Report: Sony to Cut the Fat in February
Tristan Oliver | January 6, 2009
Widespread Speculation Playstation Division May be Hit Hard
Sony is denying a report out of the Times of London that claims the company will close “major divisions” of its operations and shut down factories in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Reuters cites Sony spokeman Atsuo Omagari as saying “We don’t have any such plan.”
Omagari also told Reuters that Sony has no plans to announce further restructuring. The company announced a savings plan in its electronics division last month. That’s meant to cut costs by $1.1 billion. Sony also laid off 8,000 workers recently. Both may not be enough to spur company growth.
The Times report states that Sony is facing huge unsold inventories across all major products after the Holiday buying season, and the products that did sell were at a loss to the company.
In the face of the Wii phenomenon and XBOX360 sales that have now, according to Microsoft, topped 28 million, the Playstation 3 is among Sony’s struggles. The PS3 has all but failed to achieve a substantial market share Some blogging sites are now speculating that Sony may be ready to severely cut dead weight with the Playstation division, if not abandon it altogether, despite the brand’s powerful establishment up to the PS3’s launch.
Sony is making an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show, so no news of doom and gloom would be made public until after the convention. We are treating this as a rumor for now, but it’s something that bears watching closely in the coming weeks.
Filed Under Business & Industry, Gaming News, Sony
The only people i have pity are the unemployed… the rest… XBOX360 FTW!
Whoa, Wii is still selling like hot cakes,you think it would stopped by now, but I guess with population growth, there are more kids than teenagers and adults worldwide.
Sony is still struggles, Only one thing I have to say is PS3 RULES!!
Count so far, 2 fanboys/0 non-fanboys.
Mark Chao: I’m not a fanboy, I have all three next gen systems and all of them rules, I was just saying that because they was talking about Sony.
I hope PS3 isn’t the next Dreamcast. The PS3 is a really good, sturdy system, whereas the 360 is much too fragile. I know I’d take a PS3 over a 360 any day.
I didn’t think the PS3 would be in the state it’s in, as a 360 fan I don’t particularly care what happens to it, but as a gamer, I hope it manages to poke it’s head out of the storm clouds.
It’ll be fine I’m sure, sony may be struggling, but it’s a computer giant after all.
Yeah maybe it should redo some PS1 classics e.g Vib ribbon, Kula world, Jumping Flash…
I agree with you there DoctorEggman.
I like to say that the Wii, 360, PS3 are now current gen not next gen.