, content industry, computers and a few more branches that I can't think of right now.

3. Antitrust. A direct result of 2., if MS only THOUGHT about buying PARTS of Sony, this would immediately bring the antitrust witchhunters on them. And I doubt MS wants more attention from the feds concerning their monopoly situation, especially in areas like Korea (south) and the EC.

4. Price. Another result of 2. Sony isn't some local company they scoop up on their road to market domination, I'd guess if anything it would be merger, but not buy-out. And merging would again bring a beehive of antitrust lawyers on them.

What I can see is an attempt to support the games of other consoles. They might try that, yes. For the simple reason that this IS undoubtedly a killer argument for one console over the other (when you can play PS and XBox games with one, why buy the other one that can play just one of them?).

But a buy out? Doubt it.

Re:Why I think this is bullspit:

[Anonymous Coward]

The "EC" is dead for a long time. It's called the "EU" now. In case you haven't noticed, it's not just an economic community anymore, it's basically a centralized government.

Re:Why I think this is bullspit:

[Opportunist]

Right, one of the first things they "harmonized" was the name.

Thought I kinda disagree on the centralized government. It sure doesn't feel like one. More, it seems to be the place where you put "uncomfortable" politicians that ain't presentable to the local population anymore. Also, it lacks key governmental powers (taxation, common foreign policy, common military forces).

It seems more that the member states do their best to pull as much money out of the EU pots instead of trying to pull together. Sad, but very human.

The whole thing?

[dtk13]

Is MS planing on buying all of sony or just the computer division? I could see them buying the computer division but not the whole thing. It would be too big.

Secure Digital ...

[willtsmith]

Secure Digital and xD is just a proprietary as Memory Stick. Why does everyone blame SONY for disagreeing on formats?

Oh BTW, MiniDisc is a great recording format. It just never took off as a distribution format in the United States. Sony's previous market introduction was too successfull ... the Compact Audio Disc.

Re:Secure Digital ...

[wfberg]

Secure Digital and xD is just a proprietary as Memory Stick. Why does everyone blame SONY for disagreeing on formats?

Oh BTW, MiniDisc is a great recording format. It just never took off as a distribution format in the United States. Sony's previous market introduction was too successfull ... the Compact Audio Disc.

Wonder why the CD was so succesful? Unlike MD and MemoryStick there was no standards war. Like DVD, it was a collaboration of the big consumer electronics firms. Sony didn't invent the CD; Philips, Sony and Matshushita got together to make the CD happen. In fact, "Compact Disc" is a Philips trademark. Likewise, DVD was a cross-industry effort, unlike BlueRay.
MiniDisc is also not as great a recording format as DAT, even if you prefer tape.
MemoryStick utterly failed, unlike MMC and SD, because it's hella easier to license MMC and SD technology. MS is only found in Sony appliances.
xD is also proprietary, but it was never introduced as THE memory card format, and if I put my 3 year old xD card into a brand new Olympus or Fujifilm camera, it will still work, whereas Sony has Memorystick 1, 2, 3 which even differ in size, and it's expensive.

If you want to point to fairly recent Sony introductions, you'd be stuck with IEEE 1394 (firewire, amusingly, Sony's iLink was, for a long time, incompatible with IEEE 1394 in subtle ways, even though Sony proposed the standard) or SPDIF (though the P in SPDIF stands for Philips, the CD guys).

Re:Secure Digital ...

[MacJedi]

...IEEE 1394 (firewire, amusingly, Sony's iLink was, for a long time, incompatible with IEEE 1394 in subtle ways, even though Sony proposed the standard)...

Actually, I believe IEEE 1394 was actually invented at Apple. i.Link was just Sony's broken implementation.

Re:Secure Digital ...

[Anonymous Coward]

CD was successful on replacing LP because of convenicence and usability. Beeing able to store all tracks on one side, random access, fast forward, repeat, shuffle - remote controlled - all on a tiny disc was the LP killer. The same with MP3 vs CD - it's not because of sound quality - it's easy of use. I'd prefere WinAmp any day against a CD player.

Without Sony's support the CD format would hold less than one hour, be a 14-bit format and the discs would have been bigger. Matshushita had no part in the design of the red-book format.

  http://www.licensing.philips.com/licensees/patent/ cd/

MemoryStick is still the second largest flash memory format. Both MS-PRO and MS-M2 was co-developed with SanDisc - and any MS tech can be licenced by anyone. It's just as proprietary as any other format and is fullt backwards compatible (but because of smaller physical size you might need an adaptor to fit the small "duo" and "mini" cards into a full-size MS-slot).

  http://www.memorystick.org/

DAT was fairly succesful with both pro and audiophiles, MD is still popular in Japan and is/was quite popular in EU (the MD system is nearly 15 years old and they still produce new models - I would call that a success).

Blu-Ray is just as cross-industry as DVD was and is not a "Sony" format. Sony owns much of the patents they intend to use, just as it did with the original DVD (and the loosing HD DVD format). There are just as many members of the BD forum as it was in the original DVD forum (consortium).

Actually the most proprietary Sony product ever might have been the 3.5" "floppy" disk system - it survived ZIP drives MiniDiscData and tons of others.

Re:Secure Digital ...

[Guppy06]

"Why does everyone blame SONY for disagreeing on formats?"

I can't speak for the poster, but personaly I think it'd be nice if Sony picked one format internally, at least. I can buy a Sony-made memory card and have it not fit into a Sony-made memory card reader.

"Oh BTW, MiniDisc is a great recording format."

