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Sony Undergoes Management Shuffle
Sony has announced that its chairman and CEO, Howard Stringer, will soon be taking on the role as company president.
Current Sony president Ryoji Chubachi will step down from the role and move to become vice chairman, still remaining a member of the board and assisting Stringer.
It is unclear how this new corporate structure will help the business from its current problems, though there had previously been suggestions that there was a degree of friction from within Sony’s management. Stringer’s additional role as company president will allow him more power and sway.
“This reorganisation is designed to transform Sony into a more innovative, integrated and agile global company with its next generation of leadership firmly in place,” Stringer said in a company statement.
“The changes we're announcing today will accelerate the transformation of the company that began four years ago,” Stringer added. “They will now make it possible for all of Sony's parts to work together to assume a position of worldwide leadership and, together, achieve great things."
Outgoing president Chubachi said: "I look forward to supporting the new management team as they transition into new areas of responsibility and to continuing to add value in my new role. I am pleased that, building on the structure we've created over the years, the company is poised for an even greater future.”
Sony is also set to build two additional business groups; one for games and Vaio computing, the other for TV, camcorders and cameras.
Kaz Hirai will still be overlooking the Playstation end of the business, as well as Vaio-branded goods. Hiroshi Yoshioka, who currently oversees the TV business, will now also head Sony’s digital camera and camcorder operations.
“It's positive for Sony. It has to bite the bullet and needs drastic job cuts and restructuring in the loss-making television sector to turn the business around,” says Koichi Ogawa, chief portfolio manager at Daiwa SB Investments, speaking to Forbes.
“A foreign CEO would fit much better for such a tough job.”
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Contrary to the theory that PS3 is dying, the console was instrumental in its success in the High Definition Wars (the PS3 being the best-selling Blu-ray player ever) and things are looking really good for Blu-ray , the format seems to be riding the recession very well. Read: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2341573,00.asp
Here are a few paragraphs:
"U.S. Blu-ray Disc Sales Expected to Jump Threefold"
Movie buffs will apparently be riding out the recession holed up with their Blu-ray DVDs, according to data from Futuresource Consulting. The group predicts that sales of the high-definition discs will exceed 100 million in 2009 across the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan. "
and
"There were approximately 36 million Blu-ray discs sold worldwide last year. Blu-ray sales increased 320 percent in the U.S. in 2008 to 24 million units, and sales in this country are expected to top 80 million this year, the group said, a 333 percent increase. "
And since Sony was counting to make money on PS3 software and NOT hardware, I'll say PS3 is a tremendous success.
Sony's problems are in it's TV division. I don't get where this notion that the PS3 is about to die is coming from, it's doing perfectly fine in a growing market and at a way higher price point than it's competitors. Once they cut the price it'll start performing like it did for the first 9 months of 2008 and the XBOX will probably have to be cut in price again to compete.
Seriously the GROWING gaming market has room for all three manufacturers.
The notion that the PS3 is dying is because it's not selling Wii numbers in NPD. Also, Sony only makes PS3's, they have no other business'. /Sarcasm.
I don't get it either.
The notion that the PS3 is dying comes from the fact that it has had year on year falling sales and comes in considerably short of the 360's sales on a regular basis.
But it is hardly dying, but it could use a boost.
Year on year sales are up, despite how little increase it is. Holiday 07 vs Holiday 08 sales are down. I wouldn't consider it dying when it outsold the 360 a majority of 2008 with it's expensive price tag. I am not surprised that sales went down for Holiday 08 due to economy, 360 price drop, and high price tag that was the same as 2007 Holiday.
As long as the console manufacturing costs continue to go down. Owners continue to buy software and the business stays in black or makes continuous profit, it is not failing IMO.
This was the exact move that my friend would take place if Sony made the decision to make the PS3 the final gaming console that Sony launches.
According to what I was told, Sony will give the handheld business another shot to compete with Nintendo, but thier home console days are over due to the expensive failure of the Playstation 3.
And i'm sure, based on your past of unbiased posting and thirst for stating only facts, without conjecture or slant, this news is from a reliable source, am I right? Care to share the source of this industry changing news you've just reported, to add some credibility to, quite possibly, the gaming story of the year you've just broken?
No. Sony's not going anywhere in the TV, handheld or home console market. They aint giving up that easily. They're more likely to quit the handheld market than the home console (or just shift it to a new smartphone).
But Sony is not going to let its competitors win that easily. There's still too much money to be made.
Their console days aren't over. They will simply change their focus from hardware to software. Meaning no more exotic hardware that costs double the price you retail it for. Their next console will be a more conservative upgrade, with an emphasis on software.
I have all consoles and like them all but I can't see how the PS3 is a failure when it has sold thru 20 million units with it's price and current economy. Maybe a failure if you had high expectations set by the PS1 and PS2 but certainly not in its own right.
It doesn't seem like the Japanese culture changed that much since they still refused to fire Chubachi as a matter of pride. With Kaz Hirai still running the Playstation brand, I wouldn't look for much of a change in that divisions mentality. They should have tried to lure someone like Peter Moore over to run the Playstation brand as Krazy Kaz still doesn't understand the Western markets.
He doesn't seem to undestand any market at all. They are more confortable trying to profit from a dying consoles than risk the hell of it and push the PS3 in the price department. Look at Nintendo, they basically did everything "wrong" and changed gaming history forever, not to metion big, and i mean BIG profits.
Pushing the PS3 in the price department will certainly kill the console if they are not set to incur it. Are people so obsessed with fanboy wars that they rather see a company bleed even more money with no sign of profitability in sight so that it charts higher in NPD numbers.
This "lose on hardware, gain on software" mentality that Sony and Microsoft has is horrible. Nintendo has been the only smart console manufacturer that has been making profits on hardware and software for 10 years straight.
I hope Stringer can bust some heads at Sony. Hopefully, it will start with the morons who thought a picture viewer would be good for a firmware update. Also, perhaps he could make their attitude about console design undergo a dramatic change towards simplicity and feature consistency.
Yeah it needs doing very badly lets just hope that Sony's conservative upper management dont dig their heels in to much.