Author Topic: Could Nintendo buy Sony? (Read 6662 times)

BadBreathBear · « **on:** August 29, 2003, 07:34:58 PM »

With Sony in financial trouble, I don't think the Playstation brand will be able to carry the entire company by its self. If the company does end up folding, do you think Nintendo could swoop in and buy the Playstation brand name? It's not entirely impossible, considering Sony lost like 98% of its profits from the year prior.

Flames_of_chaos · « **Reply #1 on:** August 29, 2003, 07:45:36 PM »

I dono if they can but you know that microsoft has huge wallet . And i dont think Sony wont sell the PS brand since PS2's are cash cows.

ThePerm · « **Reply #2 on:** August 29, 2003, 07:46:48 PM »

it would be hillaious

kennyb27 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 29, 2003, 07:48:39 PM »

It also won't happen. Why? Because Sony has so many other products that make them money.

BlkPaladin · « **Reply #4 on:** August 29, 2003, 07:48:51 PM »

Technically its possible but I don't think Sony will part with one of the only money making division in their company.

Their electronic division wich is basically everything else is in financial trouble. That is the reason they are releasing the PSX (the electronic division.)

BadBreathBear · « **Reply #5 on:** August 29, 2003, 07:52:38 PM »

Well since Sony is losing money and is basically becoming quite desperate in getting itself out of it's hole, you never know what might happen. For all we know, the company on a whole could fold. Unlike Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo only depends on the videogame industry to keep itself afloat. However, Microsoft and Sony are only as strong as their weakest links and if the videogame portion is the only thing making Sony money, for all we know, Sony might just collapse.

Look at what happened with Capcom. They were doing decent, but their non-videogame ventures brought them down seriously and that's probably how the 'Capcom 5' came around. I think it was real estate or something.

Berny · « **Reply #6 on:** August 29, 2003, 07:56:18 PM »

Hold on. I'm lost. Is Sony losing money on the PS2 or virtually every other product they make? I thought the PS2 was selling great.

BlkPaladin · « **Reply #7 on:** August 29, 2003, 07:59:12 PM »

Ever other product they make. It also doesn't help they owe the Japanese government money from the price setting judgement against them.

BadBreathBear · « **Reply #8 on:** August 29, 2003, 08:15:55 PM »

In other words, since they're losing money on almost every other department, the whole company might fold and take the Playstation with it.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #9 on:** August 29, 2003, 08:22:04 PM »

Errr, about that weakest link theory: MS' weakest "link" would be the XBox, which they make up for with their other divisions. I'd say it's not weakest or strongest link, but the average between all of them.

Mingesium · « **Reply #10 on:** August 30, 2003, 12:06:01 AM »

no. Eventhough their profits are down, Sony is still worth billions of dollars. A big reason for their lower profit (they are still making a profit) is they invested a lot of money in fabs to make their chips. They are suppose to recoup that money this year or next.

ThePerm · « **Reply #11 on:** August 30, 2003, 01:50:12 AM »

who knows what can happen...remember 3dfx? Well they were the head of the industry and then suddenly they dissapeared. Its like WTF happened. Also ENRON was worth billions.....I dont know Sony is pretty shady. I mean they sell millions upon millions of ps2 hardware at a loss all their other branches are having financial trouble....they owe money to the japanese government and supposedly they make all their money of royalties(which really doesnt sound like that much)
Great games are there to give them a few mill in royalties but bad games are usually ate up. And then theres rescources put into the development of a next gen system. Who knows maybe sony is lyign abnout how much money they make on the softwatre side of things......investors beware.

oh and what if there was an earthquake...were about due for another one. Usually when that happens sony has some troubles.

BigJim · « **Reply #12 on:** August 30, 2003, 03:16:02 AM »

Companies in trouble don't sell their money making divisions. They sell, close, or spin off their cost centers first.

BadBreathBear · « **Reply #13 on:** August 30, 2003, 05:52:12 AM »

http://entertainment.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=129209

Check that out. It's a very interesting read concerning Sony on a whole. Most important of all is the fact that Sony's stronghold over the industry is in fact slowly letting up. Sales for the PS2 were dropping. Even though the company says they earned a 9 million dollar profit, I'm not sure if that's before or after taxes. I'm thinking before.

What does this mean for Nintendo? I think it means that there's more ways than one way to win a videogame war. You could always let the other company do all the warring until it gets exhausted and goes belly up. This quite possibly could be the year of Nintendo. F-Zero X, there's nothing like it on any other system and if Nintendo markets it right, it could become a huge seller, easily doing Metroid Prime numbers, if not more. Tales of Symphonia, if the numbers hold, could mark a change in the RPGS released on the console. Think about it. A system as barren as this in terms of RPGs could have a huge number of buyers waiting in the wings. Even decent RPGs stand a chance to sell very well. Viewtiful Joe (October 7, 2003) which is flashier than anything on any of the other systems. There's Rouge Sqaudron 3 (October 14, 2003) which looks like one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Pikmin 2 (October 27, 2003), I-Ninja (November 3, 2003), Metal Gear Solid (November 4, 2003 though I see thing being delayed), Mario Party 5 (November 11, 2003), Mario Kart : Double Dash (November 17, 2003), 1080 Avalanche (December 01, 2003), Pokemon Colosseum (December 1, 2003), all these games, if these are all marketed right, can sell massive amounts of cubes, all at a profit for Nintendo, unlike Sony. Seriously, that's a hell of a resume there.

The future is not nearly as grim as people think it is for Nintendo. In fact the people at Sony are probably a hundred times more stressed.