It's magnetic media and it can't do digital-to-digital. In my opinion, the parent was correct to call it a "tape," as all it really did was act as a minicassette with a new form factor. It's more "tape"-ish than DAT in that respect.

"Sony's previous market introduction was too successfull ... the Compact Audio Disc."

First off, it's "compact disc," no "audio" in the name. Second, it was developed by Philips, which isn't even from the same continent as Sony.

Re:Secure Digital ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sony's previous market introduction was too successfull ... the Compact Audio Disc." First off, it's "compact disc," no "audio" in the name. Second, it was developed by Philips, which isn't even from the same continent as Sony.

In the early 1970s, using video Laserdisc technology, Philips' researchers started experiments with "audio-only" optical discs, initially with wideband frequency modulation FM and later digitized PCM audio signals. At the end of the 1970s, Philips, Sony, and other companies presented prototypes of digital audio discs. In 1979 Philips and Sony decided to join forces, setting up a joint task force of engineers whose mission was to design the new digital audio disc. Prominent members of the task force were Kees Immink and Toshitada Doi. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the taskforce produced the "Red Book", the Compact Disc standard. Philips contributed the general manufacturing process, based on the video Laserdisc technology. Philips also contributed the Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation, EFM, which offers both a large playing time and a high resilience against disc handling damage such as scratches and fingerprints; while Sony contributed the error-correction method, CIRC.

Re:Secure Digital ...

[zeeroj]

Cough. Gotta call your bullshit bluff there. From blu-ray.com Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers (including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). Basically, what the article says is: you're completely wrong, dude.

Re:Secure Digital ...

[wfberg]

It was Sony's decision not to put BluRay to the DVD Forum, which was specifically founded to prevent format wars. Since then, others have signed up to BluRay, which does not change the fact that it's NOT HD-DVD, and that we now have another format war on our hands. BluRay is superior to (though more expensive than) HD-DVD, but it should have been HD DVD. This sort of silly competition has NO place in the consumer arena, this is what the standards bodies are for in the first place. (And besides, you'll find the list of companies supporting BluRay is longer than yours, as is the list of HD DVD backers check here.. Porn producers aren't listed in the HD DVD camp, but they are, since it's cheaper to fab for them, which may be an important factor (cf. VHS vs. Betamax)). Lists of supporters don't really tell the whole story; we're still waiting for working devices from either camp. It DOES tell us there's yet another wholly unnecessary formats war, though.

And your nitpick doesn't adress any of the other examples at all. Not very impressive ground for calling some one completely wrong.

Not gonna happen.

[jonwil]

Firstly, there are major anti-trust issues here.
But, even if there werent, there is NO WAY that the japanese government would let a foriegn company like Microsoft buy a company as big as sony.

No, fool, SNY market cap is upwards of $120BN

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP is smoking crack. SNY has over 2.7 billion shares in the market at over $45 a share.

There is no possible way Microsoft could buy them, unless they went into catastophic financial distress and lost two thirds of their value at a MINIMUM.

If we're speculating about catastrophic financial distress, it's more likely that google would by *Microsoft*, following the failure of vista, wince, and the replacement of office 12 with some free web apps. :)

Irresponsible

[bishr]

I'm a little disappointed in slashdot's editors for posting this. It's speculation that has nothing to do with any reality that we know. It's like a banner headline on a newspaper reading "Apple could possibly buy Verizon" or "Pfizer has ability to buy Home Depot" - yes, possibly true, and yes, it's ever so slightly more possible than it would have been a few years ago.

The difference is - slightly more possible. NOT AT ALL PROBABLE.

I'm not trolling, it's just that this kind of headline on slashdot has such little value; I'm sure it's not THAT slow a news day.

Piffle

[deadline]

The author has a limited understanding of:

• Sony's business and products
• Japanese business culture
• The English language

Yes, Microsoft might buy _______ as well. Fill in the bank with what ever you want. I thinking Victoria's Secret.

Re:Piffle

[Perseid]

Ooh! Ooh! Can I try? Can I Can I?

MS might buy...NASA. They're "ailing" aren't they? And we can get some new shiny Windows PCs on the ISS.

Speculation != Value ...

[willtsmith]

We know what the speculators think of GMs near term value. But is the second largest employer in the United States (only recently being eclipsed by Wal-Mart). The brand, the factory and it's assets have tremendous value and they are only a bankruptcy proceeding away from shedding all those pesky pension and healthcare obligations (unfortunately).

No, GM has lost billions in past years and they will likely lose billions in the future. GM is just to big to fail, they have too many assets and some one will be brought in at some point to put them in order. Nor can anyone come in and effectively "take over" GM. The company is just plain too big. They would wreck whatever is left in the process of integration.

Re:Speculation != Value ...

[Skim123]

GM is just to big to fail, they have too many assets and some one will be brought in at some point to put them in order

Let's just hope that "someone" isn't Uncle Sam and "put them in order" isn't accomplished with tax payers' dollars a la Chrystler in the 80s.

The low stock price indicates investors' attitudes w.r.t. GM's future potential. They're, in essence, expecting bigger and better profits from Apple & MS than GM, even though GM may be larger/have higher revenues.

Re:Speculation != Value ...

[beavis88]

Let's just hope that "someone" isn't Uncle Sam and "put them in order" isn't accomplished with tax payers' dollars a la Chrystler in the 80s.

The tax payers didn't give Chrysler any money - we guaranteed loans for them, which they paid back [early].

This would save me the trouble...

[ehrichweiss]

of NOT buying products from BOTH companies...now it could be just one that I refuse to buy from. Rootkits and DRM advocacy = boycott for life.

