Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Sony, Analysts React To PS3 Launch

Posted by Zonk on from the settling-down dept.

cdneng2 writes "Sony may be aware that something is just not right. There's a reshuffling of management occurring within Sony. Kazuo Hirai is set to head their videogame unit, as Ken Kutaragi has been bumped to the Sony board. Jack Tretton, former COO for SCEA, is now the president and CEO of that arm of the company. There's no word on the reasoning behind these position shifts. On the same day, Namco announced that they must sell 500,000 games to begin making profit on PS3 games. A Financial Times article confirms speculation on how hard it will be for Sony to make money, as analysts with UBS predict that 30 games must be sold per PS3 for them to break even." To add insult to injury, EA CEO Larry Probst has said PS3 numbers were lower than expected. Current thinking is that Sony managed to ship roughly half of the 400,000 units they were promising.

6 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Alas... by zarthrag · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...and here I am, still unable to buy a nunchuk (not from an ebay scalper) Yes, I am nintendo's b****/fanboy

    --
    Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
  2. Re:Let's Googlewhack! by abaddononion · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hey, now, to be fair, all they would have to do is drop the price tag down to 200 dollars and the system would be a rousing success.

    I mean, they'd lose more money than M$ lost on the first XBox, and would almost certainly never turn a profit, and it might even be serious enough to damage Sony the company as a whole... but 10 years down the road, people wouldnt be looking back saying "PS3? Man. that was a mistake."

    Of course... that wont happen, so you're probably right. But in my dreams, I own a 200 dollar PS3.

  3. Re:Let's Googlewhack! by C0rinthian · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'd hardly call a product that can't remain on the shelves a failure!
    You're right. Companies strive to produce a product that loses money hand over fist.

    I'm also tempted to link the relevant VG Cats strip, but it's just too obvious.

  4. Re:30 Games by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 4, Funny
    Nobody knows how many units Sony will make before they kill off the PS3, nobody knows the component price cuts that will happen before then, nobody knows the unit price drops they will make, and only Sony know the margins, the R&D cost and the deals they have with all games manufacturers. Factor in cross-subsidising of the profit or loss on sales and develpment of Cell and Blu-Ray plus blue-ray movie sales, random numbers for advertising budgets, devkit profits or losses, online service profits or losses and currency fluctuation profits or losses, and you end up with a pretty indefinable number to divide by the analyst's guess at an average profit per game.

    Master,

    Your Flying Wheel Of Reasonable Discourse Technique... is Astonishing.

    Hai!

    --
    If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
  5. Re:Let's Googlewhack! by flooey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Companies strive to produce a product that loses money hand over fist.

    Yeah, but they'll make it up on volume!

    Oh, wait...

  6. Re:Let's Googlewhack! by trdrstv · · Score: 2, Funny
    That is mind-boggling and cannot be possible. Sony could not be that stupid.

    What? After all the good decisions they made over the past year? I think they could be that stupid, or to say it 'politically correctly' They are "over-confident".