BBC World News has reported that Sony will be letting go of 10,000 employees within the next three years, completed by 2008. 4,000 of the jobs will in Japan, with the remaining 6,000 overseas. It\'s always good to remember that of the three major console players, Sony is the only one that\'s attempting to recover from a series of substantial fiscal disappointments over the years. While it controls the current generation of home consoles with the PS2, Sony\'s stock has dropped nearly 2/3rds of its value in the last five years, and loses or breaks even on every division other than games and movies.
With the announcement of the Nintendo Revolution controller, there\'s been a lot of discussion around the Internet about which of the three console companies ? Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony ? is in a better position to dominate the next generation. Microsoft loses money on their current system, consistently has trouble selling the Xbox in Japan, and is supported by the Windows operating system. Nintendo is third place in the home console war but makes tons of money off of its handhelds, and has the most healthy financial take on the video game industry of the three. And Sony has, by far, the best selling home console system of this generation.
But people often forget that the Sony Company makes very little money on any of their projects outside of video games and movies.
It helps to keep a perspective on things when discussing whether or not Nintendo will survive the next generation of consoles, considering the general belief that there is not room in the industry for three home consoles. The company that\'s possibly the most vulnerable to an extend siege is Sony.
The layoffs, which represent roughly 7% of the company, is a move to tighten the company hatches and prepare for the storm. Sony also announced that they expect to post losses of $90 million dollars for this fiscal year.