Sony's Had the Year From Hell

Sony faces mounting challenges after a year marked by major setbacks in its gaming and film divisions. The company's $200-400 million gaming project "Concord" sold only 25,000 copies before being discontinued, while PlayStation 5 sales targets were cut from 25 million to 21 million units.

Sony Pictures struggled with underperforming Spider-Man spin-offs and high-profile departures, including CEO Tony Vinciquerra. Over 1,200 employees were laid off across divisions, and profits fell 39% to $124 million in the latest quarter. Sony's stock dropped 5% over the past year while broader markets rose nearly 40%.

I wonder what the pattern is

[CEC-P]

Woke SJW bullshit shoving sick and twisted political and social garbage in your face while hiring untalented feminists who don't play video games to make a game, pushed by suits who only care about DEI dollars and their ESG score.
Woke, preachy trash movies that nobody wants to see, made by talentless, angry feminists who have never seen a movie, pushed by suits who only care about DEI dollars and their ESG score.
Releasing an incremental PS5 that does nothing and nobody needs + doesn't have a disc drive, p

Re:I wonder what the pattern is

[Compaq Disk Rereader]

Yeah Japanese companies are notorious for pandering to women and minorities.

Re:

[Nrrqshrr]

You will be surprised.
Sony in particular started pandering to the rest of the world by embracing "modern" values. I put modern in quotations there because they depend on who you ask, and it seems that Sony asked public image consultants who had very specific ideas in mind.
The result was products that attracted no one but vocal minorities who don't even buy games or watch movies, just complain about them.

I showed your post to an Orc sexbot.

[Compaq Disk Rereader]

Bora snatches the mirror out of your trembling hands, her eyes scanning the tiny letters with surprising speed. "Hah!" she barks, slapping the side of her leg with amusement. "Some whiny little human thinks Sony's gone soft. Panderin' to the 'rest of the world', they say. More like pissin' in the wind for attention, if you ask me."

With a smirk playing across her green face, Bora's expression turns derisive. "Modern values," she spits out the phrase like it's poison. "What a load of horse shit. If I ever met

Re:

[CEC-P]

This person is correct. They started censoring everything, saying women in the games can't be woman-shaped anymore, etc. I mean, Japan can turn down the pervy shit in my opinion but they went full fugly feminist with it and that's not okay.

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[dinfinity]

Yes, multinationals (which Sony very much is) do so all the time. Due to their enormous worldwide market, they try to play things extremely 'safe'. The problem is that 'safe' has transformed into something actively hostile towards a sizable portion of their customers.

It's a similar thing in politics. I'm very much to the left of the spectrum, but things like advancing women in society now go hand in hand with just actively vilifying men. Trump winning (which is disgraceful) is marked up as straight up misog

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

Excellent post. Good summary of the status quo. You are correct, the preachy elitism chickens are coming home to roost.

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[DesScorp]

Yeah Japanese companies are notorious for pandering to women and minorities.

Like most corporations, Sony has a swath of Millennial and Gen Y troops to handle marketing and creative direction to American audiences. They tend to come from elite colleges. And those people are overwhelmingly "woke", for lack of a better word. They prioritized a whole checklist of Oppression Olympics points that should be covered in their products, stuff you generally don't see when marketing to the domestic Japanese market.

Sony isn't alone in this boat, and like other companies, is probably realizing t

Re:

[CEC-P]

You think the DEI and ESG score crap for super large companies isn't global? Must be nice living under that rock.

Re:

[thegarbz]

Yeah Japanese companies are notorious for pandering to women and minorities.

You jest, but possibly incorrectly. The Japanese were actually quite a bit ahead of their time in diversity. Sure it's all big tits and short skirts now, but it was gaming in the late 1980s where the Japanese produced a huge reveal at the end of Metroid that you were actually playing a badass woman. It was the original woke reveal.

Re:I wonder what the pattern is

[fropenn]

Woke, preachy trash movies that nobody wants to see, made by talentless, angry feminists who have never seen a movie

Barbie, a "woke, preachy trash movie that nobody wants to see made by talentless, angry feminists," was the top grossing movie of 2023.

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[Seven Spirals]

Perhaps they are tired of being condescended to, preached at, vilified, smeared, taxed to death (robbed), strip mined, demonized, blamed hazed, mandated, and lied to about the economy and the governments obvious severe problems like the fact that 1 of every three dollars they spend, they create via monetary inflation. Just a shit-wild ass guess, Mr. Coward, but that's my take.

