Without having even a vague picture of what their program looks at this seems like meaningless news to me. Is it a generalised thing that looks at various high-level stats about a generic company (by generic I mean it's not geared specifically towards games companies) and compares that against similar companies histories? Because if so I'd be surprised if that were going to be anywhere near smart enough to take into account all the financial craziness of a console launch year (especially considering the historical examples of other companies doing that are pretty fucking slim on the ground)

Also has anyone heard of this thing before now? Lots of companies going bankrupt at the moment yet I've not heard of this thing accurately predicting any of them? Move along?

sony is fine not great but fine

what other people? Sony said in May that they are not selling the Ps4 at a loss MAybe their calculation is based on the belief that people also buy a game with their Ps4 as well.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/155521-playtation-4-sony-announces-the-ps4-wont-be-sold-at-loss

Also people try to calculate these costs as well which differ from 286$ to 380$.

Yeh The Strokes need to get paid.

@darji: In May? Before they'd announced the price?

Here's a more recent article (the first google hit I found) with "quotes" (though not really) from Sony execs:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57603901-235/playstation-4-to-sell-at-a-loss-but-sony-expects-profit/

This is an analyst's prospect on it. Meaning, take it with a big chunk of salt. These companies are not just going to up and blow up. Quite frankly they are too big for that. Looking at the profit margin of sony, if they were to cut TV, Movies and laptop division right now, with just the insurance business alone they would be making a pretty nice profit. What this means is that those divisions will get rolled out pretty soon.

I am pretty sure they knew the price in may already. But despite that I also said that this may include the belief that this person will also buy a game with a PlayStation which sounds pretty plausible. So this article seems to say the same thing.

@darji: The people on these forums. I'm no expert, but it seems they know what they're talking about.

Considering I have no idea who Macroaxis is, I want to say this is a publicity stunt, sony has too diverse of a market to simply collapse onto itself out of nowhere.

I just want to point out to the people pointing out alternative avenues for Sony are probably underestimating the sophistication of the underlying model - you don't predict bankruptcy when the actual outcome is going to be sale of assets. I'm in no position to advocate on behalf of this particular source, however.

I can't wait for Sony to have to start selling off pieces. My shell corporations will buy them up and I will put them on the shelf next to my chain of El Poyos Locos restaurants

The chances a company this large goes into bankruptcy in two years without making one visible change and without having the share holders revolt is not 78%. It is more like 0%.

So who the fudge is Macroaxis?

An investment management service.

Maybe they will go bankrupt if they follow their current course. They arent stupid so they will most certainly adjust course.

Isn't that an old prediction? I could swear I had seen it before. Also apparently the prediction was made because of the losses Sony had experienced until two semesters ago, from when they actually start getting positive net profits. So I call it damaging speculation.

And, when it snows the possibility of me suffocating under a blanket of snow increases 10,000%.

At this point, Sony's revenue is up, operating income is up, net income is up, total assets are up, and total equity 'of what they are and what they own' is up for the calendar year. That does't mean they are okay, but up is better than down. Most of the news you see about Sony are of two kinds : things it is selling well and subsidiary companies it is selling off. That tells me Sony is doing all it should to not go bankrupt.

A percentage to 2 decimal places smells like bullshit to me. I ain't no fancy economologer, but this seems panicky to me. Granted THQ dissolved rather quickly; I knew of their problems, but I assumed they were big enough to pull through. Sony is also a hardware company at least, so they'd have to fail really hard on a lot of fronts to dissolve in two years.

They have a lot of devisions, brands and copyrights they can sell before they can sell I really doubt they will go bankrupt any time soon.

Their new phones are great. Unfortunately they don't seem to have any deals to actually carry them as far as i've seen in the USA, so you won't walk in and see one in a store.

In spite of being broadly accepted as having the leading console platform, both in terms of overall sales and game performance, their credit rating is, still classified as 'junk' by Moody's at 'Ba1' (one level below investment grade).

In part this has to be because they've posted losses in 9 out of the last 10 previous fiscal years and they have let go over 100,000 employees in the past decade.

Kaz Hirai has been breaking up the company to cut loose all failing parts of the brand.

If Microsoft hadn't dropped the ball so profoundly at the beginning of this gen, Sony might have been in its death throes by now. As it stands, I think they're almost at the stage where they are being forced to go 'all in' with the PS4.

EDIT: I missed the news that came out last month that Fitch upgraded Sony's short term financial outlook but downgraded its long term overseas prospects slightly.

@donderpants: Financial year 2014 Sony's gaming console division which includes Vita had profits of $250m / £148m, what planet are on? Their stock and profitability is going to rise over the next two years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28578788

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-04/sony-narrows-annual-loss-forecast-on-image-sensors-playstation

@donderpants: why are you necro-ing year-old threads to argue about Sony? Did they murder your family or something?