Explore Posterous

"Ars Technica's "favorite inside source" is at it again, telling the Web site that Sony is clearing inventory on the $399 80GB PS3 in advance of "dropping the price of hardware and launching the PS3 Slim rumor in the fall."

At the same time, Ars' mole claims the 60GB Xbox 360 Pro ($299) will be replaced by the Xbox 360 Elite ($399), which has a higher-capacity 120GB hard drive. In other words, Microsoft will offer up more hard drive capacity at the $299 price point, which seems to dovetail nicely with its plans to deliver a full assortment of retail game downloads that require more disc space than Xbox 360 Arcade titles." ..more info at link.

For this commercial they created worlds largest zoetrope.

Here's actual commercial:

From Wikipedia:
A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words zoe, "life" and trope, "turn". It may be taken to mean "wheel of life" or "living wheel."

"Well we battled the mob to get our first hands on with Sony's latest PSP -- the Go!" ...more details at link.

"Look up there, folks. That's the future of Sony's hopes and dreams in the handheld gaming sector. With just hours to go before the company's official E3 2009 press event, it looks like the pieces are all coming together. First a UMD-less game release, then a highly credible mole giving the PSP Go a name, and now -- live action shots. The images here were sourced from an obviously slipped June 2009 Qore video."

Summary:

Sony Forecast for FY2010 (ending March 2010):

DTV units flat YoY at 15M units

PS3 units represents 30% growth to 13M units

Digital Camera sales expected to decline 10% to 20M units

Overall revenues to decline 6% YoY

Sony Sees Losses Growing This Year

By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI and YUZO YAMAGUCHI, WSJ

TOKYO – Sony Corp. reported a $1 billion loss for the fiscal year ended March, its first net loss in 14 years, and said losses would get bigger this year due to slumping sales of televisions, digital cameras and other electronics.

The Japanese electronics conglomerate said it would ramp up cost-cutting measures and shutter more factories this year. Sony, along with other electronics firms, has been crippled by a global economic slowdown. As demand cooled in 2008, Sony slashed prices of TVs, video players and cameras to prevent inventory from stacking up. But Sony struggled to cut its costs in line with falling prices, leading to its first annual loss in 14 years.

The conglomerate sees another year in the red. Thursday, it forecast a net loss of 120 billion yen ($1.26 billion) in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010 compared with a 98.9 billion yen loss for the fiscal year just ended. It would mark the first consecutive annual losses in Sony's corporate history. A year ago, it reported a profit of 369.4 billion yen.

For the quarter ended March 31, Sony posted a net loss of 165.1 billion yen versus a year-ago profit of 29 billion yen, due mostly to a 294 billion yen loss at its electronics division. Sony's sales fell 22% in the quarter.

At the onset of a slowdown in December, Sony announced plans to eliminate about 16,000 jobs from its electronics division and close about six factories in order to cut 250 billion yen in annual costs. Now, it plans to do more.

The Japanese electronics conglomerate plans to close four plants in Japan and shutter, or sell, factories in the U.S., Mexico, Indonesia and France, with job cuts exceeding 16,000 workers. Sony Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda said there will be even more closures and job cuts in the future.

"As far as the restructuring measures go, it's not that we're doing anything that different. We are just going one more step," said Mr. Oneda at a news conference.

Sony says it now aims to cut costs by more than 300 billion yen. It will manufacture more products outside of Japan, where costs are reduced and, in some cases, not produce the goods at all, relying instead on contract manufacturers.

The responsibility for Sony's restructuring falls on Chief Executive Howard Stringer, who wrested away the title of president last month from Ryoji Chubachi as part of a management shuffle that put him in charge of the company's electronics division.

In the longer term, Sony must invigorate a product line-up that has turned staid in recent years. The new must-have products, according to Mr. Stringer, are networked devices, or electronic gadgets that link to a host of Web services, such as Amazon Inc.'s Kindle electronic reader.

The Kindle's success strikes at the heart of Sony's troubles. Sony's own eBook reader was available a year before the Kindle but has failed to become a hit. Unlike the Kindle, Sony's eBook doesn't have wireless connectivity or offer access to newspapers or magazines.

Demand for Sony's mainstay electronics products also is flagging. It expects liquid-crystal television sales to remain basically flat in the fiscal year to March 31, 2010 at 15 million units. Sony says it sees that business continuing to lose money until October when it will start breaking even. Digital camera sales are expected to fall 10% to 20 million units.

For its PlayStation 3 game machine, Sony forecasts sales of 13 million units this fiscal year compared with 10 million last year. While Mr. Oneda declined to comment about a potential price cut for the PS3, the target of a 30% sales increase -- considering that sales rose 10% last year – is likely to require a price cut.

Sony said it expects revenue to fall 6% to 7.3 trillion yen in the current fiscal year, while its operating loss will be 110 billion yen. The company's forecasts for this fiscal year are based on assumptions that the yen will trade at 95 yen to the dollar and 125 yen to the euro.

We all take logos and design for granted and, quite frankly, I think we should. What I mean is that a logo should be like a referee in a hockey game, you know their doing their best when you don't even notice they're around.

By clicking the link under the picture above you'll be able to see the evolution of some 40 different corporate logos. I find SONY one of the most interesting merely because of their decided lack of major change over the past century. Almost all of the change in the SONY logo revolves around either slight squashing or elongation of the standard font. The great thing is that you know there's probably months of debate going into every proportional change to that font. The intense considerations that often go into the most miniscule tweaks to a logo makes them one of the ultimate forms of craft.

Know your audience and represent your entire brand in a scalable symbol that can be reproduced from one inch wide to a billboard.