20°

Sony Apologizes for Battery Recall

Sony executives apologized Tuesday for inconvenience caused by a massive global recall in laptop batteries, but said the problems were now fixed and that none of the company's top leaders would resign over the incident.

The embarrassing spate of battery recalls that is threatening to tarnish the once impeccable Sony brand power is coming at a time when Sony has been struggling to turn around its core electronics business.

It could hurt the Japanese electronics and entertainment company's sales during the critical year-end shopping season. For some, Sony's woes have shaken this nation's confidence in its long prized manufacturing prowess.

Sony slashed its profit forecasts last week, citing the battery recall as well as price cuts in Japan for the next-generation PlayStation 3 video game console. Sony expects an 80 billion yen ($673 million) profit for the fiscal year through March 2007, down 38 percent from its projection in July.

Islandkiwi6408d ago

Interesting that this article mentions no one is stepping down. Japanese industry used to be very different, losing face was devastating to the employees and the higher-ups used to resign out of shame that something happened on their watch. There was a genuine belief that you were a worker, and you existed to advance the company. If someone needed to throw themselves on a land mine, that is what you did.

This response closely reflects western business practices...or maybe eastern business culture has changed considerably.

shotty6408d ago

Lets just hope the controller don't have their batteries.

Sexius Maximus6407d ago

but I bet they'll have a Cell recall in the future too.

DEIx15x86407d ago

You can apologize all you want but you deserve to be blown up! When every company using your batteries puts out a recall because they blow up and pictures of your own laptops after the batteries have exploded are all over the Internet and you still think you can lie and say you have no problem you need to experience the problem. No company with this many people telling them what to do should have to wait for the US Government to force them to recall them. That is just pathetic management that deserves to be fired and blown up.

90°

Former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider pours scorn on EA's AI dreams.

"They want you to believe the devs under them are super stoked to work generative AI into their processes," continued Gaider, "but I assure you what they took as excitement was really a veiled wail of despair not unlike the time that team was informed of their new 'really cool' live service mandate.".

LordoftheCritics1d 3h ago

Publishers see gaming as another stock market.

isarai1d 2h ago

I think anyone with some common sense knew this, im glad i don't support their games anymore, what a sh!t company.

Psychonaut8510h ago

Friends don’t let friends buy EA or Ubisoft.

Chocoburger9h ago

I said this yesterday. AI isn't what we want when it comes to crafting artistry. Alas, these soulless corporate morons don't care about their work, only about cutting corners as much as possible.

120°

Phil Spencer and the Battle for Xbox’s Soul

Has the rapid growth of Xbox made the ship too heavy? Following the closures of Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and Roundhouse, we explore what the future of Xbox could look like.

LG_Fox_Brazil1d 7h ago

This ship was never meant to sail, this ship was made from the get go to sink as fast as possible. It almost feels that they want to lower the standards of quality in the industry so that they can fit in

rlow113h ago

I disagree, Xbox from the get go innovated and changed the industry. They did a lot of firsts and standardized a lot of others. It wasn’t till the beginning of the Xbox1 era that things started to go south.

Stevonidas9h ago

Yep, although I’d argue it started going to shit when they tried to hock Kinect on their audience instead of continuing to invest in their studios and IPs. 2001-2010 Xbox was peak gaming, though.

rlow17h ago

@Stevonidas
I agree they never should have focused on it after the 360 era. But you do have to remember they were faked out by the huge volumes of Kinects sold. To quote info on Wikipedia, “Project Natal, It was first released on November 4, 2010, and would go on to sell eight million units in its first 60 days of availability.” So if your Xbox and see these huge sales on a peripheral where are you going to put some money? Criticism in hindsight is worthless…..if only we could all see our future. In other wards they had no way of knowing. Plus they had engagement numbers and a lot of signs pointed to people wanting it.

Their biggest mistake wasn’t the Kinect, but unlike Sony after the PS3 debacle. They didn’t double on down on exclusive good games. The other huge mistake was letting Call of Duty go to Sony.

Hedstrom16h ago

Phil wants Xbox to be as soulless as him!

Tacoboto15h ago(Edited 15h ago)

Xbox has no soul and Phil has no confidence, and it's impossible to say either do when they killed Tango and Arkane Austin.

Everything they've said since has only made them look worse to a point that they're actually less competent than Embracer.

