Kotaku
PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai has had just about enough of the PS3 posting a loss. He's sick of it! So sick that he's hoping to have the console turning a profit soonish. And by soonish, he means during the next financial year:
We want to get to the positive side of the equation as quickly as possible...The next fiscal year starts in April and if we can try to achieve that in the next fiscal year that would be a great thing. We are going through the budgets right now. That (profitability) is not a definite commitment, but that is what I would like to try to shoot for.So, no promises then. They'll see what they can do. Pffft. Do or do not, Kaz. You know the galaxy's stance on "trying". Doesn't cut it.
Sony's Hirai eyes PS3 profit as costs decline [Reuters] [Image: AP]
Comments
Crazy Ken... Kaz is not as crazy as you... but will he save the PS that you gave birth to?!
Oh man how Kaz has aged!
Guess cleaning up Kutaragi`s mess will do that to a guy.
Isn't that something they should shoot for EVERY fiscal year? Fired.
Is he a vampire?
haha, all of our posts have the same time stamp
@dunetiger: It took Microsoft's gaming division a little while to make a profit too dunetiger.
That was not a good picture of him, he looks like a special person
@Acunia: That is the best picture of Kaz on the planet
@Plunkett: Did you snap that gem Mr. Plunkett? ;D
@Plunkett: really? hehehe
Considering Sony didn't once mention with PS3 in their entire keynote, yes I think posting a profit is something they want to shoot for. Least it seems Bluray has taken the lead so far at CES.
That picture of Kaz is begging for a couple of fingers to be photoshopped out...
One Console to rule them all, One Console to find them, One Console to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
That's a badass console, that is
Hey, I was wondering what happened to him! He's seen better days though...
Hahahahaha. "Profitability is not a definite commitment," is probably the funniest sentence I've read this week. Damn Kaz, your stand-up act just gets better and better.
This might not be the time or place, but I don't care.
I'm super pissed at the PS3. I finally put down the cash, pay through the NOSE for the damn thing, and I'm sorry, but it SUCKS.
The online offering is a joke compared to XBL. Managing friends and checking who's online is a massive pain in the ass. The game lineup bites. Only a handful of decent exclusives... I know it's only a year out, but still. If it bites, it bites. Hope fully both of those factors will be improved in '08, but for now...
And, most damning of all, my PS3 is now randomly turning itself off in the middle of a game. I finally get a copy of Warhawk, and I'm actually enjoying it, but now this crap. Hopefully I'm covered under warranty. If not, I'm out a lot of money.
And, just to put things in perspective... my 360 died on me week before last. BUT. I got a good two years out of that thing, and it didn't set me back $500-600 to replace it. ($279) The PS3? Had it less than two months.
Okay, rant over. Fanboys, feel free to tell me how I'm a M$ shill now.
Time to trash price drop rumors.
Get this man some bling!
@Insomnia Bob: I hear you on the friends / message management thing.
Plus I myself am not too amused with PSN, and really hate the whole "Wallet" system / how the downloads are handled.
I will just keep optimistic that sony will improve on its flaws over the years.
@Insomnia Bob: With M$oft's new warranty policy, you should be able to send it in to get it fixed. Have you tried that yet?
@Witzbold: It's not unfixable.
But man, compare to XBL? Night and day. It's sad, but I'm going to stick with the 360 for any multiplayer game worth a crap. It's just way easier to join a game with someone you know in it.
Sony needs to work real hard this year. They can't afford not to.
@Captain Impulse: DVD drive died, not RROD. Not covered under the new 3 year warrenty. Sucks to be me.
@Insomnia Bob: Yeah tell me about it. :x At the current state I find PSN to be a bit "user unfriendly".
Kinda like unix was to a person who just got through learning how to use windows. ;D
I really do hope that sony hires folks who try to fix all of the faults PSN has at the moment. :x Since all the friends here at Kotaku are split right down the middle between XBL and PSN.
@tehFluffzComeback: Looks more like an inverse vampire to me...
@Plunkett: The West Side? It's the best side.
@Insomnia Bob: Give 'em a ring, anyway? Might be worth a shot. Get on their case hard enough and they tend to cave in (my experience, anyway).
