Increasingly desperate Sony has a new plan to save PS3
By John Pospisil
An increasingly desperate Sony has a new plan to save its floundering PS3 games console — cut jobs. This new plan is substantially different to its old plan. Now, instead of cutting jobs in Europe, it’s cutting them in the US.
Officially, Sony Computer Entertainment has cut jobs in the US in a bid to become more competitive and to “adjust to the industry”, according to a Sony spokesperson in Japan. The spokesperson said there were no plans to cut jobs in Japan.
“The goal is to reform the organization,” the spokesperson told AP.
This move was hinted at in April, when Sony cut 160 jobs in Europe. At the time, a Sony spokesperson said that other regions may also be “streamlined”.
No doubt “adjust to the industry” means being whipped by Nintendo and its Wii console (Sony is struggling to meet this year’s PS3 sales target, while on the other hand Nintendo thinks it can sell 35 million Wiis by 2011).
Sony has not stated how many jobs will be cut in the US, though kotaku.com reports that around 80 to 100 employees have been cut from Sony’s 1500 US workforce.
Back in the US, a spokesperson at Sony Computer Entertainment America told kotaku.com that it was “necessary to analyze our current business and to restructure the company as necessary to continue our standing as the market leader.”
Market leader? Sounds like Comical Ali has found a new job…
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June 9th, 2007
The PS2 is still the highest selling console, and the only console outselling it now is the Wii, the PS3 and the 360 both get beat by the PS2, so yeah.. Market leader for the last 2 generations if I’m not mistaken..
What’s with all the hate on these sites..
June 9th, 2007
Im so tired of these Doom the ps3 from these so called expert tech blogs guys such as John Pospisil who doesnt have a clue when it comes to the gaming community nor ever used or played the ps3. Go to any AV forum and people will testify since the ps3 1.8 update the ps3 is worth the $600 price point. Do people really want to see the ps3 fail???? Why so we can go back and play pacman and washed up titles like mario franchise???. Why take a step back with the Wii when we could take a step forward with HD technology. John what is your problem, The ps3 is 2-4 years ahead of its time. Ps3 is the reason why gaming is advancing to this next level of HD gaming. Ps3 brings so much to the table the world is still trying to play catch up. The fact is the Wii is doing more harm to the gaming community than people really understand. The Wii is using old technology and games on this system are truly horrid. I was watching the news yesterday in seattle wa, I kid you not they had a 80 year old lady playing the Wii in a nurseing home, I ask my self is this the system I want to be playing???Please go Ask any real true gamer what they think of the Wii, and they will state “Its over hyped gimmick that is only skin Deep”. Now you got lazy Dev’s creating trash games instead of using resources to take gaming to another level. The Wii is holding back the HD industry and is doing more harm than good. All im seeing from the Wii are lazy Devs creating last last gen games that cannot hold a candle to current game titles. The ps3 might not be selling as well as the wii but at its price point the ps3 is doing well and pushing the limits on what can be done entertainment wise. It may not be breaking records but its non then less its still doing well and adding to the gaming community. The console it self is built great and worth the price. Its just going to take the rest of the world to catch up with what the ps3 has to offer. John play with the ps3 try out its upscaling for standard DVD’s and playstation 1/2 games, try blueray playback on a 1080p TV and try a few games like RR7, motostorm, Oblivion, resistance, then take 20min and rewrite your trash article.
June 9th, 2007
The PS3 is over priced. £425 is just too much for a console. £300 seems a reasonable price tag. The Wii not all that good. I purchased the Wii a few months ago but got bored with it after a month and sold it on Ebay.
June 9th, 2007
PS3 is an excellent system, I am very happy with mine. The price was not really that high after I talked to computer stores and found out it would cost 2 to 3 times as much to build a computer that can play games on the PS3’s level.
I got sick of nintendo in highschool back in the 90’s and have no interest in buying an xbox every 6 months. Sony needs to stop talking about games and actually deliver some games. Then it will be doing better. I love the free online network too.
June 9th, 2007
As per usual.. this site takes its typical Sony bashing stance from a couple of ‘threads’ of information from the hype site itself Kotaku? What the? You lot cant think for yourselves?
Your hype of the Wii is utterly unfounded as well. Currently the PS3 matches sales with the Wii in PAL territories, but you wouldn’t want that as an article would you? The PS3 sales are also not overly poor in the US. Japan is the only market where the Wii is selling substantially more.. but look what happened with the GC last time? Initial sales in Japan were extremely strong, and look where that ended up?
You sad people need to start to be a little more intelligent rather than just ‘following the flock of sheep’..
June 9th, 2007
Interesting that the comments posted about this article are more informed and intelligent than the article itself. Scanning the news searches about the PS3 will always find one abusively negative blurb from this website, nearly always with John Pospisil’s name attached.
My analytical prediction is this: Five years from now, Sony will still be one of the leading video game companies, and gamer.blorge.com will be a distant memory.
No, scratch that. This website won’t be remembered at all.
