Needless to say, Sony has not been fairing too well in the news as of late. With PS3 sales declining and a hefty $6.4 billion loss in the last fiscal year (and four consecutive years of losses), confirming reports that Sony will lay off 10,000 employees, how will Sony come back from all of this? The electronics conglomerate and Sony's new CEO Kaz Hirai plans to reshuffle the company and part of that will be to place more focus on gaming.
Sony is about to move full-steam ahead in digital imaging, gaming, and mobile devices in hopes that they can once again become a company that stands as one of the top developers of electronic goods and services. A company statement confirmed that Sony wishes to concentrate investment and development into these core areas if they wish to come back by the fiscal year 2014:
"By growing these three businesses, Sony aims to generate approximately 70 percent of total sales and 85 percent of operating income for the entire electronics business from these categories by FY14. Sony will target game business sales of one trillion yen and operating income margin of 8% by FY14."
Will Sony be able to provide the games, hardware and services to put them atop the competition? Last year's massive PSN outage and the slow Vita sales following a weak release in Japan haven't helped.
Sony also pledged a stronghold in the digital arena, where they plan to implement strategies to boost sales in downloadable games and subscription based services through the Sony Entertainment Network. They also plan on expanding PlayStation Suite compatible devices and content. Games like the free-to-play, microtransaction-based EVE Online (exclusive to Sony's PlayStation 3 and Vita consoles) could be a sign of greater things to come where profit-sharing is done through a virtual currency.
Sony has confirmed that the PS4 will not be shown during E3 2012 but it could be the device they rely on to turn around the PlayStation brand and their gaming division. With an aging PS3 and a handheld being outsold heavily by the competition, what will the company focus on when they come to the E3 this June? Nintendo is about ready to launch their Wii U system, and it would appear that Microsoft is gearing up to release their next-gen console soon too, where does this leave Sony?
One thing's for sure, Sony better come guns-a-blazin' if they wish to come out strong this year at E3 2012.
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Source: MCV