Howard-Stringer
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Stringer: PS3 games 'infinitely more fun' than Wii
Sony Chairman Howard Stringer is showing both teeth and scientific breakthrough. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Stringer was exuberant over the PlayStation 3's recent one-week triumph over Nintendo Wii in Japanese hardware sales. "I'm happy the Wii seems to be running a bit short of hardware," he said, before following up with the quip that the PS3 "will come into its own because its [high-end games] are infinitely more fun, demanding and exciting."Infinitely more fun, you say? So how does one define infinite fun? Let's arbitrarily assign Wii games with a base number, we'll call 'W.' For conversion purposes, we'll let W equate to one anti-meh. Infinity itself is an abstract notion that we can obtain through various roundabout methods. For example, take the limit as 'n' approaches 0 of anti-meh divided by 'n.' (You can't directly divide by zero without the power of the Cell processor.)This approach works for all scalars of anti-meh: oh, gee whiz, golly, awesome, sweet, wow, etc., which is convenient if a Wii game really is fun, then we can apply the limit (let's arbitrarily call it the "Sony limit") and obtain infinity, knocking the wind out of Nintendo's fun factor.
CE-Oh no he didn't! Part LIV: Stringer on flip-flop bender
Man, talk about being all over the map. One day Sony's Howard Stringer is calling the format war a "stalemate," the next he's claiming Blu-ray is "just a better format." Apparently, having a few weeks to think over that last comment made him realize that his heart was more connected to the first proclamation, as the exec has now come forward and acknowledged that the battle between red and Blu is far from over. Specifically, he stated that "[Blu-ray] had momentum," but he followed up by calling the aforementioned momentum "all it had at the moment." C'mon Mr. Stringer -- pick a line and hold steady, will ya?[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Sony planning to go against iTunes, Live in 2008
Let the bell ring and the pretty lady walk by the arena holding up the sign telling us that Round 1 is about to begin -- gloves are off, et cetera. Sony's laid out its plans for 2008 and from the looks and sounds of it, they're planning to up the ante of the PlayStation Network to rival such services as Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's XBox Live service -- all for free. Sony CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, said the PS3 is planned to connect to a multitude of devices, including mobile phones and other "unspecified" electronics.The mobile phone deal is part of a three year plan, coupled with the persistent rumors of a PSPhone, making the date of April 1, 2008 a little something to look forward to. Stringer outlined Sony's next fiscal year a little like this: "PlayStation Network next year puts us in the direct line of fire with Apple and Microsoft," referring of course to iTunes and Live. He didn't say what was planned exactly, but draw your own conclusions from his quote about a dinner he had: "we had a dinner where the heads of Sony Electronics, [Sony] Pictures, Sony BMG, and Sony PlayStation were all at the same dinner table intermingled and actually communicating." Who knows. It could be any number of exciting things, what with all the different areas Sony covers in the electronics world.
European PS3 sales up to 200k, says Sony CEO
Maybe the "This is Living" campaign is really working. Sony CEO Howard Stringer commented from Japan that sales of the PS3 console have gained significant momentum since the launch of the 40GB model. As many as 200,000 PS3 machines were selling a week in Europe, while 40,000 to 50,000 PS3s were selling a week in Japan, Stringer said. He notes the success not only to the price cuts, but to the shortage of Wii systems as well.Going forward, the CEO focused on bringing back "the wow factor" to the Sony brand. "The next cycle is actual innovation," he said. He mentioned the PSN's future plans to deliver non-gaming content. Sony's ownership of movie and music studios should make it a force to reckon with -- although, no actual timeline has been revealed.In regards to the current HD format war, Stringer notes that Blu-ray currently has the edge. However, that doesn't mean victory is close. "We have momentum," he said. "But that's all we have at the moment."[Via GameDaily]
Sony's Stringer: OLED TV in US "next year"
So we had a bit of bad, OLED-related news this morning. Now for the good. Sir Howard Stringer just announced plans to launch their 3-mm OLED TV into the US market. While it's not coming this year as we had hoped beyond hope, it will be offered for "limited sales" in the US (Sony's second launch market) sometime "next year." Just as soon as Sony ramps up their mass production capabilities. Stringer admits that the expensive, tiny TV is a "symbolic device" for Sony -- fine by us. After years of corporate stoicism we're perfectly happy to see Sony take some risk. Now please resurrect AIBO, Howie, and your innovation hat-trick will be complete.
