Dingpeng: PS4 is Sony's last lifeline

Lead: Sony's PS4 will officially announce the details of China's entry today, home entertainment or, more directly, PS4 has become the last lifeline for Sony, a lifeline that not only determines Sony's current position, but also determines Sony's future status in the tech industry, as the lines of business line performance are not satisfactory.

Every once in a while, my circle of friends or Weibo always has the rumor that "Sony filed for bankruptcy", "Sony will quit the Chinese market," Sony's PR may have been numb to this, the rumor from the beginning of the anger to later formed a normal job.

I am a public relations service friend joking, "is not Sony's PR people have nothing to do, brush the sense of existence, from the words." ”

Joking is not true, but it also reflects the current situation of Sony, the line of business continues to shrink, the negative one, followed by a Vivo PC business, panel business continued to sell, facing China no longer sell mobile phones, even to fill losses in the sale of buildings and so on. The whole company has few bright spots to advertise.

Sony's earnings in the second quarter of fiscal year 2014-2015 (July 1, 2014-September 30), which was just released at the end of October, showed a 1 trillion 901.5 billion yen increase of 7.2% per cent year-on-year. Excluding tax, the cause reorganization fee, the operation and so on expense, the Sony in the period all causes total loss 136 billion yen, but this is mainly because of its mobile communication enterprise's sluggish result.

Sony said in a statement that as of March 31, 2015, its mobile communications business is expected to sell revenue of 1.35 trillion yen, operating profit is expected to lose 204 billion yen, the loss rate of 15.1%.

In stark contrast, Sony Gaming & Internet services in the quarter of the total turnover of 309.5 billion yen, up from the same period last year 83.2%, the final operating profit of 21.8 billion yen, which fully benefited from the PS4 performance in the quarter, sold 3.3 million units, The total sales volume of PS4 after the listing reached 13.5 million units, completely suppressing the same time listed Xbox One.

PS4 has become the last bright spot in all of Sony's business lines.

This is not consistent with the historical position that Sony has laid before, once, "Sony is the world's audio-visual, communications products and information technology in the field of the pioneer, is the world's first portable digital products, is the world's largest manufacturer of electronic products, is also the world's largest film company, or the world's largest music copyright company ... ...”

In this case, PS4 's trend is more important, it will largely determine the future trend of Sony, it has been carrying Sony now and all the future sustenance.

PS4 will encounter the same problem as Xbox One

Compared to Sony's convening of PS4 's launch now, old rival Microsoft's Xbox has already entered China, but unfortunately the sales are not good, I understand the situation of Xbox One sales is not too good, according to a game at CJ when a friend of the CP received the message, this year's target is 300,000 units, Whether these 300,000 units can reach the user this is not good to say.

My CP friend's company is trying to match the Xbox One game, but their goal is not to target the Xbox's domestic players, but to target overseas.

So the question is, why is the sales of Xbox one so dismal?

Before the Xbox One into China I have analyzed, summed up the reason is too high price, the content of the game, the business model in China seems to be not too good, the Fever players have been through other channels to buy and the most serious lock zone problem.

And PS4, looks like these problems one also can not run, the internet has Chuan PS4 will not lock zone, please, do not lock area, but also those who approve foreign game import people do?

Of course, you will say that the Chinese game development Chamber of Commerce slowly into the market, that is not funny, China's host game industry blank for 14 years, the lack of talent, industrial chain fault. And they're making more money, how to do the number, planning, more by the shop and wash volume to make money more good at some, buried hard to develop a host game, which in the short term is too unrealistic, and similar to the so-called transplant, in fact, is also nonsense, can not solve the essence of the content of the problem.

Of course, PS4 's sales should be a bit better than Xbox One, because PS4 focused on PS4 's invitation, slogan is "All for the player" and before that, PS4 also for its own positioning is a game machine.

Microsoft, in contrast, is a bit blurry about the positioning of the Xbox One, and the whole concept of home entertainment he deals with looks more like a game, but loses its core gaming users.

However, regardless of the initial expansion of the problem, it is certain that the Chinese market, whether it is Microsoft or Sony must be chewed.

I remember 2012, international market research firm Neilsen released the annual video game Survey of the United States, the report shows that similar Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 Generation Game host's ownership rate also rose from 50% to 56%.

Obviously, the game host market in Europe, America and Japan is huge, the increase will be extremely limited, and there is no place in the world that is more suitable for the incremental market than China. Because of the existence of policies, piracy and other problems, China's game host market has been only in parallel imports channels, and China's vigorous consumption capacity, Huge demographic dividend, who will not ignore, just how to develop the problem.

How will Sony develop the Chinese market?

To be sure, after Sony, Nintendo will also be in China, and from the previous to some news shows that Nintendo is very likely to the Chinese market as a special machine.

So how does Sony develop this market?

This, we need to pay attention to a small detail, the official release of PS4 will be scheduled on the afternoon of 11th, but yesterday, PS4 is located in the cat's flagship store has opened, the upcoming PS4, PS Vita has been impressively in the column, in addition to the game and accessories.

In fact, 2011 years ago, Sony China has been in the sky Cat's main image digital products, "Sony official flagship store", so it would not be surprising if the Sony's flagship store opened in the sky after the press conference, even if it had entered the east of Beijing early rather than the cat.

But it would be strange to get into the cat in advance with the press conference, because just a few months ago, Ali opened a conference to redefine home entertainment.

At the press conference, Ali fully introduced its complete ecology, including games, education, film and television (the special reason is diluted a link), the electric quotient these four blocks.

In addition to the game, film and television, education, electric Shang Ali are more or less layout, or investment or holding, but in the game this piece seems to only introduce some business partners, no more in-depth cooperation.

And this time PS4 brand and his living room in the symbolic meaning of entertainment, with Ali in the game link missing, indeed will let people think more.

For Ali, it would be nice to have partners like Sony when it comes to building their own home entertainment ecosystem, but Ali's cloud gaming platform looks extremely cool, but the cat box is clearly unlikely to fully load the cloud gaming platform in the future.

And Sony's PS4 if he can pull up Ali this partner in China, first of all in the channel above, even if it is worry, the power of the channel will no longer have any problems, but more important is Ali's resources, such as Aliyun, PS4 is the main concept of the cloud game will have a support point, and then think of a big point will have other resources such as film and television Electricity quotient, education these?

So, from this detail, come to the conclusion that PS4 early landing cat can read the following three points: 1, to solve the problem of electric business channels; 2, the two sides may develop in-depth cooperation to build a family entertainment ecology; 3, Sony is aware of the specificity of the Chinese market.

And these developments for the Chinese market is enough, it remains to be questioned, the size of China's host game market is going to be big, but at this stage the problem is big, not a cooperation can be solved.

As the future of Sony's important line of business, or even lead the line of business, PS4 's road to China is doomed to bumpy, how to solve the real players on the content of the demand is critical point.

Because, no one wants to buy a "brick" that can't play his favorite game.

And the host can not be too expensive, the game is best free ... Even I would like to say that the demand for Chinese mass gamers is a complete ideological change for companies such as Sony and Microsoft that have been successful overseas.

Perhaps Nintendo's simple, crude version of the direct castration is more suited to these popular players.