In an exclusive interview with Bloomberg, Sony CEO Totoki Hiroki talked about the company's transformation from consumer electronics business to entertainment business. The Japanese giant, once world-famous for landmark products such as televisions and CD players, recently made a historic move by spinning off its BRAVIA TV business and forming a new joint venture with Chinese manufacturer TCL.
For now, the company remains a core player in the digital camera market, but movies, music and, of course, games are increasingly dominating its overall business.
In fact, Toki Hiroki confirmed in this interview that the entertainment business now accounts for more than 60% of the company's total revenue.
He revealed that Sony was "forced to make a transformation":
"It is difficult to differentiate products in the consumer electronics field. This market environment has attracted new entrants to the industry, first Korean companies, and then Chinese companies. As we all know, China has a huge local market, and these companies rely on the support of the local market to export products. The consumer electronics market requires great economies of scale, and competition will ultimately fall on sales volume and price. Unfortunately, it is difficult for Sony to maintain such a sales scale."
Totoki Hiroki further stated that PlayStation is Sony’s most core asset to date, so it is crucial to keep it positioned as the best gaming platform.
When talking about the game business in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg, Totoki Hiroki said:
- Over 60% of Sony’s revenue comes from entertainment business
- The largest segment is gaming business
- They want PlayStation to be:
"The best gaming platform from a user perspective"
"The best game publishing platform"
He explained:
"We have always believed that PlayStation must not only be the best gaming platform from a user perspective, but also the best distribution platform. We maintain good cooperative relationships with third-party game publishers, and of course, we also have a number of top first-party studios under our umbrella."
The executive didn't elaborate on how Sony plans to maintain this position, but it's reassuring to know that this has always been the goal.
Some people worry that now that Xbox is no longer a competitor, Sony may relax and slow down, but it still faces fierce competition from Nintendo and Valve, as well as the impact of other forms of entertainment such as streaming media.
Talking about the entertainment industry, Toki Hiroki pointed out that platforms such as Netflix and Crunchyroll, a subsidiary of Sony, have promoted the popularity of animation on a global scale. He now believes that animation has become a mainstream content form. As the popularity of anime continues to rise, Sony has been investing heavily in the field.
Although Sony is extremely focused on the entertainment business, the CEO revealed that he is not a gamer himself, but he loves music and TV series. He is particularly fond of the British rock band Oasis, and even attended their performance at the Tokyo Dome last year.