CE-Oh no he didn't! Part XI: Stringer's flip-flop edition
Merely days after Sony's Howard Stringer was scrutinized for calling the format war a "stalemate," the exec has apparently decided to tweak his tone a bit. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Stringer was quoted as saying that Blu-ray had "the momentum and the scale" it needed to eventually reign victorious over its rival. Additionally, he noted that Blu-ray was "just a better format," and he even went so far as to tout BD's excellent security features, which were effectively subverted just weeks ago after being hailed as practically impenetrable. Furthermore, he didn't seem worried over the new, lower prices associated with standalone HD DVD players, but who knows, maybe he'll be singing a different tune next week.[Via Electronista]
CE-Oh no he didn't! Part LI: Stringer's flip-flop edition
Merely days after Sony's Howard Stringer was scrutinized for calling the format war a "stalemate," the exec has apparently decided to tweak his tone a bit. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Stringer was quoted as saying that Blu-ray had "the momentum and the scale" it needed to eventually reign victorious over its rival. Additionally, he noted that Blu-ray was "just a better format," and he even went so far as to tout BD's excellent security features, which were effectively subverted just weeks ago after being hailed as practically impenetrable. Furthermore, he didn't seem worried over the new, lower prices associated with standalone HD DVD players, but who knows, maybe he'll be singing a different tune next week.[Via Electronista]
Sony's PS3 sales in US more than double since price cut
A few of our readers were scoffing at the idea of a $399 40GB PS3. "What's the big deal," you said. This: according to Sony's CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, they've more than doubled sales in the US in the weeks since its launch. "It's the breakthrough we've been waiting for," said Stringer, "We've been holding our breath. Finally, the turning point has been passed." Prior to the October 18th price cut, Sony was selling just 30k to 40k consoles per week. Sales rose to 75,000 in the week ending October 29 rising to 100,000 the following week. Stringer also credits Wii shortages for helping the boost. Andrew House, Sony's chief marketing officer even takes a jab at HD DVD saying, "It puts us vastly ahead of where the other format is going to be in terms of an installed base in people's homes by the end of this holiday season." Perhaps, but we don't expect the boys at Microsoft, Nintendo, and Toshiba to just roll over and let this progress continue unabated now, do we?
Sony's Stringer: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD battle a "stalemate"
Things have been a bit rough for Blu-ray lately. Those massive price cuts gave HD DVD a boost in market share and Paramount's abrupt departure was certainly a tad, shall we say, embarrassing. So we wonder, just what does Sony's boss, and figure-head of the smack-talking Blu-ray Disc Association, have to say about the state of the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD war? It's a "stalemate," according to Sir Howard Stringer. He goes on to downplay the winner as nothing more than a matter of prestige while lamenting the lack of a unified standard. A far cry from the BDA's boastful claim of victory just 11 months ago.[Thanks, Andrew]
CE-Oh no he didn't! Part XXXIX : Stringer calls Jobs "greedy"
According to the always exploitive New York Post Page Six, an Anderson Cooper-hosted panel with Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, and Barry Diller (amongst others) had been discussing how technology was changing the way people got their entertainment and news, when Sony honcho Howard Stringer apparently accused Steve Jobs of being "greedy." The report claims that Mr. Stringer went on to say that the Steve-man "Wants a world where only he makes money." The knighted gentleman then stormed out of the room and called his assistant on a Sony Ericsson, who proceeded to take him to his hotel where he watched the Sony-produced Spiderman 2 in Blu-ray format on his new Vaio while petting an AIBO with his metallic claw.
Sony's back: shifting from "recovery to profitable growth" -- 380 new PS3 games
Howard Stringer -- Sony Corp's CEO and man with the plan -- just exited stage-left from Sony's annual shareholder meeting in Tokyo. To say that the 6,000 attendees were skeptical of said plan would be an understatement given a year of fiscal losses, job cuts, PS3 under-performance (with an eventual Kutaragi dismissal), and an embarrassing and dangerous recall of some 10 million batteries among other missteps. Still, Howard stood strong, assuring investors that Sony has made the swtich from "recovery to profitable growth" and will be a "dominant company" in the digital age. So what's the plan?