I hope it happens cause I'd love to see both fail much in the way AOL/TimeWarner are right now. We were scared when it first was announced but now it looks like a huge mistake.

I don't think so

[Bueller_007]

Check the prices. (This info is from Bloomberg).
There are 1,001,633,000 Sony Corp shares on the market.
In order to get controlling interest of the company, Microsoft has to buy 50% plus one. That's 500,816,501.

Sony stock today is trading at 5,700 yen/share. Total = $24,220,719,970.31
In August of last year, it was 3,640 yen/share. Total = $15,467,266,788.07

So in other words, Microsoft could have saved 9 BILLION dollars by buying it last August.

But I'm no business expert, and I haven't read the article, so everything I just said could be dead wrong.

At any rate, if they were going to buy it, last August sure as hell would have been a better time.

Re:I don't think so

[WrongDecision]

In Japan, you get a controlling interest with 35%.

Well at least...

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll know that thier (Sony Music) DRM will work properly under WinXP/Longhorn.

-- Starfox

memory schtick

[TheGratefulNet]

oh great, so now the memory schticks will come with built-in blue screen functionality.

and a r00tkit, to boot!

Nutty idea

[FishandChips]

Why should Microsoft buy Sony when Sony are doing such a good job of knocking themselves out of their own key markets? The PSP3 and BlueRay sound like classic troubled products. Sony's sprawling consumer electronics arm is up against the likes of Samsung these days. And Sony's public profile has been dragged through the mud by the CD rootkit scandal. Microsoft don't ahve to do much more than stand and watch.

In addition, there would be a serious cultural and probably political offset: the Americanos operating in the heartland of SE Asian electronics. That would go down like a lead balloon in many quarters.

When you've got $40 billion in the bank, anything can sound like a good buy. Quite why Micrsoft should get into manufacturing cameras and alarm clocks is a bit mystifying. There are many other things they could spend more wisely on, unless Sony goes so tits up that it is sold of piecemeal and bits can be bought separately.

Re:Nutty idea

[Xepherys2]

Why would MS do this you ask? The reason is simple. If Microsoft bought out Sony, they would be able to tank the Playstation outright, meaning less competition in that market (as opposed to someone else buying Sony and reinvigorating the PS). Also, it adds a lot of design, development and tech power to an already massive Microsoft. It stands to reason that MS would win big if they purchased Sony.

Re:Nutty idea

[theJML]

First off, not everyone buys JUST one console. Most of my friends have BOTH an X-BOX and and PS-2. These were both, say $350 purchases ($150 console + controllers + a few games + memory cards). So $350 goes to MS, the other $350 goes to Sony. Now, if MS bought Sony, they'd get both halves of this, baring nothing changed. Effectively (all things on the backend being equal) doubling their income ($700 per similar consumer). So tanking the Playstation outright would be quite a bad idea considering that they'd probably come close to loosing HALF their income that way. Sure people may buy a few more games, but I highly doubt that I would instantly take that $350 I didn't spend on Console X and put it towards Console Y. I mean, I can only have so many controllers/memory cards/accessories). PLUS MS still has crappy market penentration in Japan and other areas outside the US. The PS-X is still rocking there and if MS tanked it, they'd loose all that, or have to advertise the hell out of whatever the Combined PS-X/X-Box Platform was so that people knew that the new "PSX-720" was something that these Sony PS-# buyers wanted AND something that the X-Box people wanted. Everyone who's got a PS-X now aready knows what's coming down the pike when they walk in the store and see the new PS-(X+1).

Also, on the surface, adding to the R&D dept. over at MS would seem to help, but you have to realize that one reason the PS-X is cool is because the R&D is COMPLETELY different than the US one (I mean, check out the game genres between the two). Also, there's always the Inverse IQ Law that states that The IQ of a group of people is inversely proportionate to the amount of people in the group. More people saying "My Idea is Better" means more indecision and more crappy common denominator games/hardware.

However, I'm sure after reading this many Nintendo fanbois will be saying "Sweet, Do it! Nintendo will take over the lost market share!!"...

Sony's REAL solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

...would be to split their consumer electronics divisions from their music & video content division. The copyright holders are the ones who have ruined Sony by changing them from a beloved and admired company that produced the world's best gadgets to one of the most hated companies in the business whose sub-par, overpriced, and poorly designed electronics are merely a vehicle for ramming unwanted DRM technologies down consumers' throats.

Quit bad article

[thedletterman]

This article is horrible. It complacently ignores the fact that Sony ran such huge deficits because of a succession of several multi-billion dollar acquisitions. Not to mention these acquisitions have nothing to do with hardware. Sony is a conglomorate unlike anything else in the world, and the idea that Microsoft could even buy them is absurd. For starters, Sony has a simple market valuation of $50 billion dollars. Microsoft only has an annual income of 8 billion with 30 billion in cash assets and would have to pay upwards to the tune of 80 to 100 billion for Sony. So not only can Microsoft not AFFORD to buy Sony, I don't think there's a single regulatory body in the world that would allow Microsoft to purchase a computer manufacturer. Windows, now exclusively available with your Microsoft PC!

How fitting...

[Pig Hogger]

How fitting that one evil empire buys another evil company...

The perfect marriage!!! One could almost say a marriage of reason!!!

Would probably mean no more Linux on Playstation

[MWales]

Sony seems to have warmed up to Linux on it's consoles, which I think is great. I'm guessing that would come to a quick death if Microsoft was in charge.