June 9th, 2007
I am still waiting to hear good news from this site about Sony, it amazes me that you guys are listed so high on Google news.. that is pathetic. Sony cutting 100 jobs somehow equals a cunning / desperate move? Even a 5th grader (are you smarter then a 5th grader pwn) will be able to tell you a 100 jobs isn’t going to equal a 2 billion dollars in net loose.
Serioulsy guys, I know M$ pays you guys to keep the negative press going, but couldn’t you guys at least attempt to look smart when posting these comments.
Sad sad, Xbots.
June 9th, 2007
If Sony put more time in there PS3 as they do in there LCD and Plasma TV’s I believe they may have a chance. And plus the console unit is HUGE!!!! OVERPRICED to say the less. If they don’t take care of this issue the PS3 is going to go the way of Sony’s flopped Minidisc player just to name one disappointment electronic device.
June 9th, 2007
The PS3 is only slightly bigger than the 360…. so if the PS3 is huge then that means the 360 is very large too (Almost huge). Fed up of all the PS3 bashing…. PS3 is a fantastic bit of kit, sure it’s lacking in the AAA games at the moment but give it a month or 2 and all this negative press will fade away :o)
June 10th, 2007
The ps3 is a great piece of technology sure it is expensive but great things don’t come cheap. The machine doesn’t over heat like the xbox and when u call ms hotline they try to give attitude wats that all about, anyways cant wait to play GTA IV on the ps3 their has to be more content on the ps3 version just look at the space on the blue ray discs.
June 10th, 2007
“Why do hate Sony, does M$ pay you”?
Wow, so many PS3 fans have become conspiracy theorists, and it’s getting pretty sad to watch.
PS2 saw OVER 70% of it’s sales AFTER the price dropped under $200. How long before PS3 reaches that price point? When PS2 came out, Sony talked about the emotion engine becoming the choice for servers and super-computers, but it took 5 years for developers to even come close to a PII 733 Celeron chip.
PS3 is over priced for a gaming console because it is a Trojan horse.
By using the Cell chip, Sony has stated it will drive down the cost of those chips for other markets, such as servers. It’s very expensive and overly complicated for games, but if it helps Sony displace WinTel in the server market, use it.
They used BD rom before they had a drive fast enough to fill 512MB of RAM in less than 45 seconds, so every PS3 has a hard drive to compensate. The cost of these 2 items drives up the cost of PS3 by almost $300. Why does that make sense to gamers? No PS3 game to date has justified Sony’s mandate that EVERY PS3 game will come on a Blu-Ray disc, so why make that a requirement? Oh yeah, movies take up a lot of space.
Sony owns movie studios that make the bulk of their profits on home movie sales. The owner of the next format makes huge profits from every movie that uses the format. How do they drive down the cost of Blu-Ray disc production and duplication? Make gamers pay for it, that’s how. Put a Blu-Ray drive in every PS3 and set a requirement that every game use Blu-Ray, whether it needs the space or not.
Blu-Ray drives read DVD, which is cheaper to make, and it reads them just as fast (or faster) as BD ROM. You people think that this heavy-handed approach is OK, even though it drove up the cost of PS3? Amazing.
Oblivion fit on a DVD-9 with room to spare, and that’s a huge game. I have no doubt that Resistance would have fit too, if they used compression and there weren’t so many duplicate files to fill out the space.
Sony’s movie and CPU ambitions have caused it to williny switch places with Microsoft in the console war. Xbox had the better hardware and had more built-in features, but Sony had the early start. Because of PS2’s install base, Xbox didn’t have many titles early on, and suffered from poor ports of PS2 games. Unlike Xbox vs PS2, PS3 costs much more than Xbox 360.
Now PS3 doesn’t have many games because of a small install base, and will recieve poor ports of Xbox 360 games. Right now, Sony is giving HUGE help to developers to help with PS3’s complicated Cell chip, but that is only on select games. Rainbow: Vegas for PS3 didn’t come out so good, and Pirates on PS3 was the horrible version. “…a stuttering mess” is one quote I recall.
I have played the Wii. IT’s fun, but it’s not for me. Nintendo has made the most reliable hardware so far, with Sony a close second. MS really messed up on the hardware early on, but they are trying to do the right thing. We’ll see how that works out. If Wii gets really good titles that use the Wii-mote in engaging ways, they could win this time around because of their low price. If Xbox 360 continues holding software attach rates that are by far the highest ever, they could put a huge hurt on Sony.
June 10th, 2007
“Increasingly desperate” I knew this article was biased before I even read it. The sales numbers simply don’t agree with your statements. Sales numbers for an initial launch are generally low. The facts will change a year from now when Microsoft loses it’s initial momentum. Also, companies cut jobs for any number of reasons.
