Sony has written down $977 million in its movie business, blaming a decline in physical media sales:
In a Monday statement to investors, the company attributed the "downward revision... to a lowering of previous expectations regarding the home entertainment business, mainly driven by an acceleration of market decline." [...] "The decline in the DVD and Blu-ray market was faster than we anticipated," Takashi Iida, a Sony spokesman, told Bloomberg News.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Sony Writes Down $977 Million in its Movie Business, Blames DVD and Blu-Ray Decline
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 35 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aim on Wednesday February 01 2017, @01:06PM
Well face it. You force customers to go through "piracy" rants, unskippable ads for other movies, essentially treat them like sh*t. I'm not even talking about playback (not copy) protection or region codes. Each time I put in a DVD for the kids (they love to watch the same stuff over and over...), I'm appalled... as are the kids, having to wait every effing time for "the good stuff". And you wonder why you're losing money there? I've boycotted BD as the lunacy has gone even further there.
Frankly, service is infinitely better just grabbing an MKV online, paid or more probably not. Provide a decent product, and we'll get it legit, no problem. But treat customers like sh*t, eat dirt.
Oh and for the current legit online content... guess what, some of us don't want to get just one translated version. We may want to get the original sound, or maybe a translation in another language. It seems that distributors really don't get this, from what I've heard from one IPTV provider here from their negotiations with content providers.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday February 01 2017, @01:12PM
That's funny, I boycotted BluRay as well, and stopped buying DVDs at the same point. It just got too annoying.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:29PM
That said, even though I have an HD projector, I won't buy a BluRay. I got some by mistake for Christmas a year ago and spent a day trying to get them to play, before giving up. If you want to sell recordings of movies, then you should invest in making it as easy as possible for your potential customers to play them. When you sink millions of dollars into trying to make it difficult then people will start to wonder if you understand the business that you're in.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @03:47AM
Handbrake will transfer a DVD to a playable .mkv file at roughly 100fps, a two hour movie in just under 30 minutes. That file doesn't have the "unskippable content" in it, and is so much more flexible than a disc in terms of where and how it can be enjoyed.
I get that the movie business expects to show previews in theaters, ads on television, and more previews on disc media. I get that the music business wanted to sell a $10 LP album with 2.4 good songs on it instead of $0.99 singles. When the music business finally got around to embracing the digital world, they came back to profitability. How many billions will the movie business lose before they figure out how to follow them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @07:03AM
That's the thing I never got, why make your _paying_ customers sit through those warnings? To encourage them to stop paying for an inferior product?
I hope that fucking works and they stop paying.
Because of the stupid region bullshit, someone I know had to buy a bluray player from a different country so that he could watch stuff he _paid_ for that was only available in a particular region. If he didn't pick the paying option he wouldn't have needed to do such ridiculous stuff. Because of the stupid region bullshit, another bunch I know couldn't easily play a DVD they _bought_ on their laptop, they had to get help from other people.
The fact is it's not that easy to download "pirated" movies for the average "uncle/aunt" types, but if you make the legit process even harder what the fuck do you think happens?
Make it easier and lots of people with spare cash would go, "Come on seed! Oh fuck this seeding bullshit" or "what's the difference between this 1080p and that 1080p, is this dubbed in English or not?" or "hmm is this a malware site or not", and instead pay and watch the movie they want to watch.
Or that pirate stuff might be completely beyond them so they ask their "helpful" teen kids/nephews/nieces who'd go "Just go to the official site, pay and watch whatever you want, it's really easy" and then the teens can go back to watching/playing their pirated stuff. Everyone wins. Whereas if you make shit too hard those "helpful" teens would find it easier to just download it for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @09:00AM
Exactly.
I'm one of the few people who pay for DVDs. Every single time I decide to watch a DVD, the first five minutes is spent thinking "not this crap again, maybe I should switch to torrents like everyone else".