Microsoft wouldn't be interested

[c0d3h4x0r]

Microsoft has very firmly stayed out of the "we make our own hardware" market as long as they've been around, because they see the software as the profitable part. They've never strayed from that approach. I doubt they would even be remotely interested in buying Sony.

Now, getting Sony to stop making its own console and instead be a licensed manufacturer of XBOX 720 consoles... I could see Microsoft liking that.

Even if

[zpeterz63]

Even if (and that is a big if. As other people have pointed out, Sony is much more than just the Playstation) MS were to buy out Sony, the idea that the post-PS3 game station would be backwards compatible with PS3, PS2, PS, X-box 360 and the X-box seems quite preposterous to me.

1) MS can't even get the X-box 360 completely backwards compatible, and you think they're going to be able to do compatibility with 5 game stations? I don't think so.

2) It doesn't seem to make good business sense. Why would you only put out one product when you'd be able to put out two and have a high possibility of them both selling well? Developers might not like you as much, but hey, MS makes games as well. Nothing wrong with giving yourself a bit of a boast over the competition.

I'm sure that there are many other reasons that this would not happen, and perhaps a few why it would. However, I don't think that the reasons for one gamestation could possible outweigh the reasons against it. At least, not from an MS view that is.

mnb Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's right and you are right, that is where it comes from.

Re:mnb Re:Red Ink, not red tape.

[aurelian]

No it isn't

Ahhhhhh!

[benbranch]

You know what this is! Microsoft is jealous of Sony's advanced Rootkit technology :) !

If Apple can buyout Disney than what are the MS ..

[3seas]

....followers gonna do?

The same thing MS does, boast about something that ain't.

It's a freakin editorial

[whoop]

Anyone notice the very top of the article (of those that read it), "Category: Articles > Editorial "?

It's a freaking blog. Nothing more. Only on Slashdot is a blog editorial considered "news."

That gives me some ideas ... /sign up for bloger.

anti-competitive?

[twitter]

Its only an illegal monopoly if they use their position to stop competition.

You mean like taking a $4 billion dollar loss in the console market to wreck their competitors? No, nothing anti-competitive there.

Anti trust laws?

[baomike]

Any one else think the Justice Dept may not bless this "marriage"?
In a market of three, the two biggest merge. It looks like an Xmass present for an anti trust lawyer.

Or in the style of the article; It looks like a Xmass presence four a anti trusting lawyer.

Re:Anti trust laws?

[lposeidon]

not to mention a nice stake in the console market.. Xbox and PS owned by the same company? if this happens nintendo and atari wouldn't have a chance there should be a quota on how many companies Microsoft can buy a year :)

Don't take horrible blog articles as fact :P

[billybob]

Jesus H Christ, I can't believe this was even posted, did the editors not read the article? First off it's just some horrible blog pretending to be a real site, no one's ever heard of them, why should we believe a word they say? Second the writing is fucking awful as has been pointed out by many others. Third, I hope the author dies! What a joke!! :O

this is bullshit, all of it!

[Anonymous Coward]

yet another lame, no story, no research article by a total doofus. how in cliffs' name did this ever get to the front page, slow news day perhaps?

Re:this is bullshit, all of it!

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm thinking of buying some beer, where do i submit my story?

Newsflash!!!

[doctor_no]

Newsflash, MS to also buy Google, sez some guy on the internet!

Seriously I'm going to start making some wild declarations on my blog so I get get hits for my site. Honestly, Bona Fide Reviews doesn't even speak a buisness case for their speculation, instead it only talks about the console buisness (Sony and MS do a lot more than the Playstaion and Xbox), or what benefit MS would get finicially speaking in purchasing that would not be cheap (Sony has a market cap of ~$47 billion) and what return on investments that they would get, or even if the board at Sony would consider such a thought. It's a poorly written article that ends with "Stay tuned for the largest train wreck in console history"; the article is only worthy of the being on the forum section of TeamXbox.

How much will they pay for MSONY.COM?

[schwit1]

What should the owner of MSONY.COM do if they come calling?

April Fool's Post Mixup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this would have been a great post 8 days ago. Horrible article.

Appalling!

[Anonymous Coward]

Comprehensibility: 1/10
Logic: 3/10
Believability: 0/10

Is this the first time an article linked to on slashdot was actually more poorly written than the snippet displayed?

Print media editors

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Don't overestimate the editors at newspapers. I recently saw a newspaper headline about law enforcement surveillance which said a town would be protected by "cameras and censors".

Re:Print media editors

[bhiestand]

Don't overestimate the editors at newspapers. I recently saw a newspaper headline about law enforcement surveillance which said a town would be protected by "cameras and censors".

Where do you live, exactly? In my town the government really does think the censors are protecting us.

Re:Print media editors

[jZnat]

That's probably more of a Freudian Slip than it is a typo. Unintentional revelations as to what the writer's real thoughts about the topic are.

Re:Print media editors

[Anonymous Coward]

'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

If Firefox were a woman, she would weigh 400 pounds, have six fingers on each hand, and fall on her head and turn into a vegetable about once every hour.

Thanks..!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for a good Saturday morning laugh! That was FUNNY!!

Nahhhh

[dr.banes]

Microsoft may buy shares, but a flat buyout is highly unlikely. Too much conflict between the two. Xbox360 Vs PS3, HD-DVD Vs Blu Ray,MS Security Vs Rootkit....etc. Not to mention the huge accounting mess that it would create.

I think the first comment on the article's site

[cjmnews]

sums up the response quite nicely. Whoever scythekain is, they hit the nail on the head.
See the comment here: http://www.bonafidereviews.com/smf/index.php?PHPSE SSID=b03d8cc35fba7b04eaf8be41a6a22f38&/topic,79.0. html/

root kit

[CaptainPinko]

so now the root kit comes bundled with the OS. No need to purchase a seperate CD. Except in Europe wher bundling is illage.

