Sony Freezing Salaries

[AdventChild]

Sony is gonna freeze worker salaries starting in April to improve profitability.

It's a bad time to be Sony. The company is expected to post an operating loss of $2.65 billion for the year; a huge percentage of the gaming world is calling for the firm to cut the price of its flagship gaming system; the company's stock is in the crapper, having gone from a high of over 150 in 2000 to today's price, hovering around 20 a share; layoffs and factory closings have hit the firm hard (although not so much the gaming department). And today, for those "lucky" Sony workers who have managed to hold on to their gigs at the company, comes more bad news: According to the financial daily Nikkei, Sony will freeze workers' salaries for the year starting in April to improve profitability.

The paper also said workers' bonuses will be lowered to four months' pay from six months, and yearly compensation for managers will be dropped 10 to 20 percent through wage reductions and bonus cuts. So everyone is going to be tightening his or her already taut belt over at Sony.

But before you start blaming the PlayStation 3, video-game-focused readers, please understand: The main culprit here is the global economic downtown and the strength of the yen. Sony's gaming division reported a 97% drop in operating profit last year, mainly because console and software sales are declining, so it's not exactly helping out or anything, but you can't really expect sales of anything to jump in the middle of The Great Recession, can you? Unless, of course, you're selling "Going out of Business!" signs.

But let's be constructive here: As far as the gaming department goes, what can Sony do to turn things around?

What Sony needs to do is to cut the price on the PS3, but I doubt it will help much with the crappy economy and whatnot.

Edited March 19, 2009 by AdventChild

[Patticus]

I do believe there is a PS3 price cut on the cards, actually, as well as bundles.

[Chris]

I do believe there is a PS3 price cut on the cards, actually, as well as bundles.

Aye; they'll probably announce soon for the summer months.

[Random Rhyme]

I do believe there is a PS3 price cut on the cards, actually, as well as bundles.

According to a reader tip, Target stores are receiving a brand new PS3 SKU. The DPCI item number for the new product is 207-23-0009 and it will be available on March 29, a few days after the end of Game Developer's Conference.

The new SKU, confirmed by our tipster's photo, bundles the now-standard 80 GB console and two Greatest Hits games: MotorStorm and Resistance: Fall of Man. Those who have managed to keep track of the various SKUs will find this package awfully similar to a bundle launched in Europe in 2007. Heck, all it does is add Resistance to the now-defunct MotorStorm bundle.

Unfortunately, our tipster says this new bundle doesn't come with a price drop. The SKU will retail for $399, the same price as the current low-end PS3. Yes, the addition of two free games makes it a better value, but this bundle can't replace the "price drop" analysts have been predicting (and publishers have been begging for). Either this is a Target-specific bundle, or this will be one of the most unexciting PS3 announcements to date.

Source

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/17/target-r...ease-after-gdc/

Future doesn't look too bright yet.

Edited March 19, 2009 by Shade737

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

Loads of people want the price cut. If a price cut happens, many more people will buy a PS3. Even developers want the price cut to happen. It will benefit them.

[AdventChild]

More Sony (bad) news:

Sony Focusing on PS3 Profits and Not Market Share

Sony Charging Publishers to Host DLC

It's going to be one of those days where every story seems like a it's a bad day for Sony... According to MTV Multiplayer, Sony is now charging publishers 16 cents per 1GB of content served as DLC on the PlayStation Network as of October 1, 2008.

That is major. I cannot stress enough how this could effect the amount of content available on the PlayStation 3. I don't know for sure why Sony is doing this, but I can make an educated guess: the PlayStation Network is free for users.

Bandwidth is NOT cheap. YouTube pulled in $500 million in revenue last year and didn't make a profit. Of course, YouTube has higher traffic than 99.9% of websites and services out there, but the rule of expensive bandwidth holds. Why do you think so many ISPs are beginning to throttle downloads and charge for overuse?

You might be saying, "16 cents is pretty cheap. What's the big deal?" Well, let's do some math:

1GB Game Demo downloaded 1 million times = .16 * 1 million = $160,000 to the publisher.

I think DLC packs will mostly be safe because they are paid, but we might see a price increase to account for bandwidth costs to the publisher. Free content like demos, however, will most likely slow down. Now, take a look at multiplatform games and a publisher's hypothetical thought process:

I can put my demo up on the Xbox 360 for free, but putting it up on for the PS3 will cost me money. In fact, the better my game is and the more people that download it, the more I'll have to pony up to Sony.

It's not a big leap at that point for a publisher to forgo a PS3 demo. "You get what you pay for..." I've said time and time again: I willingly pay for Xbox Live and deem it a valuable expense. I prefer Xbox Live to PSN for almost everything and I hope Sony finds a way to avoid hurting publishers.

Sony's company line, made in an email to MTV Multiplayer, is:

“Appreciate the opportunity to jump in here, but we respect the confidentiality of our business agreements with our publishing partners. Of course we work closely with them to bring their amazing content to our growing audience, and we are focused on ensuring we, and our publishing partners, have a viable platform for digital distribution. We foresee no change in the high quality or quantity of demos and games available on PSN.”

I foresee a change. A big, big change.

Sony: Users Average 55 Min. in Home and 4 Million Users

It's hat trick time for bad Sony press today. I can't even bring myself to believe their PR spin anymore. After claiming that they are focusing on profits and not market share, it was revealed that Sony has begun charging publishers for DLC hosting. If that wasn't enough, SCEA's Senior VP of Marketing, Peter Dille, had some stats for Home.

According to Dille, Sony has "4 million users in PlayStation Home worldwide, and the average session in Home is about 55 minutes."

I have three initial observations about this claim:

1. That is 4 million users. Not active users. I've downloaded and tried Home... I've booted it up twice. I do not consider myself a Home user. I'm guessing there are a lot of people in this boat. Sony considers me and them Home users.

2. I'm curious if that 55-minute average takes into account initial downloads and avatar creation.

3. I'd like to see statistics on how many users are idling in Home and not even at their PS3 while logged into the service.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the buzz for Home is completely dead. No one is telling their friends what they did in Home yesterday or getting hyped about new game spaces. The Warhawk space, which was hyped long before it was published, has come and gone. How about some stats on how many games have actually been launched from inside Home?

Additionally, that's an average of 55-minutes a Home user isn't playing a PS3 game. Sony, you tried something unique and you deserve praise for the effort, but let Home go. Incorporate the game-launching and advanced friend features into the XMB and move on, please.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Damn the economy...

Times are getting pretty harsh for the Game Industry Giants. First it Nintendo would be thought to fall in the bank, now Sony freezing employees salaries.

Just wow...

Edited March 20, 2009 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Thrippa]

I probably did spend 55 minutes in Home - trying to find what the controls were for the thing. I eventually found a link to the 'instruction guide', which took me (after a looong delay) to the PS3 website, and a 404 Page Not Found message. I eventually managed to escape by accident, and since I was never able to figure out the point of the thing anymore than I could the controls - why exactly do I want to wander around in a courtyard full of ghosts? and the apartment is all very spacious, but it looks so bare and cold - I've never bothered to go back. But apparently, I'm one of the 4 million users who averaged 55 minutes in Home.

And if they're charging for free DLC by the download, that will kill it dead I think. A staged payment, based on expected demand, might work, although there'd certainly be some overcharged or undercharged due to unexpected demand or lack thereof, but as the article says, charging for each time someone downloads will be disastrous quickly for anyone who posts popular content. And of course it raises all the costs on paid DLC as the creators pass the new fees on to us.