back to article Sony shutting factories and laying off staff

Sony is closing a factory in France as part of a billion-dollar cost-cutting plan which will see it lose at least five production sites by March 2010. It will lay off 8,000 staff and shut two factories, and take short-term measures like reducing inventory and production and delaying investments. It will get rid of about 10 per …

COMMENTS

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  1. Gary Littlemore
    Coat

    No more PS3

    [quote]The firm will withdraw or downsize from unprofitable and non-core businesses.[/quote]

    So they'll be getting rid of the PS3 then lol

  2. neil hanvey
    Pirate

    bye bye ps3

    "The firm will withdraw or downsize from unprofitable and non-core businesses."

    does that mean that there'll be no more ps3's?

    i for one welcome our downsized drm riddled overlords

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PS3 is one of their more profitable outfits.

    Sure the hardware may be losing them some cash (not nearly as much cash as a 2 years ago), they are now close to break even on hardware, and PS2/PSP sales will happily keep that balanced. However, they make a mint on PS3 game sales, and Blu-ray movie sales (Seeing as PS3 is 99.99% of the Blu-ray players out there).

  4. Nameless Faceless Computer User
    Dead Vulture

    No surprise

    Correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't Sony responsible for infecting countless Windows computers with a rootkit virus in a lame attempt to prevent audio CD copying? And, wasn't it Sony who caused even more damage by distributing a flawed rootkit virus uninstaller.

    Sony consumer products have been rapidly slipping in quality. I passed on purchasing a Sony TV after I read on-line that people couldn't remove them from the box without the case cracking. Sony camcorders tend to be stripped of features found only on their most expensive models - minor things as simple as a headphone or microphone jack which would cost just pennies to install intentionally left off.

    Sony has been pissing on consumers for the past decade and it's finally catching up with them. What happened to the "Sony No Bologna" company we knew back in the 80's?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, Mark's next comment will be...

    Do you want fries with that?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Good riddance to Sony - the beginning of the end

    Good riddance to Sony.

    I used to be a huge Sony fan. Now I won’t buy a single thing that they have a hand in. They used to be FOR the consumer – the legendary Sony Betamax ruling in 1984 that sheltered a wide array of technology innovators from lawsuits at the hands of the entertainment industries. In 1984, the Supreme Court held that a company -- in this instance, a VCR manufacturer -- was not liable for creating a technology that some customers may use for copyright infringing purposes, so long as the technology is capable of substantial non-infringing uses.

    Look what they have become – the largest purveyors of DRM on the planet. You su_k. Good-Bye Sony.

  7. fluffy
    Flame

    @Nameless Faceless Computer User

    If by Sony you mean BMG, sure. Learn the facts before you keep on spouting off the codswallop you heard from Slashdot.

  8. b166er

    The news we've long been waiting for

    burn baby, burn

  9. James Woods

    so much for france

    I thought france was what America should turn into, well asides from the nuclear power, we can't have any power generation, especially nuclear. But asides from that, I think we've been far ahead of them in dumping jobs.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Past mistakes when to move on?

    The Sony-BMG rootkit was stupid, wrong and should never have happened but that was over 3 years ago and recent products haven't been locked down. Since that time I haven't seen any new bad stories about Sony and lock down. Is it time to consider that they may have changed in response to the justified outrage?

    PS3 - The only mainstream console that you can officially install Linux on.

    Walkmans - Now support mp3/aac files.

    Reader - Open formats including pdf and text are supported.

    BTW: The IPlayer now works well in the PS3 webrowser.

    Penguins for the PS3.

  11. Daniel B.

    Sony is still good

    Sony may have made some mistakes, but it still does give good quality products: my PS1 was still working this year (it died because of a power surge, but then most electronic devices would die as well); my 1981 stereo still works, so does my former handset (a W300) and my 10 y/o Walkman.

    The only mistakes from Sony I remember recently are the Hindenburg batteries (BOOM BABY!) and the rootkit... which was mostly BMG's fault and not Sony. If anything, the PS3 is the only gaming console that actually lets you put Linux without problem.

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