How long could they last..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah this would be basically a monopoly from hell, We we would wind up stuck with sony viao's running around with the "Exclusive" Microsoft Windows OS, the only OS that runs M$ office and will play games.... I think the courts would very quickly split them up for forming a monopoly..

MS & Sony ? No Way

[cpatil]

Bill has made it clear that he wants Developers not Deal Makers nor Manufacturers. Speculating MS buying Sony is such a waste of time unless Microsoft is lost in its directions again ;-)

Idiotor

[paullyjunge]

I think the idiotor saw fit to post a crap story. Here's his thought process:

I need a story.
Oh look, MS might buy Sony.
Hmmm, some of his points have already been declared false by Sony, but MS buying Sony sounds good.
Oh jeez, this guy doesn't know english...but MS buying Sony sounds sooo cool.
Oh hmmmm, this article has no basis and draws its conclusion from thin air...but MS buying Sony still sounds yummy in the tummy.
Well this article is total crap, fiction, garbage, junk, but MS buying Sony makes me happy inside.
Posted.

Granted this does assume the jackass read the article first, which if true, says a lot about the editors at Slashdot.

Re:Idiotor

[Ohreally_factor]

You think he actually went beyond "Oh look, MS might buy Sony"?

His thought processes can't extend farther than two consecutive thoughts before being interrupted by a near crippling craving for breakfast cereal. I'd bet money that he never even read the article, or if he did, that he even recognized that it was poorly written.

Jacked up inflation

[gtada]

Uhhh... is this guy serious? $399 back in 1993 does NOT calculate to $450 with inflation. It'd be closer to $550 today.

not fit for the front page

[Anonymous Coward]

If Sony only made playstations, and Microsoft only made xboxes, this would still have been a looney theory. But, in 2005, games represented less than 10% of Sony's revenue and less than 10% of Microsoft's revenue. These companies are NOT going to merge on the basis of games.

Microsoft sells Windows and Office (~80% revenues). Sony sells non-game electronics (~65%).

When in doubt about a story submission, you can always fall back on the standbys: no sources + no grammar = no good.

OH GOD NO!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just quit MS to work for a Sony owned game company!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo...............

not all that crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Since games are about 10% of either company's business, the article's premise that the success or failure of Sony's gaming unit could allow MS to buy Sony seemed, to put it mildly, a little silly.

Then, it dawned on me that the companies target mostly the same customers, but sell mostly different products. That could be a real synergy -- think of the dominance of the family TV room they could achieve! MS's core business is Windows and Office. Sony's core business is non-game consumer electronics, plus some movies and music. Both companies moonlight a little in the other's space (vaio, phones, keyboards, mice, gaming consoles).

Sony has about $65billion in revenues, but ~$0 profits. MS has only about $34billion in revenues, but profits like crazy. Maybe a buyout could happen. But it won't have anything to do with game console prices.

WTF

[venuspcs]

First off the person that wrote that article is a FRACKING IDIOT. Second off, Microsoft could never buy Sony (even if they wanted too, which they probably do) because it would make them a MONOPOLY in both SOFTWARE and HARDWARE and ain't no 1st or 2nd world government gonna allow that to happen. Billy boy aint got no where near enough money to buy off all the governments of the world to get that purchase allowed. AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN, EVER. What is highly more likely though is that: a.) Microsoft will invest in Sony, b.) Microsoft will buy the Game Console business from Sony (might be able to get that thru the governments), or c.) Microsoft will buy Nintendo and really screw Sony up. (Not sure if they could even get that thru the governments cause it would give them a massive portion of the game console market and virtually ensure the death of the PlayStation franchise)

This Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Who really cares if its Red Tap or Red Ink? The point is Microshaft (Microsoft) would ruin everything that Sony has done. Microshaft has tried to make a good OS how many times now, and I don't think they will even get it right with Windows Vista. It's pretty sad when the best OS they made was the first one (DOS) and they had to steat that one.

Sont cost estimates seem out of line

[stuartkahler]

Every cost estimate I've seen for the PS3 has been from people estimating what a random company would have to pay to build the same machine. They all seem reasonable until you hit the line for the blue-ray drive itself, which makes up half of their estimates. Sony's going to spend hundreds of extra dollars per machine to go with blue-ray instead of DVD? I don't think so.

I'm pretty sure Sony can build the blue-ray drives for a lot less than the 'insider' estimates (Merril Lynch's in particular). The high initial price tags for new tech usually come from trying to make up R&D costs on the early sales, as well as having to make them on a lower volume. Since Sony is most likely going to build 10 million or more of these in the first year, they know they can spread the costs more evenly. They can also push the initial R&D costs into other areas and 'give' the tech to the PS3 division for free as a marketing ploy for their movie division.

The tech publications put the PS3 manufacturing costs in the $500 range. The stock analysts put it at $800-900 based on looking up component costs. Mainstream press picks up on the latter number because it comes from a name they recognize, and it makes for a better story. But who do you think is better informed?

This Guy Can't Even Speak English

[Anonymous Coward]

This is horrible. A 4th grader could have written a more believable piece by at least utilizing proper grammar and understanding the difference between "red ink" and "red tape". Grammar aside, the powers at be at Sony would all commit suicide before selling to Microsoft. Brent Kirkwood, the author of the article, even tried to edit at least one of the errors "Like many of you, it's hard for me to remember a time when the word "Playstation" was NOT synonymous with gaming." Still it would be best if he stuck to his day job of stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart.

