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Hirai To Extend Playstation Strategy To Whole Company

Kaz Hirai will take over the reigns over at Sony as head honcho on April 1 after being announced as Howard Stringer’s successor last month. He will inherit a a massive problem as Sony continues to post losses year after year. Sony forecasts a US$2.9 billion loss for this financial year. With problems within the company, including their television division, which is sinking faster than the Titanic, Hirai needs to come up with a strategy. It seems that he will use the Playstation strategy, where both hardware and software is linked via online services, to rescue the Japanese electronics giant.

In a group interview at Sony HQ in Tokyo, Hirai described the Sony Computer Entertainment model as “a bigger concept we can grow into a bigger space.” He also adds that “hardware drives software and software drives hardware,” an idea one learns in the game industry. Profits from a system is usually made on the software side. Without the games to back up a system, how does the system sell? If Hirai can manage such a strategy with Sony’s other divisions, it may pull them out of this downward spiral of red ink.

However, before Hirai can even implement the strategy, he will have to go through the books and make some tough cost-cutting measures, which will affect the company as a whole. Their television division may be the hardest hit, losing US$11 billion dollars over the last eight years. However, the Japanese TV manufacturing industry is in free fall at the moment with the emergence of foreign competition (Samsung and LG) as well as a decline of global TV intake, which is due to on-demand entertainment available on the go.

Source: Reuters

Joshua Spudic
Joshua Spudic
Josh is the name, writing is my game... well my degree will say that. But, when uni gets me down (and it does), there is no better way that to grab a chair, sit back and slicing up some DarkspawnI started my gaming interest back in the good old 16 bit era with the Sega Mega Drive and Sonic The Hedgehog 2. I was roughly five years old. To this day I still try to fire up the dusty companion and speed through the wacky and bright levels, jumping on some Badniks, collecting those damn Chaos Emeralds. Then I moved onto Sony's disk based console the Playstation (thanks to my uncle). Since then I have picked up each of Sony's consoles from the 5th to current generation that has been released in Australia (with more to come).In terms of writing about games, I am quite new to the field. I started out late last year with my own blog before deciding to move to greener pastures. I have written a few reviews for the Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable. Features as well. I hope I can flex my muscles while writing with Capsule Computers.If I'm not gaming, however, I'm writing narratives. I am currently trying to kickstart a high fantasy novel (which, hopefully, turns into a complex RPG) that I want done in five years or so. My passion of writing has been there for a long time and has flourished as I grew. I'm into the fantasy genre, both games and novels, and thoroughly enjoy a deep and complex RPG, whether it comes from the East or West.Oh and anime is awesome!