Celebi · « **Reply #14 on:** August 30, 2003, 06:47:32 AM »

Well the current batch of consoles for this generation is reaching moving towards the end so what do you expect?Except for a good ending though.The last generation we saw may great and inovative games but this time it really suck.It seems that the talents such as Shigeru and Hideo as well as many others have ran out of ideas or probably forced to rush games out in order to compete.

Nintendo Gamecube · « **Reply #15 on:** August 30, 2003, 07:12:00 AM »

If Nintendo ever bought Sony, you could kiss their 6 billion dollar vault good bye. (If it even cost that little)

Sony is a missive company, you guys are making them seem poor. If a company is worth, say 100 million, it takes like 200 mill to buy them.

Trust me, they make money.

Pale · « **Reply #16 on:** August 30, 2003, 08:30:30 AM »

This is the exact type of thread any Sony fan is going to look at and say "Damn those Nintendo fans are stupid"....Sony is one of the biggest electronics companies in the WORLD...and you honestly think they are going broke and Nintendo is going to buy them? Its just stupid.

BadBreathBear · « **Reply #17 on:** August 30, 2003, 08:50:25 AM »

If they weren't losing money, why would BBC and Yahoo, among other news sites report it smart guy? Why would they spend a trillion yen to restructure their company? Obviously they were screwing up somewhere.

Pale · « **Reply #18 on:** August 30, 2003, 09:06:01 AM »

i didn't say they weren't in hard times..i'm saying it takes a hell of a lot for a company with that brand recognition to go under..."smartguy"

By your logic I guess the US Government is going under too, because everyone knows how much financial trouble their economy is in right now....

Uglydot · « **Reply #19 on:** August 30, 2003, 09:13:32 AM »

Sony is a hell of a lot bigger than Nintendo or what most people think. They have divisions doing EVEYRTHING, just havn't seen Sony food, trucks, furniture or prefab houses.

Auchey15 · « **Reply #20 on:** August 30, 2003, 11:37:46 AM »

Sony is also doing worse than most people think...

Electronic Sales Hit Sony Profit
Thursday July 24, 2:44 am ET
By Daisuke Wakabayashi

TOKYO (Reuters) - Consumer electronics giant Sony Corp. said on Thursday that group net profit tumbled 98 percent in the latest quarter, hurt by slumping sales for its Trinitron televisions and waning demand for PlayStation 2 game consoles.

Profit gains generated by its life insurance business could not offset weakness from the lack of a box-office blockbuster like last year's "Spider-Man" and falling sales of Vaio personal computers and stereo systems.

Sony is scrambling to rebuild its reputation after last year's shock fourth quarter loss, which prompted the company to unveil 300 billion yen in streamlining over three years to revamp its electronics business and improve profitability.

Sony said group net profit totaled 1.12 billion yen ($9.43 million), or 1.24 yen per share, for the April to June period versus last year's first quarter profit of 57.18 billion yen.

Revenues fell 6.9 percent to 1.60 trillion yen.

The results came in below expectations of seven industry analysts polled by Reuters journalists for a net profit of 6.2 billion yen on sales of 1.63 trillion yen.

Sony maintained its full-year consolidated earnings estimates of a net profit of 50 billion yen and an operating profit of 130 billion yen on sales of 7.4 trillion yen.

Operating profit fell 67.9 percent from a year earlier to 16.67 billion yen in the first quarter of the business year ending March 31, better than seven analysts' average expectations of 13.2 billion yen.

The games division, hitherto a driver for earnings growth, saw operating profit fall 31.6 percent in the first quarter from the same period a year earlier. Shipments of PS2 consoles fell 42 percent to 2.65 million units in April-June from a year ago.

Sony's financial businesses, including its online bank and life insurance company, saw an almost 30 percent jump in operating profit in the April to June period, helped by gains from investments. Sony, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, has seen profit margins slowly deteriorate in the face of price competition from Chinese and South Korean manufacturers, including Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Samsung, often used as a comparison for Sony, said last week its April-June profit fell 41 percent on weak memory chip prices, but it still scored an operating margin of 11.8 percent versus just 1.0 percent for Sony in the first quarter. In the last three months, shares in Sony have recouped losses stemming from the earnings shock, which sent the shares down almost 25 percent in two trading days. But the shares have still fallen one percent in the last three months, compared to a 44 percent gain for rival Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. and a 38 percent rise for Samsung during that period.

Sony is now worth about $29 billion, versus $28 billion for Matsushita and $55 billion for Samsung

Nintendo Gamecube · « **Reply #21 on:** August 30, 2003, 01:58:40 PM »

Sony is worth 29 billion, like the guy said above. So Nintendo would not buy them for a while, unless sony were to loose another 25 billion, which I highly doubt.

Nintendo is worth a fraction of that.

I think you guys get the idea.

ThePerm · « **Reply #22 on:** August 30, 2003, 07:00:40 PM »

I figure sony is ognna take a bit of a money dive soon. They are slated to recover...but what if the competition kills them. Nintendo pumping their adds up, panasonic pumping their adds up.

GoldShadow1 · « **Reply #23 on:** August 30, 2003, 09:10:37 PM »

Would Nintendo even WANT Sony? I mean, just because a company has a popular product doesn't mean it's making a good profit. Nintendo is very picky, and wants the best efficiency possible. I don't think it would be possible in any case.

Flames_of_chaos · « **Reply #24 on:** August 31, 2003, 06:16:49 PM »

Maybe Microsoft will make a hostile take over of the SCE division of Sony and combine the PS and Xbox brand and turn it into the Microsoft MEGATON!!

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Author Topic: Could Nintendo buy Sony? (Read 6662 times)