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Sony Entertainment Head Steps Down
New submitter Mephistophocles writes "Japan Times reports today that Sony Entertainment Chief Tim Schaaf has stepped down. Schaaf's division has recently drawn the ire of users and governments alike after multiple hacks which resulted in the theft of millions of users' personal information. Schaaf joined Sony after a stint at Apple, and had ambitious plans for unifying the end-user's entertainment experience on Sony products, as well as having some big words for how to help out Sony's music division. Tim will be replaced by Andrew House, currently of Sony's Game Division. One wonders — is this a continued sign of deterioration in Sony's Entertainment house?"
They didn't take information security seriously. They allowed our data to be compromised when they had plenty of money and expertise and could have hired anyone they needed to do the most basic level of security they missed.
Sony was in the cockpit and the plane was taking a nosedive straight to the ground. I'm glad the plane wasn't headed into any building or anything, and maybe now there is a chance to actually steer the plane back in the proper direction and avoid a much bigger disaster.
I haven't liked Sony for years but with this move I might give Sony a second chance.
What about the rest of his body?
Now they just need to sell off their "Entertainment division" and become an electronics company again.
Answer: No.
Good luck at fixing things when you're just replacing one corporate idiot for another.
...from stealth DRM spyware on your Music CDs, to shitty closed-ecosystem type policies for PS3 is that SONY - once a "Superbrand" - is crumbling in the eyes of consumers. No big loss, really. Samsung does everything Sony once did better, and at lower prices. Maybe Samsung could be persuaded to create an Android or Linux powered game console that frees people from the inevitable "horror" that will be Playstation 4? Go on Samsung; Take that "final leap" to challenging Sony in "all things consumer electronics"...
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Companies need to focus on doing one or two -- maybe even three things very well, and then do those things. Sony is like every other huge company who tries to be all things to all people: it never works. Whenever a company strays from its core competences, it never ends well.
Nimble, scalable, and ever vigilant are the words to live by now.
After Howard Stringer, the Sony-BGM DRM stooge got replaced, this is another sign that Sony is continuing to move back to nice electronics and away from the walled-garden approaches (DRM, mini-disc/beta-max?) that made Sony products acquire so much grossness brand-wise.
"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
They were doing fine, but then a few stupid mistakes and this whole PS Vita nonsense has wrecked them.
They refused to budge, like Nintendo done with 3DS price-drop. And that has caused them to suffer greatly for that.
Sadly, Sony are all too in the "large numbers short term profit" mentality, which is retarded as absolute fuck.
While I won't want Sony to fail at all because them failing would be terrible for gaming overall, I don't want to see them continue as one of these types of companies.
If only one of the major gaming companies would get a grip and think long-term with pricing.
Seriously, half the prices and more than double the NEW sales of a product, shit ain't rocket surgery.
It has been proven time and again by countless smaller groups and a larger-ish one (Valve with Steam prices)
Hell, Humble Indie Bundle is more promising than the damn current console market.
Games from $10-30 are the sweet spot. The reason the Used market is soaring is because a considerable number of people simply cannot afford the new sale price. If companies don't start treating the Used market as competition, it will kill them.
Console prices, likewise. Most times they are sold at a loss anyway, but the sales from these lower prices alone would get back considerable lost profits.
I wish them, Sharp and other companies tanking the best of luck.
Adapt or Die. Simple as that.
Did anyone check him for a rootkit?
The glacial pace of the effect of Sony's silo-ed management style marches on. This company has been on the decline for years. Does anyone else recall Wired magazine's prediction that if Playstation 3 failed to achieve market dominance, Sony was done for? It was an article published around 2007 or so. Personally, I think Wired was correct. However, when the effects are happening so slowly, many people don't seem to see it. I disagree strongly about this being a good day for Sony.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Words of wisdom: When you refuse to fish anywhere but a sewer, all you'll ever catch are turds.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Yes. Yes, it is.
The customer service of their games division isn't very helpful. They owed me some SC in EQ2 and demanded a credit card to return it. I refused to hand a company with unreliable security my credit card. After MANY attempts to get them to just return the SC to my account I gave up and closed my EQ2 account. I just wont do business with them anymore. I decided not to buy a Playstation 3 over issues I've had with them and don't buy Sony electronics anymore either. They've just had too much bad press to not have outstanding customer service and expect to survive.
Funny how, IMHO, they are replacing CEO incompetence with another poor excuse for an executive.
I can tell you first-hand that the Japanese companies I have had exposure to do not value "up-to-date" equipment, software, policies or practices. They spend less money and maintain far older infrastructure. And let me tell you that just because it has "America" in the title doesn't make it an American company run to American standards.
And Sony is definitely a Japanese company... it all comes from the top. After the top US defense companies were compomised, they tightened security and became a lot more proactive. When the top Japanese defense companies were compromised [at about the same time] they did "something" but were compromised several times after the initial series of events. I see the pattern as a refusal to take information security seriously.
But some things are simply cultural. For example, the times I have visited Japan, I could always tell when a shop was run by Japanese people or by foreigners. Those run by Japanese people I always felt comfortable in. Those run by others generally sent a vibe that said "I am being watched and not trusted."
I think no singular explanation could describe the whole problem, but the most significant symptom here is that they are not responsive to information security needs. That needs to change... and by change I mean, "Die! Sony, Die!" or "Sony straightens up and invests in good infrastructure and practices."
That a leader within Sony left doesn't mean he was responsible. I have seen many non-Japanese people leave Japanese companies purely out of frustration. There comes a time when doing things right is more important than the money and continued employment. This guy just may have left because no one has been listening to him.
Maybe my memory of history is a little thin but the reason for the inclusion of Linux was like the PS2 before it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2 clasifying the PS2 as a computer to achieve tax exempt status from certain EU taxes that apply to game consoles and not computers.
The reality is though I cannot help but think that Sony as an OEM missed a massive opportunity, to release a gaming [for educational reason of course] computer, to compete with Microsoft. The irony is Sonys "Mobile Products and Communications" section is suffering due to poor PC sales [somewhat alleviated by Android phones]. Now we see Microsoft trying to take their business away with Surface.
The world has moved to mobile again, but its saturated, Their is an opportunity to *reinvent* the Desktop, as everyone else deserts my main electronic gadget. for smartphones. Sony used to know how to get all that early adopter money, its sad seeing the follow Apple with similar products failing without the Apple distortion field.
and online movie distribution rather than blu ray
That'll work for urban dwellers. So what do you recommend that Sony do to surve its rural customers, whose Internet access tends to be capped at one-fifth of a 1-layer BD per month, other than continued support for BD-Video releases?
there's a console [Nintendo's Wii U] that is more powerful than the Ouya that launches in... 9 days.
So for what platform should a company develop video games if the games are in a genre that doesn't work well with a flat sheet of glass as the only input device, but the company isn't big enough to attract the attention of Nintendo? (Before you say 2D Boy, Nintendo has since reworded its developer qualifications to rule out 2D Boy's loophole of using a coffee shop as its "secure office.")
demand is driving incredible improvements in mobile devices. when people can get pretty good games on mobile devices
That'll take a while. There are plenty of genres that work much better with a physical gamepad than with a flat sheet of glass, for reasons I've explained. Nor have I seen any indication that smartphone owners are buying external gamepads such as the iControlPad.
consoles will be relegated to selling into the niche market of hard core gamers that don't game on PCs
There are certain genres thought not to work well on PCs. Fighting games are one example; the only series I can think of that gets PC ports is Street Fighter. Another is party games intended to be a centerpiece of in-person social interaction, such as Mario Party. Or cooperative platformers such as New Super Mario Bros. Wii.