Credibility

[vethia]

Completely aside from the subject and content, it's hard to give this article much credibility when it reads like a remedial English paper. If a writer is attempting to express his opinion, especially in such a belligerent fasion, it behooves him to have a strong command of the English language. Reading an article filled with so many errors does not make me inclined to agree with the author; on the contrary, it makes me inclined to question his judgement and intelligence.

If this article had been written more thoughtfully, I might have said he had some points worth considering, but as it is I find them easy to dismiss. If the author doesn't care enough to check over his own work or isn't bright enough to see the numerous glaring mistakes, I can't help but think that his analysis is equally careless.

Re:Credibility

[Merdalors]

I agree, correct spelling in an article (as opposed to a post) is critical for credibility.

Give the author a break: assume English is not his/her native language.

Re:Credibility

[Chmcginn]

If the author is not a native speaker (of english, or otherwise), that's fine... but if they're not fluent in the language they're writing in, it's even more important that they get a decent editor.

Reply from the guy who wrote the article

[VJ42]

It's very funny, you can read him try and back up his logic their forums: http://www.bonafidereviews.com/smf/index.php/topic ,79.msg322.html#msg322

Re:Reply from the guy who wrote the article

[Ohreally_factor]

Good god, his post is even more incomprehensible than his article. I guess when you're pulling things out of your ass, coherence is more a hindrance than a help.

The AIBO is saved!!

[slashmojo]

Long live the new MS AIBO XP (Origami edition, service pack 2)

Sony is a leviathan

[MagikSlinger]

I don't have a lot of respect for gamers. They have a very narrow view of the world, and seem unaware that there is a larger world that doesn't care about games. If the author had just checked the two companies' respective balance sheets, he could see that Sony has twice the gross revenue of Microsoft. Also, it would require taking on a lot of industries completely unrelated to their core business. Although it was interesting to compare their respective market caps.

Also, he forgets that Sony is a Japanese company. Foreign takeovers of a Japanese company are extremely rare, especially for a major one like Sony. Bill and Balmer would have to spend a lot of time in Japan sucking ass to a lot of old Japanese politicians to make that happen.

Wouldn't Sony buy Microsoft?

[jedigeek]

Consider these statistics on both companies:

Sony, 2005 Revenue (USD): 60.85B
Microsoft, 2005 Revenue (USD): 39.79B

Sony, 2005 Employees: 152,700
Microsoft, 2005 Employees: 61,000

Why did this article even make Slashdot? It makes no sense at all.

Digital Redtape Management?

[tepples]

Cutting through red tape means having to make a big issue to be able to enter somewhere (as in cutting the red tape across the street of a new bridge).

Is this anything like having to make a big issue to be able to satisfy a digital restrictions management system that you have in fact licensed a work?

Akio Morita 1921-1999

[Animats]

Sony's founder, Akio Morita, died in 1999, and the company seems to have been running on empty since then. The current president, Howard Stringer, was hired from CBS. He was really a newsman; he used to produce CBS Reports. He has nine Emmy awards. But he probably shouldn't be running a consumer electronics company. Sony Pictures, maybe.

Hellooooo: it's only the razor not the razorblades

[montale127]

How is it that the article acts as though selling a GAMING CONSOLE, of all hardware devices, is a one-off revenue event for Sony???

Another sign of Sony's slip in marketshare

[Solr_Flare]

The article itself and its theory is rediculous, but it does serve to show how Sony is really slipping from their position as market leader in some areas because such thoughts are even being considered as possible. This trend isn't really surprising though. For the last decade or so Sony's focus has been on selling as many services and/or products as possible instead of focusing on selling quality hardware. Such was not the case when the Sony brand boom first took place. Back then the reason Sony products became so popular was that they were really well built machines. For example, I still have a sony TV/Monitor from 1986 that runs perfectly after 20 years of constant use.

However, at some point during the early to mid-90s Sony shifted their focus to brand name reliance/market penetration to sell as many products as possible. Because of this ideological shift, the quality of Sony products has continued a slow but continuous slide downwards, while at the same time Sony has slowly built up a reputation of trying to sell consumers as much junk as possible for as high a price as possible. To compound this problem, other companies whose focus has been more on selling quality products have, over time, caught up to Sony on the technological forefront. As such, they have slowly eaten into Sony's marketshare as higher quality, more focused alternatives to Sony products have become increasingly more common. An excellent example of this is how Apple has really eaten into Sony's marketshare in the portable music arena.

Now, on the Microsoft side of things, you could also argue that their focus is very much identical to Sony's: selling as many products and services as possible to the consumer while ignoring potential quality issues. However, Microsoft has been far more cautious about expansion into other markets. As such, the company is significantly more focused than Sony, and, through this, Microsoft has been able to maintain careful marketshare dominance by not spreading themselves too thin.

The notion that Microsoft will buy out Sony is fairly rediculous. Sony's brand name has been tarnished over time and the company's structure is massive. Such a buyout would only strain Microsoft even more and have very few benefits for them. The better choice is to do what Microsoft has been doing, purchasing smaller companies and practicing careful market expansion to slowly remove Sony's impact on the market.

What I do see as a more plausible reality for Sony's future is a massive internal restructuring of the company in the not too distant future. Seeing Sony pull itself back from certain markets and increasing it's focus on re-building the quality of its brand name and products. At least, such an action is what Sony should be doing lest they continue their slow downward slide until they reach a point where their impact and share of the market renders the company as insignificant.

