PlayStation 4 Launch: Too Little, Too Late?

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Is the release of the Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 4 (PS4) enough to turnaround the aging consumer electronics firm? No.

The console is the first major overhaul in seven years. During those years, the entire landscape of the sector has changed. Perhaps least among those changes recently are new products from Nintendo and constantly upgraded versions of the Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) Xbox, which now has more features than can be counted.

The entire console business has been quickly crushed by the use of tablets and smartphones as console-equivalent devices. Games can be downloaded to these in the flash of an eye over WiFi or 4G. As the number of these devices continues to grow by the tens of millions each year, the hurdle for a new product from Sony has grown phenomenally higher.

Even if the PS4 is a modest success, most of the balance of Sony’s electronics businesses are in a shambles. Sony did not even bother to show the physical device at the launch, some measure of how poorly run the company is.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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