Buy a PlayStation 3 and Sink Sony

sonnyweathers writes "There has never been a more perilous time for Sony than 2006. But if you think you can save the company by buying PlayStation 3 consoles, you're wrong. Analyst Evermore believes that selling 6 million PS3 consoles will make Sony a ripe target for takeover — perhaps even by Microsoft."

Comments

What would Microsoft do with all that content?

[pieterh]

If Microsoft bought Sony, they'd own a whole lot of music and movies... I wonder what they'd do with that.

Re:What would Microsoft do with all that content?

[bmajik]

Speaking for myself only (but, I am a MS employee), I seriously hope that _never_ happens.

To say that I am ... dissatisfied with what we're doing in terms of DRM and content protection technologies for content we have no financial stake in.. would be an understatement. I've gotten in some pretty heated arguments with people closer to those groups internally and there are days I feel like looking for other employment options.

Imagine how awful things would be if MS owned a bunch of "traditional" content (besides software.. which has grown up with "piracy" and the market understands how to deal with it..and the providers have grown up figuring out how to stay alive inspite of it)

When one umbrella organization owns content and technology, the interests of one are going to suffer due to the other. Sony makes this plainly evident. I suspect that the content people at Sony are furious that the technology people haven't invented a remote "extort-money" button for the latest Sony-Style line of kitchen radios.. and the consumer electronics people are livid that they keep getting memos suggesting that they invent a TV that plays ONLY Sony Pictures movies from the content arm.

When I talk about stuff like the broadcast flag, etc at work, I can still posture the argument that it's not clear that we make money by playing well with that thing vs ignoring it or taking a more consumer friendly approach. If suddenly "we" benefited from crap like the broadcast flag, those arguments would be DOA.

(Just like slashdot - there is not a singular hive-mind mentality inside Microsoft, and it should be clear that not everyone is 100% thrilled with everything that gets MS's name attributed to it. I can only imagine that there are good engineers at Sony as well that are upset with what has happened to their company.. )

"Save Sony?"

[plover]

From the article, Sony's CEO was quoted as saying "Want a PS3? Work a little harder."

What do I have to do if I happen to like watching the company most actively pushing DRM on us flounder and collapse? How can I personally help to hasten that demise? Work a little harder? Be a little less greedy?

Actually, that's a strategy that could possibly save Sony -- abandon DRM loudly and publicly, and tout themselves as the Kings of Unrestricted Media. A big campaign of "We trust you to not steal our stuff, but Microsoft and Apple think you're thieves."

Hey, if they're going down the toilet anyway, try a little innovation! Work a little smarter, not harder.

Re:"Save Sony?"

[plover]

It's all about history. A lot of (old) people are still bitter about having to replace their Betamax VCRs. The feeling of having been screwed by a corporation doesn't fade -- it ossifies in the brain.

It's not an issue of cold facts, it's one of perception. Keep in mind that at this time Sony was widely loved for having produced the Walkman, which was 1979's version of the iPod. I'm not saying Sony went out to deliberately screw the people who adopted Betamax. Far from it, it's obvious that they wanted Betamax to dominate the market. But it didn't, and people felt like they had wasted a huge amount of money trusting their beloved Sony (feel free to adjust a $1000 price tag for a VCR for 25 years of inflation.) When they spent that money, they didn't know it was a gamble or that there was a chance they'd "lose" -- this was Sony!

Now, compound that disappointment with the rest of the restrictions and proprietary media that Sony's shoveled out the doors or supported ever since they entered the production side of the entertainment industry. ATRAC, the copy bit in DAT tapes, Macrovision, Memory Sticks, CSS, HDCP, (and the rootkit fiasco) and you can't help but notice a pattern of general contempt for their customers evolving over the years.

So if a pissed-off grumpy old guy wants to whine about getting burned by Betamax, let him. He's got tons of evidence on his side, even if the facts are slim.

(A lot of people who paid thousands of dollars for non-HDCP HDMI televisions a few years ago are about to enter that same ripped-off state, so look for a fresh crop of bitter young technophiles to adopt a similar attitude towards the makers of their plasma TVs.)