Happy Ballmer!

[Shark]

Sony has held the all mighty hardware thrown for an astounding eleven years at the time of writing this.

Buying out competition and throwing hardware. Whatever we might say, this kind of spelling is dangerous if read by the wrong CEO. I say this article might get the creature's brain in a dangerously excited state.

Self Linked Article

[rblancarte]

I don't know if you guys noticed this, but the article was posted by imashoe. If you click on the name, you don't get a slashdot user page, you go to the HOME PAGE of BonaFideReviews!!! How can any stock be placed in a self linked article by the writers?

Crap if you ask me.

RonB

Re:Self Linked Article

[totalbasscase]

And yet somehow it gets sent out in my daily digest. Self-selecting community my ass.

And reported by those who wrote it

[rblancarte]

I don't know if you guys noticed this, but the article was posted by imashoe. If you click on the name, you don't get a slashdot user page, you go to the HOME PAGE of BonaFideReviews!!! How can any stock be placed in a self linked article by the writers?

Nothing more than just an effort to boost their readership at the expense of slashdot hits. I would guess that they jumped up from 5 readers to 500k in 1 day. But this is a bogus article.

RonB

You have got to be kidding me.

[Yaldabaoth]

As a Ps2 developer since the launch of the hardware platform, I have nothing but contempt for Sony and their so-called "engineers," and I really wish nothing but death and failure upon them. That being said, backwards compatibility with the Ps2, Ps3, Xbox, and Xbox 360?! You'd have to be nuts to even consider it. Even if MS bought out Sony (which is problematic given their different markets), it would take a _massive_ engineering effort to emulate the Ps2/Ps3 on a new platform. The Ps2 will have severe problems with VU0/VU1 synchronization and texture uploads; the Ps3 will be worse because it's the same wrong-headed and worthless design taken to the next level. The Xbox 360 can't emulate anything that doesn't play *very* nice with Direct3D on the Xbox -- why would its successor be any different about the 360, let alone the original Xbox? Where do you think the list of backwards-compatible games came from? popular demand? puh-leeeeze. It's because of technical feasibility and only because of technical feasibility. In short, I guess I'm saying Microsoft _could_ buy out Sony, but it'd be a pretty stupid waste of money.

Sony Makes Potato Chips

[ClamIAm]

Okay, so maybe they don't actually make chips, but that's not very far from the truth. This article is pure speculation, parroting estimates made by idiots and containing no real data. I'm not an expert on business finance, but when you compare employee and global sales data between Sony and Microsoft, the idiocy of asserting this kind of sale becomes obvious.

Also, never mind the fact that Sony is a Japanese company, and I'm pretty sure that there would be all kinds of business "agreements" and legal wranglings (both business and government) that would prevent MS from ever pulling this off, even if they had the money. Think about it this way: would the US government allow MS to be bought by a foreign company? Then take into consideration that the Japanese are at least as racist and xenophobic as Americans.

I realize my arguments here aren't very rigorous, but anyone with half a brain should be able to see that this article is pure BS.

Think of all the great opportunities

[suv4x4]

Your next Britney Spears CD will secretly install critical Windows and IE patches to your PC even if you're not connected to Internet.

What's not to like.

Oh Great! A New Root Kit Blue Screen o' Death...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah,

no thanks.

Microsoft has done well as a software company,
how would saddling themselves with an oversized hardware company
improve the financial outlook for Microsoft Shareholders?

Doesn't seem to make dollars and cents, in the long run. . .

Re:Fanboyism at its best I hope this never happens

[davidsyes]

I hope that before ms EVEN gets a chance to buy Sony that the Japanese government or someone OTHER than mshaft rights Sony's listing ship. It would be disgusting to have Sony own by ms. I also think it would be an ultimate humiliation for Japan to lose Sony this way.

Sony, please, take drastic internal measures before you let ms benefit. Cut some products, change some things, make something they don't have and might not be interested in. Stay in hardware, or more on hardware and improve your game titles. ANYthing. But, GOD, PLEASE, don't succumb to mshaft.

Sony, you might want to consider flooding the market with Linux/BSD/OS-based Sony-laptops. If you're going to go down, go down fighting! Is there any Bushido or other warrior spirit in Sony? Business may be business, but this would or should be HUMILIATING.

hmmm, word image "converts" (noun or verb?)

Not bloody likely

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Possible? Remember those "interesting articles" from a couple of years ago that said Microsoft might buy Nintendo? How'd that turn out?

Re:Fanboyism at its best... Interesting Slash sig

[davidsyes]

at bottom of page when I submitted:

"Death before dishonor. But neither before breakfast."

Interesting juxtaposition ...

Non-native

[hackwrench]

They say converts make the strongest zealots.

And I'm not a Fact Checker....

[greyduk]

but the author overestimated the population of the US by 50 Million people...How am I supposed to believe anything else he says?

Nope, I'm afaid you're the idiot

[aurelian]

Firstly, they're both metaphorical uses, and secondly, the beauraucratic association comes from the old practice (in England) of binding legal documents with red tape, not from the cutting of tape at the opening a new site or building.

Try this well known reference site; you might find it useful in future.

5 M$s wouldn't add up to 1 Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony has serviced generations of consumer electronics shoppers with TVs, VCRs, walkmen, discmen, dictation devices, camcorders, digital cameras, laptops, playstation, DVD players. You name it, Sony makes it.

Don't really see how Microsoft's 'We shafted the world with our OS' one-trick achievement stacks up against that. The world would loose a lot more from Sony going belly-up than Microsoft biting the dust.

