It’s no secret that Sony has been hemmorhaging cash for months now. It could be that the only thing standing between profitability and bankruptcy for Sony are those massively overpriced Vaio notebooks, offseting some of the losses.
My ex-girlfriend’s parents had to mortgage their house and sell their smallest child as a house servant just to get one for her. That being said, the company is being hit with yet another lawsuit.
The Canadian company, Certicom, is currently suing Sony over the possible illegal use of its copy-protection scheme in the Blu-Ray disc technology developed for the Playstation 3 and implemented in a wide range of movies and games. Sony’s history shows that it has a penchant for "borrowing" ideas when they see fit which includes:
— Stolen rumble technology (Sony lost a $70+ million lawsuit against the patent holders)
— Copy-cat motion sensing technology (Nintendo says Sony stole thier idea)
— Xbox Live wannabe (tried but it isn’t as good)
Of course, there’s always the recent recall of batteries based on Sony technology, the public relations fiasco that was the PS3 launch, and the whole rootkit mess back when Sony music CDs were agressively attacking peoples’ computers. Factor in the losses due to poor PS3 sales, and you have the formula for a dying behemoth.
Whether or not the videogame division can turn things around for the company remains to be seen, but sales for the PSP, at least, have been much stronger since the price-drops, a potential ray of hope for the company. If that doesn’t work out, there are always the sales of thier top-of-the-line HDTVs.
[via TheStar.com]