Markdn15h ago(Edited 15h ago)

Whe you release something like the series S and expect it not to hurt your business model, and developers have to have parity with games. Then you know Microsoft don't care. Series s is the final nail that broke developers,

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360°

Sarah Bond dodges questions on Xbox studio closures

While on stage with Dina Bass at The Bloomberg Technology Summit the President of Xbox, Sarah Bond, was asked about the Xbox studio closures of Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios

2d ago
ApocalypseShadow1d 21h ago

Of course she did. She's part of the problem and will just tow the company line.

VenomUK1d 20h ago (Edited 1d 19h ago )

Bloomberg’s Dina Bass could barely read her scripted question without looking at her notes, whilst Sarah Bond who WAS expecting the question spoke without saying anything of substance or answering the question in any meaningful way. Clearly she’s had the same expert PR training as Phil, but this avoidance was disrespectful. In time the short-sighted decision to shut down Tango Gameworks will be seen as of the most notorious examples why Phil Spencer messed up his tenure in charge of Xbox. That’s a fully built out talented team that could’ve been put to work on any project.

Additionally, Phil Spencer should not be using Sarah Bond as a patsy for his mistakes- he should be answering that question.

gleepot1d 17h ago

I think you are all really overselling Tangos value. Hi-Fi rush was a lot of fun. Ghostwire was incredibly dull. Evil within 1 and 2 were just okay.

lucasnooker1d 16h ago

Evil within 2 was incredibly under rated. I thought that game was surprisingly good

NotoriousWhiz1d 14h ago

Someone else said it best. I don't think it was a Phil decision. It was most likely a Satya decision. I think Microsoft is done giving out free money to Xbox.

Cacabunga1d 11h ago

people please boycott Activision Bethesda next release and support Hellblade.
these people mus understand that they cannot treat their fans and employees that way.
scumbags.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 1d 11h ago
XiNatsuDragnel1d 20h ago

Yikes you don't help Sarah 😬 making a problem worse

Christopher1d 19h ago

She's playing her role. There's absolutely nothing any of them can say other than the truth, this is about profit margins and not quality, so they just don't answer anything and wait for gamers to forget.

shinoff21831d 8h ago

I think news is coming of more ps5 release but they gotta be careful cause Xbox is still sitting on store shelves. They can't get left holding all that stock

Lightning771d 7h ago

Come next month they'll flash nice looking games in our faces and expecting us to forget.

The only thing that'll be going through my mind at their showcase is how many of those studios will get shut down after release.

I'm not joking around either. MS probably expects every game to be like COD and do COD numbers. What a way to destroy gaming for the entire industry because they're dumb af at being realistic in what success means for each game.

-Foxtrot1d 6h ago

Always feels she was brought in / promoted for this. Happened just before things started to be out in motion.

Phil and co have someone to throw under the bus and share the blame with

zaanan1d 10h ago

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

darthv721d 1h ago

....won't get fooled again

Hofstaderman1d 20h ago

Like a deer caught in the headlights.....

notachance1d 20h ago

I always wondered why xbox had multiple leaders with similar titles like Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, and Sarah Bond, like, how many heads do you actually need?

Seems to me it would be more cost efficient to cut 2 of them instead of all those studios.

DarXyde1d 18h ago

Frankly, I suspect she is the most competent of them. I don't mean that I like her more, I mean that she's the best at articulating herself and giving the talking points MS wants to give. The others are starting to sound more like her than her sounding like any of them.

Are any of these people "responsible" for what's happening? No. This reeks of Nadella. But that being said, I don't see any of the Xbox heads stepping down in protest.

"Don't shoot the messenger", sure, but at the same time, the messengers don't seem to take umbrage with the message. Not enough to remove themselves from it, anyway.

CS71d 6h ago

I disagree. Nadella is looking for profit as a CEO should in my opinion.

The problem is Dr. Phil & Co. had 10 years to bring Xbox back on track and have been failing woefully.

Phil needs to sell to Nadella that if we are to make a profit, we need to make great games. And to do that we need employees here for the long haul and the freedom to work on creative projects.

But as Phil said himself he doesn’t believe great games sell consoles.

RpgSama1d 12h ago

Dude, 100%, forgot Major Nelson and Aaron Greenberg, like what is the point for all these suits? They have more C-level executives than games released in a generation.

This is just so they can all pass along the hot potato one at a time and in between all of them can say a lot without actually saying anything, misinformation at its finest.

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