How, exactly, did this article get slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously guys, tighten up the QA, please o_0

A better Idea.

[Kaenneth]

Apple/Nintendo.

Considering the general situation of higher quality/smaller market share that Nintendo and Apple share, along with great, innovative user interface design.

Nintendo and Apple both make hardware and software, but don't compete directly, I can't see any anti-trust issues.

They could leverage shared IP/licenses, the next Nintendo console and Apple computer could use the same video chipsets, CPU's, etc. making easy ports for games between the two platforms; a nintendo console could act as an iPod dock, or like an Xbox 360 home media thing (buying iTunes misic from your game console?), or both.

  Nintendo could be in charge in Japan, while Apple would be in charge in the US. With Steve Jobs encouraging Disney as a content partner, they could have major exclusives.

Perhaps this might be a chance...

[mofag]

...for Ericcson to make a break for freedom and being able to make phones they way their engineers want to rather than the way the Sony marketing dumbasses think they should? why do I care/what is my problem with SE?: my $500 bluetooth-enabled mp3-playing k750i should be able to play music on my stereo bluetooth headset

Formulaic trash + DRM = business suicide

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. For people to accept garbage tech like DRM they have to want the content in the first place. Most digital content produced these days simply isn't worth it.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

That will mean, one less company I have to hate!

Umm, why would they?

[RealmRPGer]

The one big, important thing to note here is that Microsoft is primarily a software developer and Sony is primarily a hardware developer. Microsoft has so far only eaten up software companies, so why would they want to start going after hardware companies? Microsoft's success in past has been largely, if not solely, due to the fact that it costs near nothing to manufacture software, so it's practically all profit.

Re:Umm, why would they?

[Ash-Fox]

> so why would they want to start going after hardware companies?

They see Apple's method as profitable.

Who is predicting this?

[master_p]

Is it Dvorak again? :-)

You got it wrong

[suv4x4]

Sony's profits in 2004 are roughly 400 million dollars (not too much, I mean, I have more in my pocket right now I'll spend tonight), and 560 million for 2005.

They had some losses, they've cut AIBO, QRIO and most of their CRT monitor plants, but the rest of the home electronics was profitable and funding the rest of the developments.

We know the moment PS3 is out Sony will be up to the neck in money from licensing deals for PS3 games, accessories and what not.

At the same time XBOX360 was an utter failure because of the shortages, and because Japan didn't like it, while they were testing it with Japan focus group. That's ironic and funny and therefore I rule a failure. Cause I'm like that, I don't base my assertions on sound analysis or anything.

So Microsoft with their poor XBOX360 performance will soon be ailing. Therefore it's obvious, guys:

Sony buyout of ailing Microsoft is imminent.

Respect my authoritah...!

Would fill in a lot of gaps

[kimgkimg]

This would be an interesing move on MS's part. It would definitely give them some additional capabilities that I think they're looking for. It would give them access to content for they MSN media services, new integration capabilities with home, automotive and mobile electronics. I think we'd see some really cool convergent devices coming to market.

Other buyouts

[Anonymous Coward]

In other rumors, Microsoft is in negotiations to buyout Novell. This will establish their enterprise muscle once and for all and allow them to put a major damper on a leading Linux distribution.

Novell has long been a thorn in the side of Microsoft, and has had an uncanny nack for refusing to go away. They have heretofore been unavailable for acquisition by the like of Microsoft, but top MS management has decided that this is the time to force the issue.

"By Christmas 2007 we should be able to consolidate Playstation, XBox, and Vista in a single product offering that is all made possible by a marriage of eDirectory and A.D.", said an anonymous source who was not Jim Alchin.

Rabid love?

[_Shad0w_]

I have no rabid love for Sony. In fact I dislike them more that Microsoft nowdays. The thought of them being taken over by Microsoft actually makes me smirk.

I call Bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is the usual "X is going to buy Y, and I base that on absolutely nothing" thing. A good deal of this guy's information is wrong (plenty of consoles, including the original PlayStation, debuted at over $300), and what isn't is pure conjecture.

I'm not a Sony fanboy by any means, but it irritates me to see such obvious bullshit being passed around as fact. This guy has no more idea than anyone else.

GM? Nah

[BitterAndDrunk]

GM's paying the price of catering to an overly large and demanding UAW.

They have about 3-4k of costs per car to cover for union benefits and pensions and the like. It's next to impossible to compete against the Japanese with that kind of markup which is, essentially, no added value for the consumer.

Most of their "schizophrenia" comes from having to manage that sort of burden and deal with the UAW, which is a perfect example of an out of control union. And it's going to bankrupt them. Particularly if Delphi (another UAW shop IIRC) decides to strike.

They could buy parts of it and make out well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Think oragami project. Microsoft could buy out sony, get the rights to a lot of thier small computer hardware, build oragami based on cell, own cell technology and the programming language for it thus they can basically make sure than anything running cell technology in the world is using a windows based software.

Of course this is all speculation of what they could do just with sony's computer and console division.

Looks like some of the mistakes were fixed.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess he does read Slashdot!

Makes no sense

[fz00]

Sony's got a market cap of about $50 billion and although gaming makes a big part of their revenue and profit, there's also the movie and music division, other electronics, and tons of other bloat to go along with the gaming system. Not to mention that there's no way in hell an American company is going to be able to buy the pride and joy of Japan!!! Hell, Microsoft might as try buying Matshusita while they're at it!!!

Did you see his name?

[Astin]

With a name like Brent Kirkwood??? I think I'll assume English is his native language.

In Other News...

[macserv]

...Apple Computer is dying!