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Sony Slashes 10,000 Jobs
redletterdave writes "Sony will cut about 10,000 jobs, which equates to about six percent of its global workforce, by the end of the year. The move comes after the Tokyo-based electronics firm more than doubled its loss forecast on April 5 to $2.9 billion, and the recent hiring of a new CEO, Kazuo Hirai, on April 1. Hirai looks to downsize Sony and pivot the company in a new direction to get out of the red for the first time in four years. The company will reportedly sell off its chemical products division, cutting about 3,000 workers in the process, and also make cuts within its small and midsize LCD operations. Sony did not say if it would cut these jobs in Japan, abroad, or both."
Sounds like they are going full steam ahead with DRM in PS4 (playstation and music still being profitable (possibly the most profitable) sections of Sony). This just sounds like they are trimming some fat so to speak. Ultimately most of the people who care about DRM are probably pissed off enough with Sony not to buy the PS4 anyway, so there really is no reason for them to get away from it.
There was a time - in the 80s, 90s - when Sony was perhaps THE company to buy quality products from. A Sony CRT TV or VCR was sturdy, reliable, and offered a high quality (visual) experience for the time. A Sony Walkman or Discman was, again, a quality product that was most usable and dependable. A Sony Betamax or VHS home-video camera, and later its much smaller (digital) handycams would, similarly, give you a quality home video experience. Then, at some point, Sony started going downhill in terms of corporate philosophy: Putting proprietary, expensive & incompatible Sony memory-sticks into Sony digital cameras? Selling 60GB HDD videocameras with no manual focus-ring, and not entirely reliable always-on autofocus? Putting DRM on music CDs, in PC Games, and all over the Playstation 3 experience? Branding handycam lenses "Zeiss Vario-Tessar" to lure buyers, even though the lenses are manufactured by Sony, not Zeiss (Sony just bought the right to call them "Zeiss" lenses)? Selling large, heavy, expensive LCD TVs while advertising that they include the fantabulous "Bravia Engine" (a collection of very, very mediocre video sharpening/upscaling/color/contrast algorithms). Sony Vaio laptops that are seriously expensive, while offering only very mediocre hardware specs? Killing HD-DVD, then failing to offer a decent (low) price on BluRay players and movies. Being a main player in demanding that all HD content be played back through HDMI cables - what was so bloody "wrong" with analogue HD cables? While Sony was slowly loosing its "focus on the user experience" and on "end-user and buyer sattisfaction" in particular, once far lesser brands like Korean Samsung zipped onto the scene with products that look, perform and, overall, please better, and without Sony's premium pricing attached. I'm sorry that Sony has fallen so low. It used to be my go-to brand for consumer electronics. But Sony isn't a company that learns from experience. I personally think that Playstation 4 will flop badly - at least initially - if Sony persists in forcing hardcore DRM and always-on-internet-to-play type shit on PS4 gamers. Wake up, Sony! Wake up before your corporate-crapfest-philosophy costs another 10,000 or 20,000 Sony employees their jobs. (Will Sony actually wake up? Not a chance, I think. PS4 will quite likely wind up being a horrid DRM fest that may actually drive some gamers back to gaming on a PC...)
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.