Seems like it’s been a rough year for several major companies across various industries. Sega of Japan reporting a 7.1 billion yen loss thats about 54 million dollars. Sega states that it’s having to re-streamline its whole business model, and is having a hard time adapting to a slowing economic environment. Sega has cut games, projects, whole studios, and mass layoffs in response to reports. Investors are not happy but Sega has plans to move forward with the changes, and plans on growing it’s existing franchise. I sure hope they are able to turn it around, they are an industry icon.
Best Buy is going bye bye, reporting some of worst numbers in company history. Best Buy lost more than 1.7 billion dollars in it’s forth quarter. The current CEO Brain Dunn has stepped down, blaming failures on middle management, taxes, and the rise of the internet shopper. Consumer’s surveys rate Best Buy as one of the worst shopping experiences in the country, and the consumers have voted with their wallets, shutting down 50 stores and laying off more than 400 employees. This is bad news for anime fans, gamers, and consumers who want a brick and mortar store. Here in Colorado Best Buy is pretty much the only electronics store in the state, so shutting down these stores is going to kill so many other stores in the wake. Best Buy is an anchor store, without it’s drawing power many more small shopping centers will close up. Our state has plenty of empty shopping centers, I don’t want to see Best Buy fail, I hope they can turn it around.
Sharp of Japan, the makers of Fine LCD’s and other house hold appliances reported a huge loss of 380 billion yen, making Sega’s losses look childish. That’s a lot of money, like 4.7 billion US dollars. Sharp plans on infusing it’s business with loans from Foxcon and a few new partnerships to share technology. Sharp owns several animation studios, invested in anime and TV, Sharp has no plans of pulling out of any industries that it has stake in. Sharp has said that the losses are due to Taxes, changes in the market, disaster, and shifts in consumer trends.
Rounding off our Losses is Sony. Sony of Japan is reporting record low sales of PSP Vita and PS3 gaming platforms. The total losses for Sony in 2012 company wide 520 billion yen that’s roughly 6.4 billion US dollars! Sony is burning money with bad investments, poor choices with consumer products, recalls, mass information leaks, thousands of pending lawsuits, and products failing to sell. Sony’s DRM and bad practices have turned away many consumers, investors, and even whole chain stores. Sony as a brand name is fading in a bad way. If you don’t believe me look at these numbers. “Sony lost a combined 919.32 billion yen in the past four years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.” That’s 11 billion dollars over 4 years lost. It’s a bad time to be Sony, but this is also a chance for Sony to turn it around. Sony has invested in Blu-ray, DVD, and continues to push the limits of quality and data density. Sony is a very important company, and is in a way to big too fail at this point. Let’s hope for the best, without Sony in the picture the anime and gaming industry would not be as it is today.
Leave a Reply