The thing is, my computer is in my bedroom and the TV is in the living room. Getting torrents onto my would take some work, though with Wi-Fi, not as much as it used to. I've wondered many times, if I were to replace my DVD player with a Bluray player, would it require an internet connection to download "updates" (aka. stronger DRM)? If so, I would have to do the work to get internet to my TV anyway, and laziness would no longer be an excuse to buy rather than torrent...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @01:48PM
so if they "write down" does that mean like they write a check for 977 million or what?
is there a difference between "write down" and "write up" in space?
does it just mean that they didn't sell the 977 million they thought hey would? 'cause in that case
i think i'm going to go ahead and "write down" some .. uhm ... 22 trillion us dollars!!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pino P on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:00PM
To "write down" an asset means to report a significant drop in its value to the tax authority so that the business can deduct it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @05:44PM
Aso .. thanks for explaining. Random value drop ... cool!
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Gaaark on Wednesday February 01 2017, @04:44PM
Trump! We got Trump here! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:48PM
It means North Korea is winning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @06:43AM
HOW IS THIS OFF TOPIC?!
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday February 02 2017, @12:24PM
It is close enough (unless you work with it) to think of it as "writing down the premium value", where 'premium' is any non-tangible assets (incl. and future potential earnings), compared to previous estimate.
And, yes, your "writing down 22trillion dollars" has happened, it roughly is the margin of error for the oil reserves of the OOEC-members.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:16PM
See if they report the same kinds of horrendous losses to their shareholders. Because I could imagine plenty of scenarios where for tax purposes they'd lost almost $1 billion, but for shareholder purposes they'd made $250 million.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 01 2017, @07:17PM
See if they report the same kinds of horrendous losses to their shareholders.
This _IS_ a report to their shareholders.
(Score: 2) by blackhawk on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:27PM
They're ever so keen to blame losses on drops in various markets, but they never seem to take a step back and ask "are we making completely shitty films?"
2016 feels like a high water mark for bad films. I went through the list I'd watched this year and ranked them on IMDB. I must have seen about 80 films, not all made in 2016, but quite a large representation were. I don't recall ever handing out so many low scores for films previously. It really felt like nearly every film was rated "meh" or worse. There were one or two stand-outs in the AAA category, but nearly everything else that was enjoyable came from indies, foreign film, or left of centre.
I've got about 400 DVDs and BluRays sitting behind me from about 20 years of acquisition. I try to only get the ones I know have plenty of re-watchability, Blade Runner, Leon, Ghost in the Shell, etc. I doubt there will be more than two or three worth buying this year.
When they stop making shit that is barely worth watching once, I will start to shell out cash for hard copies again - till then...well, TV has been pretty spectacular lately - I'll be watching some TV.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @03:33PM
Oh, they have learned, but not in that way. To the studios movies that have lasting appeal are a bad thing, they don't want their new manure to compete against older output so it is in their own best interest that people only watch something once and them promptly forget it (they've already got your money at that point, assuming it was watched via "legal" channels).
If they could they'd whipe all the classics from our collective memory.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 01 2017, @03:33PM
I went through the list I'd watched this year and ranked them on IMDB. I must have seen about 80 films, not all made in 2016, but quite a large representation were.
Is this list for Sony Pictures accurate of only 10 movies last year?
http://www.movieinsider.com/c8/sony-pictures [movieinsider.com]
Sure if "industry leadership" is defined industry wide as copying what everyone else does, and everyone else sucks, its fair to pick on Warner Bro or Disney, but the list implies Sony only shipped ten movies admittedly all of which sucked except for the soft core pr0n one and the anti-msm one:
I mean, "sausage party" an animated PoS R rated for generic childish degeneracy, really? Ghostbusters remake just a turd, Mag 7 remake just a turd, Angry Birds video game turned to movie, come on get real. The Shallows is probably the movie I'd be most likely to watch and thats only because the actress is hot (unlike ghostbusters for example) so if I'm in the mood for G rated soft pr0n thats a maybe, although maybe its crap. Inferno just sounds stupid like a parody where nobody had the guts to point out its a parody. Passenger sounds like they found the cheapest blandest sci fi book out there rather than judgmentally selecting anything good, its like my public library has 15000 sci fi titles and somehow you picked the most blah formulaic predictable... Money Monster looks good on the surface, tapping into the near universal American hatred of our shitty MSM. Bros Gimsley, seriously, brainless action flick pew pew pew boring as hell rather watch paint dry, here, I have a nice polyurethane to apply to my son's new bookshelf. 5th wave usual bullshit alien invasion, let me guess the prog narrative is strong with this one and the moslem refugees, err I mean space aliens, are merely misunderstood nice guys who just want to open an ethnic food restaurant. What a load of crap. What a load of risk avoidance leading to crap.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:47PM
Other critical factor: Cord cutters.
