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What the Sony Reshuffling Actually Means
Newsweek's N'Gai Croal steps up this morning with some interesting analysis of the Sony re-organization that occurred late last month. Mr. Croal points out the difficulty of understanding the machinations of a notoriously tight-lipped foreign company, and attempts to look at the executive movements from the games business view. From the article: "Here's what's on SCE's plate at this very moment: three product lines that must be managed over the next five to six years (PS2, PSP and PS3); two more product lines that are almost certainly already in the planning stages (PS4 and PSP2); an online service, an online store, operating systems and system updates for each of the post-PS2 machines; and one of the world's largest game studio operations. Given that workload, Sony desperately needed to free Ken up to do the vision thing, and groom the next generation to run SCE on a day-to-day basis, much like Microsoft did when Bill Gates ceded operational control of Microsoft to Steve Ballmer. So while we have absolutely no visibility into whether this evolution was initiated by Kutaragi or by Stringer, it strikes us as precisely the right move to help ensure the future health of the PlayStation business."
"Ken is a crazy, crazy man with little to no business [sense]."
"As it sits now, SCE is the company's only real profit (other divisions are taking losses)"
for a crazy man with no vision and no business sense, you have to credit him with steering the boat that upset the mighty nintendo. created the first console to ever sell 100 million units and followed it up with a second console that sold even more. it took vision to convince sony to enter the games business. it took business sense to secure key titles and third party collaborations.
does he still have it? who knows? but you have to give credit to the man that is responsible for almost keeping sony afloat off of his own vision.
Time out...
"It was created by a consortium of many different companies"
Incorrect, sorry - Blu-ray technology was 'created' in Sony labs, by Sony engineers, using Sony R&D budget monies and the Japanese 'Bullet Train Development Concept', that says why make the next leap a measly 10% over the existing level, just to keep you in the game, when a 200% jump means a whole new game... with the field, ball, rules, cheerleaders, refs, players AND winning trophy firmly in your grasp, since there are no competitors even in the same league.
After which, Sony called a campfire meeting of friends, and then the BD consortium was formed. Roughly 170 companies have lined up to date, or so they say.