Sony Corp.

Back in February, so called analyst Mike Hickey indicated that the PlayStation 3 is headed for a price drop near the end of that month and that Sony was thinking of dropping the Blu-ray aspect of the PlayStation 3. To those who know what a PlayStation 3 is, feel free to read that line over again and remember that this is a so called paid professional analyst. The following is the mans official Bio:

 Mike Hickey is an Associate Analyst following emerging and existing technology companies. Prior to joining Janco Partners in early 2004, Mike was a Financial Advisor with the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) working with institutional and high net worth individuals. Prior to UBS, Mike spent over 5 years with Salomon Smith Barney as an Investment Management Analyst working with institutional clientele. Mike received a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance-Real Estate from Colorado State University (CSU) and an MBA from the University of Denver (DU). Mike is a CFA Level 2 Candidate and has series 7 and 66 securities licenses.  

First of all, let me point at that both UBS is a firm that has neared bankruptcy and was in need of a bail out from the Swiss Government an Smith Barney itself isn’t doing much better. Whats worse about Mike is, beyond the fact that the man has an MBA and has many licenses, is that hes not some old corporate cat, but a younger, in his early 30’s man, meaning, he is of our generation and understand what technology is. OR so I would have presumed from reading his bio, but the man is whats wrong with the industry. If its one thing that the financial crises has taught us is that financial analyst are some of the biggest crooks of the system who would spread false rumors to de-leverage stocks and trade them short for their own quick gains. Or that their skills were completely useless as nobody saw the disaster come. Mike Hickey is a man who is just as clueless as to what the Sony has in mind for the PlayStation 3 and how the system was built upon, but feels like he needs to open his mouth. First, Sony has come out and said, again and again that they are still losing money on the PS3 and that they are not planning on a price cut of the PlayStation 3, but according to Mike, by Februarys end, there was to be one. As I’m writing this, it is indeed mid March and no price cut, duh. But hey, that one can be open to discussion, although we don’t see Sony dropping the price of the PS3 till the new smaller Cell Processors are in place. With that, a drop in costs would happen and allow Sony to drop the price where in this case if they did, they would just take even a bigger loss on each unit (currently estimated at $80, but a lot better then the launch $400 loss).

What really gets me going though is that this joker somehow thinks, Sony will develop a PlayStation 3 without a Blu-ray player. First and foremost, besides the PS3 being one of the primary reasons the Blu-ray format was able to win; the PS3 currently sits at almost 22 Million units in its 2+ years of life span and that Sony has promised a 10 year life cycle for this system, meaning, why would Sony kill its best sold Blu-ray player out there. Why deny 7 years of sales, without the ability to play their much backed Blu-ray format. But thats just on the silly sides of this. The next step would mean, that if this indeed was to happen, that all future PlayStation 3’s could not play any of the games made in the last 2+ years. So all those games that have been selling millions, sorry. You need a new PS3 with less capabilities. Which of course, the idioticity of this is starting to sink in. The PlayStation 3 was built upon the Blu-ray playback. All of the games are designed on the Blu-ray and thats what gives its developers a huge upper hand versus other platforms out there. Thats like the next generation iPhone to be without touch screen or Microsoft releasing mid life, a Xbox 360 with only CD playback and no DVD support.

Why are idiots like this allowed to open their mouths and just spew out as they wish and still be considered an “analyst” is beyond my judgement,  but people like him are whats wrong with the industry.  As Sonys marketing manager Kim Nguyen told Business Insider, “That would pretty much destroy the PS3’s backbone, our games were built on Blu-ray,”…..”Blu-ray will always be part of PS3.”