Since i cut the cord, I don't get bombarded with movies trailers anymore.
So I don't realize all the "great" stuff I'm missing, if I only go to see what my friends recommend.
On top of which, they keep recommending stuff they see on Netflix. I may pay for Netflix, but for now I have too many movies left I could watch after someone paid for one year of Prime.
Result: less incentive to see movies at the theater, no incentive to buy (a DRMed license to restricted viewing).
And if I feel I may have missed something, I'll see it on the next intercontinental flight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @07:13AM
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 02 2017, @02:12PM
Passengers: 41
Inferno: 42
Magnificent Seven: 54
Sausage Party: 66
Ghostbusters: 60
The Shallows: 59
Angry Birds: 43
Money Monster: 55
Brothers Grimsby: 44
The 5th Wave: 33
So it looks like they have 2 types of output - shit, and mediocre.
Does anyone want to do the legwork for a different studio?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 02 2017, @02:27PM
Everybody Wants Some: 83
Arrival: 81
Silence: 79
Fences: 78
10 Cloverfield Lane: 76
Florence Foster Jenkins: 71
Star Trek Beyond: 68
Allied: 60
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: 57
13 Hours: 48
Jack Reacher: 47
Be Somebody: no metascore, but http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5512872/ratings makes it look like it's pretty bad (you can almost always ignore thosewho give 1 and 10)
Office Christmas Party: 42
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 40
Ben Hur: 38
Zoolander 2: 34
Which looks like the same amount of dross, a similar amount of mediocre, but a whole bunch of pretty damn good. This makes Sony look bad, as predicted - good call!
Someone else can do another studio...
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by citizenr on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:55PM
like Ghostbusters and Angry Birds, you know, the quality stuff ...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday February 01 2017, @03:30PM
The Angry Birds Movie
Budget $73 million
Box office $349.8 million
Ghostbusters (2016 film)
Budget $144 million
Box office $229.1 million
Hollywood accounting aside, these films are still enabled by the ticket buyers.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday February 01 2017, @03:49PM
The power of narrowcasting... ghostbusters total haul divided by $16/ticket at my local theater and half to Sony means 42M viewers.
Assuming ALL the viewers are in the USA that means almost 90% of the population wouldn't watch, its just too stupid for them. Look at the IQ curve and think of that 10th percentile way over on the left side... Of course its not quite that simple.
The media is having serious psychological issues converting from being culturally relevant leaders decades ago that everyone watched, to a weird subculture almost no one cares about and is far past cultural escape velocity WRT being relevant to the general population yet still remains profitable, like pulp novels or pro wrestling or cosplay, they just kinda do their own thing while being mostly ignored by the majority culture. Watching the media's decline over the course of my life is pretty amazing.
Kids these days don't know how TV defined America in like the 70s and of course now a days TV is just a screen saver while people play on their phones. You tell a kid today that the entire country went to cosplay events in the 70s and they're like F you old man not fooling us. But seriously, no shit, like the entire country watched MASH and watched the MASH finale, like almost as high of a percentage as people who vote. Yeah nobody watches TV today, a top series might have a tenth of the population watch and 90% ignore it, but in the old days literally everyone watched the same TV shows. Hmm I bet every 80s boy watched the A team and Knight Rider. There isn't any cultural touchstone like that today.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 01 2017, @04:04PM
Just about every big movie now makes more money overseas (total of every country but USA) than in America alone. With China being a big portion of that, IF the film gets past the censors, possibly makes some changes for that market, and is one of a limited number of Western films allowed in theaters each year.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-advances-film-industry-law-924201 [hollywoodreporter.com]
http://chinafilminsider.com/china-abandons-quota-hollywood-films-amid-box-office-slowdown/ [chinafilminsider.com]
The quota was 34 a year, but it looks like that will increase.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Wednesday February 01 2017, @04:50PM
Hollywood accounting aside, these films are still enabled by the ticket buyers.
