Friday, October 30, 2009
Another Stinker From Sony
Sony’s second quarter was another sorry one marked by the company’s fourth loss in as many quarters. Still, it was smaller than expected.
Sony’s second quarter was another sorry one marked by the company’s fourth loss in as many quarters. Still, it was smaller than expected.
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata likes to say that game console price cuts aren’t the cure-alls many believe them to be. “People often talk about the price cut as if it’s an almighty weapon,” he said this past summer. “The fact of the matter is what a price cut can do is rather limited.” But Nintendo is cutting the price of its Wii videogame system just the same.
Netflix is headed to the iPhone–at some yet-to-be-determined point in the future. Asked by Reuters if he’d ever consider a partnership with Apple, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he would, but only after the company had secured its foothold on videogame consoles and elsewhere.

The week that took us from August to September was one for the books over at BoomTown, especially if you’re 12.
Kara spent Monday morning at Activision Blizzard, where they are pushing forward with the entire Guitar Hero line, even as the game industry faces a nearly 50 percent decline in U.S. sales this year. Kara got to play hero to several of the forthcoming releases, including previewing the much anticipated DJ Hero console.
Apple is indeed hosting a music-related event next Wednesday, Sept. 9, as first reported by Digital Daily. This morning, the company broadcast invitations to a product launch gathering to be held on that day at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
The PlayStation 3 price cut is a rumor no longer. Hoping to bolster sales in advance of the holiday shopping season, Sony Tuesday announced a new slimmer verison of the game console and slashed $100 off its price.
“[If the price were any lower] I’d lose money on every PlayStation I make.” So said Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer last month. And while that remark might seem to preclude a price cut on the PlayStation 3, a price cut might be exactly what we get come tomorrow.
Facing back-to-back full-year net losses, Sony is taking a hatchet to its fixed costs in a yet another bid to return to profitability. The company plans to halve its roster of suppliers to 1,200, shaving a clean 20 percent off its procurement bill.
About the best thing to be said for Sony’s grotesque financial results is that they came in smaller than expected. The company’s 98.9 billion yen ($1 billion) loss for the fiscal year ended March–its first net loss in 14 years–wasn’t nearly as bad as the 150.0 billion yen ($1.57 billion) figure it had predicted in January or even close to the 173.8 billion yen ($1.8 billion) analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been forecasting.
The days of the traditional gaming console are coming to an end–according to entrepreneur Steve Perlman, anyway.
Later today, Perlman–a former principal scientist at Apple and the founder of WebTV–will officially unveil OnLive, the online service with which he hopes to upend the $46 billion world-wide videogame market.
Amid the fast-deteriorating economy, Microsoft opened its first online shop in the U.S.–a digital storefront through which customers can purchase first-party software, hardware, and videogames directly from the company. Although, I’m not quite certain why anyone would, given the prices.
So those reports that the Beatles’ Apple Corps was in talks with Rock Band developers MTV Networks and Harmonix over the creation of a Beatles-themed videogame? True.
According to a Beatles pun-riddled joint press release from Apple Corps Ltd., MTV and Harmonix this morning (what, no “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey”?), the companies have inked an exclusive agreement to develop what they exuberantly describe as “an unprecedented, experiential progression through and celebration of the music and artistry of The Beatles.”
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”