June 10th, 2007
Sony is desperate??? If history in the gaming industry tells us anything we all know what the final outcome of the “Gaming War” will be. As reported by Forbes, the first XBox was a 4 Billion dollar loss for Microsoft. XBox360 was outdated at launch. No HDMI, no Blu-ray or HDDVD, no built-in WiFi, runs extremely Hot when generating 720p signal and finally, equipped with almost the EXACT same processing power as XBox1. One year and 4 months later we see Microsoft trying to gather itself by releasing The Elite which is an “Elite Waste of Money”. Then we have the Wii - With it’s gimmick controller and not so great games, it should last a bit longer than it’s predecessor, Game Cube which lasted exactly 1 year before completely dying. The Wii’s greatest asset is it’s price. Again, equipped with the same processing power as the Game Cube. Then we have PS3. The system with the Most of Everything. Everything except games. PS3 is coming under the same fire from critics that the PS2 endured during it’s first year. PS3’s biggest weakness is undoubtedly it’s current game catalogue. Arriving this summer like an Emergency Rescue Squad will be some much needed help in the Game department for the PS3. Titles like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas, Transformers, John Madden Football 2008, Super Stardust HD (Sony Exclusive), High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition (Sony Exclusive) Ghost Recon 2 (With Extra Content). Then as we turn the corner and into September, Sony receives another wave of titles - Warhawk (Sony Exclusive), Home (Sony Exclusive), NHL 08, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, The Club, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, NBA Live 08, Ratchet & Clank (Sony Exclusive), Grand Theft Auto IV, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Guitar Hero III, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, SOCOM: Confrontation (Sony Exclusive) and the much anticipated Eight Days (Sony Exclusive). Not to mention all the Blu-Ray movies such as Spiderman. If that doesn’t give Sony a boost for the up coming Holiday season I don’t know what will. The biggest mistake Sony made in the PS3 saga so far is, they did not get Grand Theft Auto IV as an exclusive PS3 title. GTA3 single handedly put PS2 over the top. GTA3 could have done the same for PS3. Although a GTAIV exclusive could have boosted PS3 sales conciderably, not having it all to itself will just prolong the enevidable. PS3 will take the lead in the Console War within 2 years while the competition will be designing their next Systems.
for a full list of PS3 Game Release Dates got to: http://ps3.ign.com/index/release.html
June 10th, 2007
http://playb3yond.com/
June 10th, 2007
honestly pepole get so uptight about the PS3 geting bad press then they make fun of the other consoles to compensate that’s pathetic. I don’t care who wins the cosole war but these pepole try to back up sony with so called facts that arn’t even remotly true
P.S I heard many of these arguments agenst the DS vs the psp when they came out what happened their
June 10th, 2007
sony reversed their stratagy with the PS3 so since the ps2 won and it had the wost grafixs then that means the PS3 will lose if your going to history. That where your logic gets you the opisite of where your hoping the results turn out
June 10th, 2007
I’ll pay $200 for a ps3 so I can use it to watch hd movies.
June 10th, 2007
Five years from now Sony will no longer be in business. At $200 loss per PS3 sales, $400 loss per Blu-Ray sales, in less than 5 years its stock crashed and all its empoyees get laid off. Low tech companies like Nintendo and Toshiba tamed hi tech big boy Sony.
June 10th, 2007
Is this idiot really trying to state Sony is going to go out of business because of the PS3?
LMFAO
Wow let’s just limit the stupidity of that statement to their game division. Hmmm….I suppose the 200,000,000+ units sold by the PS1/PS2 does not account for anything.
What about 960,000,000 million units of software sold?
I mean c’mon Sony could lose this generation by a LANDSLIDE and not leave the videogaming community.
Playstation is one of the best things that could have ever came about.
And you can thank Nintendo’s arrogance for that. But wait, am I seeing the same arrogance with the Wii?
Yeah, I think so. Karma isn’t limited to one go around.
June 10th, 2007
So you think nintendo is arougent if that is the case then Karma should cause a metor to crash into sony headqurter and they all die so sad
June 11th, 2007
shatdonin, thonks, iy rilly nedded thot. honestly, reading your comments gave me the best laugh i’ve had for days. yoo ar living poof thot ps3 haitters spiik wubish and have the IQ of a steaming pile of dung!!! i wonder how many of the haters have actually tried a ps3 before knocking it??? or is it just all sour grapes because you can’t afford the price tag of such a high quality system?? get a life shatdonin and whilst your at it, get a ps3, yoo weetard.
June 11th, 2007
Wow how many Sony Fanboys can you pack into one comment section. wait this isnt sony’s marketing team having another go at viral advertising is it. sacking people at sony isnt so bad, i mean there where a lot of amature ads for the ps3 on yotube that were better than the ones sony put out, maybe they are firing the marketing team in each region and plagerising youtube. It sounds like something sony would do, i mean if you cant innovate, immitate “Sixaxis”=Joke
June 11th, 2007
Sony used to be a great company, now they are just “pure evil”. One of the reasons so many people really “hate” Sony is they try and force there technology on to it`s customers, BlueRay is the latest example. The DRM in BlueRay is also evil, but most people are to stupid to see this. Sony will go down, sell your stocks will you still have the chance.