@Insomnia Bob: PSN is what happens when you don't have to pay, Live is what happens when you do have a service to pay for IMHO. Home for me isn't going to cut it, because i'm not interested in Habbo Hotel for the PS3 with a bastard melding of some Live hotel. Also what about past PS3 games? Live stuff is coded into every single games but how would past PS3 titles handle Home when there's nothing on the disk to deal with it?
As for making a profit on the PS3, I don't see it happening unless more features get the axe. After all it took two years for the 360 to just reach a point where it wasn't losing money didn't it?
@PwningForFun:
What's Microsoft got to do with it?
@Sixtail: I'm not paying for live. Even the 'silver' version allows background downloading, and has a friends list that can be viewed and managed from within any game. Also, it pops up a little message when your buddies come online.
XBL just beats PSN on every level. To be honest, I don't understand why more of an effort wasn't made on making PSN more useful in the first place.
2 in the Pink, 1 in the Stink...coming to Bluray?
@Insomnia Bob:
They didn't put more effort into it because their core audience isn't as Online-orientated as Microsofts. The same applies to Nintendo... It's new for them too. And let us don't forget, Sony is a hardware company, they haven't much experience in Software and Internet as Microsoft!
Lets not forget that MS has been dicking around with online stuff since Win95. Remember that comix thing and then they also did net conference.
I actually like the PS3 navigation.
My ass
What are they gonna do lower the price more?. Face it sony your murdered.
sorry for triple post but i jus6t had to ask. Y is he giving us miyamotos Wii hand sign?.
@TheNumchucks: It's a three.
Is it JUST me or does he look like a Japanese Paulie Walnuts?
Is that seriously the PS3 gang sign?
I was very confused here; I thought the headline read "portable" and not "profitable".
@quen: You mean that PSTriple gang sign.
Maybe Kaz saw Dubya and wanted to say hi?
Just maybe...
@Garo: The PS3 audience isn't "Online oriented"? I call bullshit, man.
Even if it was true, that's a pretty crappy justification. You'd have to be friggin' BLIND to not realize that online is where gaming is moving.
I thought the rhetoric was that they're backing out of the gaming business if they don't go profitable within the next year.
Not that it'll make things any more feasible than it already is...
@InsomniaBob:
Yes the PS3s core audience that came from the PS2 isn't online orientated as the former XBox owners. How can you deny it? Was Online so important for the PS2? No, but it was for the XBox.
Is Online gaming the future? I say yes and on the other hand I say no! Do you really think the Wii and the PS2 gamers think about online gaming 24/7?
That's the reason PSN and "I don't know how it's called on the Wii" are rather poor in their implementation than XBL. Why is this so hard to understand?
Companies like Sony and Nintendo know that their core audience isn't like the MS one, and that's why they are rather cautious! Is this a excuse for the Online thirsty PS3 gamers? No. But from a business standpoint it is reasonable!
Hmm free online sucks? MS just announced 10mil gold subscribers. Whats it like? 3 bucks a month or something?
30 million a month. Do you pay for games on live? Do you have dedicated servers? Are there ads?
Hell for 30 mil a month, even if only 20 covers the costs, I think I could throw down a fairly complete and appealing system.
Tell us what you really think.
@Acunia:
The sad thing is, every picture of Reggie makes him look "Special"
Xbox Live is only really better than PSN because of the friends list and recently played with gamers list, it doesn't actually host any games, so it isn't necessarily better when it comes to lag.
@muu: That can't be right. Gaming is a huge industry for Sony and they're not going to just dump the whole thing because the PS3 hasn't sold as much as they'd have liked for a year and a half. They are still making money on the PS2 which is what, 7 years old?
And don't forget the implications it has in other areas of the company. A lot of their investment in the PS3 comes back in terms of increased demand for Bluray and HDTVs (although the results for TVs are much less tangible than Bluray titles)
@Garo: Actually he is right. Online gaming is the way of the future. If you think about it, they only need to find an online hook to attract casual gamers, in much the same way the Wii attracted them with a gimmicky control. Look at World of Warcraft and how all kinds of people from little kids to grannies are playing it and forking over an unbelievable amount of cash for Blizzard/Vivendi, more than Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo could hope to earn in 5 years.
Whats with the gang sign
Am I the only one who read "portable" in the headline?