Hollywood accounting aside, these films are still enabled by stupid, stupid people.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @07:21AM
But if you're supposedly doing it for profit and you're losing money then you're clearly doing things wrong.
If you're in a Democracy remember the votes of stupid people are often worth as much or even more than yours. So unless you're actually amongst the ruling elites and looking down on the stupid people from your palaces and jets, you shouldn't look down on stupid people ;).
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @05:06PM
never forget, never forgive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sony_rootkit [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by marknmel on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:30PM
Exactly! So sorry to hear that the kings of mediocre lost a couple of bucks.
Sony used to be cutting edge technology. Quality was second to none.
The only innovation they have been working on since the days of DVD players and mp3 players is how to DRM the shit out of it - so nobody in their right mind would even buy the goddamned thing.
For instance, I foolishly bought a Sony home theatre receiver many moons ago. The only 5.1 support it had - was to use a Sony DVD with it!!!
I won't even buy Sony headphones any more for fear they have somehow DRM'd the shit out of them too.
And the dammed millennials keep buying play stations (with yet more hardware lock in and DRM) supporting Sony's bad behaviour - fools!
I hope another ddos attack takes them out again soon.
There is nothing that can't be solved with one more layer of indirection.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @07:21PM
This is their latest trick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia [wikipedia.org]
Small distortions in the audio to cause the player to just shut down if it is not 'authorized'. They also forced all bluray manufactures to include the detection code in their firmware.
I rip my DVDs/Bluray. If it is a sony product 50/50 it will have this on it. Luckily I do not use authorized players :)
The best thing that may happen to Sony is they divest themselves of the movie business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @07:56PM
"And the dammed millennials keep buying play stations (with yet more hardware lock in and DRM) supporting Sony's bad behaviour - fools!"
What? You'd recommend Nintendo's consoles with their hardware lockin and DRM instead? Or perhaps Microsoft's consoles with their hardware lockin and DRM instead? In the world of Consoles people put up with lockin like that because it's actually expected - but the trade off being that the customers EXPECT the games to "just work" in a hassle free kind of way on their intended console. Mind you, that's not as true as it use to be since the early PS3 era prior to the mass adoption of post-release patches, DLC, and "expansion packs", but overall it will hold true.
We also use our consoles essentially just for gaming so there's usually less at risk. So long as the fools know not to give sony their credit card info, and rely on prepaid cards when needed.
I boycott Sony Music over the rootkit scandal. I've -never- purchased a CD since, even though I never did buy one of the CDs that was infected with it. I won't even buy them from used/pawn shops either - in fear that I might accidentally pick one up! When it comes to dvd/bluray, I have a couple. And I can totally see what pepole say about it, so I can't say I eagerly pick those up either.
(Score: 1) by marknmel on Wednesday February 01 2017, @08:33PM
I didn't say anything about Nintendo or Microsoft either. I didn't mention Apple either.... I hate them all too.
The fact that you are so sensitive about it, likely means you are guilty of supporting those bastards that have taken our money and gave us rootkits and DRM.
For what? Expecting games to "just work"?! Ha! Just another kid drinking the Sony kool-aid.
Millennials are so sensitive....
There is nothing that can't be solved with one more layer of indirection.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday February 01 2017, @08:20PM
Yeah they never compensated me or my employer for the days of wasted labor removing their rootkit from CAD workstations and burning tables where an employee thought he'd listen to one of their legally purchased CDs. My prick boss also attempted to use the incident to get said employee fired.
Then I never managed to get my lost time install time or code off the yellow dog linux partition on my ps3 either.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 02 2017, @02:39AM
A company comes up with a new or unique way of encoding some content. That company goes to Big Brother (the governments of the world) and claims a monopoly on the encoding. "We'll call it Blu-Ray!" Company believes that the new "technology" is going to be worth billions. But, the Company fails to sell the world's population on it's new technique.
Seems a pretty shitty business model, really. Trying to sell stuff that people don't want has never been a great place to start.
I haven't even touched on the sorry excuse for "entertainment" that Sony and all the other corporations are pushing. That's a separate issue.