Sony's Hirai vows to bring game division back to profit by cost cuts

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TOKYO, May 28 Kyodo -
Sony Corp.'s newly appointed corporate executive officer in charge of game and
network businesses, Kazuo Hirai, said Thursday that one of the company's
''major missions'' will be to bring its money-losing game division back into
profit at an early timing through cost-cutting efforts and expansion of its
network services.
''We need to quickly bring our PlayStation business on a break-even level and
later to profitability,'' Hirai, also president of Sony Computer Entertainment
Inc., said in a joint interview with Kyodo News and other media organizations
without specifying a numerical target.
The 48-year-old Hirai is one of the four young executives appointed in April by
Sony's Welsh-born chief executive Howard Stringer in a radical management
reshuffle carried out to speed up restructuring measures as the Japanese
electronics giant sank deeply into the red.
Sony's game division logged an operating loss of about 58.5 billion yen in the
2008 business year ended in March, marking its third straight year of red ink.
The company as a whole logged its biggest-ever group operating loss of nearly
230 billion yen.
''How to further cut costs is a key point we need to continue studying,'' Hirai
said, adding Sony needs to think about cost-efficient production to offer more
affordable products to consumers.
But Hirai refused to comment on rumors that the company is planning to lower
the price of its PlayStation 3 game console in autumn, only saying prices will
be determined by ''market developments.''
Hirai said Sony is considering expanding its online gaming service PlayStation
Network to its mainstay products other than PlayStation 3 game console like
televisions and digital cameras.
''We need a strategy where buying a hardware is not the endpoint but instead a
starting point that can offer new experiences to our customers,'' Hirai said.
Sony aims to raise sales of its PlayStation Network to around 50 billion yen
for the current business year from less than 20 billion yen, booked a year
earlier.
==Kyodo