Howard Stringer looks into "refining" the cost of PS3
If you want someone to take machete in hand and slice through the vine-ridden jungle of PR spin and get to the heart of darkness (took about ten minutes to hack our own way to that dynamite metaphor), it would be Sony CEO Howard Stringer. He says that there is no question consumers want a price drop on the PlayStation 3 and he's currently looking into ways to deliver on those demands. How much the console would drop in price is the big question and what he and his pals at Sony are trying to figure out.Stringer is pretty certain he will have an answer for the public by Christmas, but took the liberty to compare sales with their most current console to the beginning years of the PlayStation Originale and the PlayStation Deux. We're making up names. Stringer reassured the Sony loyalists that sales are indeed slow, but mimic the previous consoles' trends.He also gave his two cents about the Wii. Take this as you will, Nintendo crowd: "I would be the first to say to you that Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise and a very good business model compared to ours... Because it's cheaper." Adding later that, when asked if the system is more fun or creative than the competition, "No, no. Fun is in the eye of the experiencer..." All in all, we'll have news of a price cut soon and we'll find out if the "cheaper" factor really is a major player in this war of consoles.
Howard Stringer: Sony "studying" PS3 price cut
Not that there's ever been a mainstream game console or gadget that didn't eventually go down in price, but PlayStation fans not ready to plunk down the up to $800 sticker price for a new PS3 can take heart. Sony's Howard Stringer did confirm that Sony is looking at ways to bring down the price on its monolith at some point down the road -- probably way, way down the road -- but unfortunately there wasn't much more to it than that. We know Stringer wants to drop the price on the thing, but as usual one shouldn't expect any formal pre-announcements of price cuts on hardware the company's struggling to make a dime off of.[Via The Inq]
Record loss for Sony predicted by Bloomberg
Sony could be posting a net loss of ¥75.8 billion (US $630 million), its biggest in four years, in the fiscal quarter that ended March 31, according to Bloomberg. The financial publication took a median estimate culled from 11 surveyed analysts.Five of the analysts expect the games division, home to the PlayStation, to post a 121 billion yen (US $1 billion) loss and a record deficit of ¥245 billion (US $2.04 billion) -- figures that may not be offset by Spider-Man 3's record-setting box office returns. Production delays are cited as one of the reasons Sony is currently in third place in worldwide hardware sales, though Sony is still the world's largest console maker due to its PS2 sales. All other divisions are expected to have generated profit.CEO Howard Stringer, pictured, has promised to raise the company's annual operating profit to 5% of revenue by March 2008; analysts expect Sony to have a 4.1% operating margin. Merrill Lynch analyst Hitoshi Kuriyama believes that Stringer can still reach that target if there is no price cut with the PS3. "But I'm expecting a 20 percent price cut," he said. That's a steep figure that, if true, would put the 60GB version at ¥48,000 (US $390) in Japan and $480 in the United States.See Also:Xbox 360 still bumming cash from MicrosoftNintendo announces record year, thanks DS and Wii
Stringer: Euro PlayStation 3 approaching 800,000 sold
Speaking to the Financial Times, Sony's chief executive, Sir Howard Stringer, says that PlayStation 3 sales are close to reaching 800,000 units in Europe after the system's March 23rd launch. Narrowing it down, Stringer says, "I think [in] the first two days in the UK, £100m ($199m) revenue changed hands and that's probably the largest consumer electronics sale in history." While he doesn't comment on the 82% sales drop that followed the next week (perhaps because it "doesn't mean anything"), he notes that the system's reception in Europe has given it better standing in "the perception wars."Though the PS3 may have come down from its exceptional UK launch, the perception that the system is tanking simply because it's still in stock across the country remains. It's not aided by the system's performance in Japan either, and Stringer admits that "perhaps we lived up to the expectations in Europe in a way that perhaps we didn't in Japan." Still, analysts are more upbeat about the PS3's longterm fortunes, with one Yuji Fujimori of Goldman Sachs predicting the system to have a 50% market share within 3 years. Further assurances can be found in Sir Howard's following declaration, "I see no reason why we can't use content to drive the sales of hardware as the network connectivity becomes more sophisticated." Woah, using content to drive hardware sales? Is that some of the crazy "Game 3.0" stuff we've been hearing so much about?
