Remember the Walkman? That magical little device made the Sony brand so untouchable that signing Micheal Jackson, buying up the Beatles catalog, and repeatedly caking off of everything that had a plug on it was no problem? If you owned Sony stock in the '80s, your grandkid's grandkids were gonna be eating steak. And then everything went horribly wrong.
Today, the New York Times is reporting that the Japanese mega electro-brand is set to post $1.1 Billion in losses, and some analysts are guessing that it might even be as high as $2 Billion. If you're a current stockholder, and you bought based on the projections that the brand was anticipating $2.2 Billion in profit come March, you are bumming. This marks the first year in the past 14 that Sony will post a loss. But if you ask us, the cards have been stacked against the brand for years. Read on to see the company's 5 biggest mistakes that got them to where they are today...
DAVID MANNING YEAR:2000
• "David Manning" was a fake film critic that a savvy marketing exec over at Sony cooked up in the summer of 2000. Who needs real reporters when you can just make up the good press yourself? After the company got caught for this, and another debacle that used Sony employees to pose as regular movie goers broke, the corporation agreed to refund $5 each to dissatisfied customers who saw Hollow Man, The Animal, The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, or Vertical Limit in American theaters. Fail.
THE IPOD DROPS YEAR:2001
• The Sony Walkman was amazing. The Sony MiniDisc was amazing. It was better than a CD burner, better than anything out on the...wait what is that? An i-what? Oh shit. Game over.
MICHAEL JACKSON LEAVES SONY YEAR: 2002
• Was the King of Pop's departure from the electronics brand of the 1990s a sign that things were going downhill? It depends on who you talk to. Michael thought Tommy Mottola was "the devil," Sony said Jackson owed them tons of money. Either way, its not a good look for any of the parties involved, and since then, neither has been quite the same.
PS3 BUSINESS MODEL DOESN"T MAKE SENSE (2006)
• Video game platforms cost money to make, often more than people are willing to pay. This is not a new thing, and for years companies have been selling the actual device at a loss and re-couping losses through game sales. Unfortunately Sony posts an unusually high loss of $300 or so per platform (sells for $500, costs $800) and no one is buying the games. Oops. There is always hope that the PS3 hits the black in 2009, right?
SONY ENDS CONNECT YEAR:2008
• Aww. Another loss to the big Apple. Sony's music store, Connect, seemed to have all the right ideas: proprietary music format, big money backing, and um... hm. Maybe this was a bad idea. This "L" in March really made you guys look like schmucks.
BLU-RAY FAILS TO TAKE OFF YEAR:2011
• Um. Sorry guys, Blu-Ray isn't going to happen. Sure it's cool to watch the fight scenes from Wanted in HD, but direct download and Internet-streaming video technology is getting better in quality and faster every day. By the time people actually get off their asses and re-purchase all those DVDs, direct-download HD content will be here. And you know what? You can't scratch that shit. Oh, and while you're at it, stop with the PSP ads on the NYC subways. It's not going to happen.
