It's been a rough year for Sony

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6365647.html

Between getting busted for putting malicious code in music CD's that hack the listener's computer, or the complications that have mired the debut of Blu-ray, and now with the hysteria about exploding laptop batteries, Sony just can't catch a break. Multiple high profile calamities have buried the good news, such as impressive Q1 revenue and profit gains.

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6360119.html?text=sony

Sony’s consolidated sales and operating revenue for the first quarter was $15.2
billion, an 11.2 percent increase, and net income was up $281 million vs. an
approximate net loss of over $60 million for last year’s opening quarter.

Ah, but quarterly earnings don't grab attention the way headlines like "FLAMING LAPTOPS OF DOOM!" do. The battery story is being flogged to death all over the blogosphere, not to mention the mainstream and industry press, and despite not wanting to follow the herd, I still felt compelled to bring it up again.

If you believe that trouble comes in fours, it's going to be thrilling to see whether the launch of Playstation 3 lives down to the dismal expectations of the analysts.

http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/14832.html

Japanese brokerage firm Mitsubishi UFJ Securities lowered
its rating for the company and cut the estimated sales of the PS3 by half,
causing shares to drop 3.2 percent. Mitsubishi UFJ Securities lowered its rating
on Sony to "3" from "2" and slashed by half its estimate on PS3 sales for the
current business year ending March 31 to 3 million units, citing difficulties in
procuring enough cutting-edge parts. This comes right after Sony issued a
statement saying that 4 million PS3 units would
be sold by year's end, with 2 million available at launch.

Given my experience being in the field with Sony during the early heyday of the original Playstation, and the breathless enthusiasm anxiety attacks that surrounded the Playstation 2's pre-launch period (I left Sony one month before the PS2's debut, and managed to avoid that whole initial imbroglio), and considering Microsoft's distribution challenges with XBOX360, I am inclined to side with the analysts. The greater the fanfare surrounding a launch date, the greater the logistical issues are going to be to meet the demand. We will just have to wait and see.

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