Howard Stringer jumps for joy thanks to European launch
Unless Sir Howard Stringer recently woke up from some kind of coma, he should've been out and about proclaiming his hoorays a few weeks ago -- not now. That aside, he sat down to talk about his impressions on the European launch and most of it was glowing praise. Citing around 800,000 units sold in the region, Howard said "I think [in] the first two days in the UK, GBP 100m (USD 199m) revenue changed hands and that's probably the largest consumer electronics sale in history." He thinks. Again, coma. We're not ragging on the guy, he's nice enough. He felt that Sony lived up to expectations in Europe where they might have fallen short in Japan. As far as competition goes, he also says that the battle isn't over -- the competition are all staring each other in the face, but "we haven't quite shaken hands all the way around." What do you guys think? Was there less hatred over there in Europe upon launch? Were you severely disappointed with what was offered upon launch?
Ce-Oh no he didnt! Part XXXI - Stringer says if PS3 fails, it'll be due to the high price
The veritable genius of economic theory that he is, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer has finally figured out a flaw in his grand scheme of world domination via the PS3: that hefty pricetag. "If we fail, it is because we positioned PS3 sales as the Mercedes of the videogame field," said Stringer. "PS3 is a different audience and it can be whatever it wants – a home server, game device, even a computer." It seems odd that he'd say the PS3 is limited to a different audience and that it can be "whatever it wants" in the same sentence, but who are we to judge? Stringer also praised the Wii as "a wonderful device," and stated that it "has a different target audience" than that of the PS3. Nothing new there, and his statements on the format war were also unsurprising: "We are selling 3-to-1 versus to them," he said. "At some point Blu-ray will take over based on ... this support." Good to see some things just never change.
Where did "Blu-ray" come from? Adam Sandler knows
The name HD DVD, while not particularly original is at least pretty clear to anyone familiar with standard DVDs. Fans of Sony's Blu-ray technology certainly get the connection to its blue laser technology, but the average consumer might be a little thrown off. If you need more explanation of where the term "Blu-ray" originated, Adam Sandler -- star of Sony Pictures' first dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray release -- provided his own retelling of the events during a dinner honoring Sony CEO Howard Stringer recently. No matter how seriously you take his tale of a devastating cross-eyed blonde named Blu-ray who rocked Howard's world many years ago in Singapore, we're sure the company's shareholders hope making the name famous won't "destroy" the executive.
Sir Howard Stringer speaks about Sony's profit... or loss
We know you secretly love the business side of things -- plus, there's absolutely nothing going on in the gaming side of the PS3 right now. Well, not nothing, but nothing that's really "liek OMG gotta blog 'bout 'dis yo". Exclamation point. It would be really weird if actual punctuation didn't exist and we had to type and say everything period That would make reading stuff really awkward comma huh question mark... okay, enough. On to Howard Stringer.Sony's CEO, Howard Stringer, stated that the company is prepared to meet its operating profit margin for this coming fiscal year. Hopefully he means it, since the 2006 fiscal year was really painful for Sony. The profit margin Sony has set for the coming fiscal year is 5%. A noble effort, but not too far out there. Recalling that they recently reported a drop in profits of 94%, it seems like it should be easy to recoup 5%. Unless laptop batteries keep exploding and the PS3 crashes harder than the Sega Saturn (no offense, Sega, we love you too). There is already a 4% gross profit in Sony's electronics, specifically the Bravia TV's and other home audio stuff. As far as the PS3 profit margin is concerned, Stringer expects the unit to break even by the end of the year. Good luck, Mr. Stringer and may your goals be attained exclamation point! Couldn't resist.
Howard Stringer says: "PS3 = creative success!"
I just thought of something random. In the quote above, there is an equal sign in quotations... but what does an equal sign sound like? It's not "equal sign" because that's the name of the symbol. Wow, that's like, so totally way deep. Anyway, onto news. Sony CEO, Sir Howard Stringer (he's knighted, isn't he? Thought so...), is thinking up new ways to boost Sony's profits, what with their latest financial statements putting them in a world of "moderate to severe danger" (not a quote from Stringer, just... me quoting myself). He's still confident that meeting their profit margin is probable: "We promised the margins for next year will be 5 percent and we have every intention of doing that." That would take a lot of work and a lot of sales, even outside of the PS3.Stringer is saying just that -- other divisions must be set to pull in healthy profits and he claims their movie division and other consumer electronics are setting up to do just that. He does concede that the PS3 will probably do much better in the second year, once the ball gets rolling on production and software sales. But to him, the point is "that PlayStation 3 is already finished and has been tested in America and has been deemed a creative success. In the end that is what counts." If only creative successes were all that counted... but sadly, commercial success is equally as important and for that part, we'll have to wait a few years to see.