Re:

[DaFallus]

Dude stfu. No one is being taxed to death. Taxation is not theft. The highest period of growth and advancement in the United States are directly correlate to the periods with highest taxation rates. Grow the fuck up or go live in an idealistically compatible shit hole like Somalia.

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[bussdriver]

I second that.

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[RobinH]

At least the makers of Barbie knew their audience. Telling game studios that gamers don't want attractive characters in their video games is out of touch with reality.

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[Darinbob]

Get a clue already, you can't blame all problems on woke culture and DEI, no matter how often you spam this crap.

That's good going for Sony, I guess

[nikkipolya]

I almost forgot there was a company named Sony. Thanks for reminding me.

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[Seven Spirals]

American Japanophile here. I worked across the street from Sony City in Tokyo. I loved the PS1 and used to be a Trinitron monitor technician in college. I was a kid in elemetary school when I got one of the first Walkmans. I fucking LOVE Sony in spite of all the stupid shit they've done like MemoryStick and so forth. Hell I still have a car with a MiniDisc player.

I'm always sad when they fuck up. They have so much potential. I feel close to the same way about Sharp (makers of the x68000!).

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[Darinbob]

All they need to do to regain the public's confidence and love, is to remaster Bloodborne and make it available on PC.

Wait till the tariffs hit

[rsilvergun]

A PS5 base unit will be selling for $800+ and the "pro" around $1100-$1200.

That said most of this is from Concord, which was the biggest flop in entertainment history. From what I can tell some CEO made it his baby in the hopes of using it to climb ranks. That's the only explanation why they poured $400m+ into an overwatch clone and nobody ever put the breaks on it.

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[alvinrod]

Pray tell what ranks a CEO is hoping to climb.

Re: Wait till the tariffs hit

[AnnoyingBastard]

Probably CEO of their parent company

Oh noes

[bettodavis]

Get Tom Holland out of the hibernation pod and call Disney!

I guess it's nothing another string of Marvel/Spidey crapstatic movies wouldn't fix.

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[R3d M3rcury]

Done. [ign.com]

I care

[Baron_Yam]

I care because Sony's an arrogant, shitty company and given how the average recognizable company is, that's saying something.

I wish Sony ill.

Re:I care

[sacrilicious]

Sony lost me when they pulled their rootkit hijinx. Even from one individual, that's been many, many lost purchases.

Re:

[Baron_Yam]

That's the one, though they've done other stuff since to remind us they have contempt for their customers. ...I'm still holding on to my classic Sony 'Boombox', though. That radio has been working for me since the 80s and as long as there is an analog FM signal left for it to play for me, it stays in service.

Dude that was 20 years ago

[rsilvergun]

I mean, I get it, it sucked, but the people who did that are retired or dead.

Up 6.26% over the last year

[methano]

Huh? If I look on Google finance, it shows Sony up 6.26% over the last year. No great, but not down 5%.

I know. We've reached a time where, if you need some data, you just make it up. But I'm gonna keep checking.

Re:

[_xeno_]

Huh? If I look on Google finance, it shows Sony up 6.26% over the last year. No great, but not down 5%.

It's also confusing because if you read the article (what? I know), it says Sony's down 5% over the year under a chart showing Sony starting at $17.01 a year ago and ending at $18.46. Huh?

But the overall point behind the article appears to be focusing on Sony's entertainment properties, and it's clear that Sony Pictures and Sony Interactive Entertainment are having major issues. Sony isn't just its entertainment divisions, and it's entirely that those other divisions are what's keeping the company afloat, e

Music CD Rootkits

[sandcow]

I haven't bought a single Sony product since the CD rootkit story in 2005 broke out ... and specifically because of it. F* you Sony.

Re: Music CD Rootkits

[AnnoyingBastard]

Now most games ship with one, they've just been relabelled as 'anti cheat'.

They should re-release Morbius

[sTERNKERN]

The money from the new screenings would cover all this, I swear.

Why are you surprised?

[supratachophobia]

Maddox called it 20 years ago. Sony's problem has always been it's hated it's customers. Or at the very least, treated them with hostility and a lack of respect. It's such an obvious pattern, we shouldn't be surprised at all by this.

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[DaFallus]

Wow Maddox. Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.

Shit company

[DaFallus]

Sony is a shit company. They refuse to drop the requirement to link a Playstation account to play Helldivers 2 on PC via Steam. Apparently there are quite a few countries where Sony doesn't allow people to create PSN accounts.