Swot Anaylsis free essay sample

I have read and understood the rules on paraphrasing and referencing and followed these conventions carefully. Signed: Seon Wall, Christopher Moore, Daniel Bates Date: 12 October 2012 1. Introduction The project provided is intended to describe the history of Sony Computer Entertainment and to give a SWOT analysis of the company. Its purpose is also to give references, a conclusion and an appendix all in our own work. 2. Company History Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Company was the original name for Sony. It was renamed to Sony to help give it the edge over competition which turned out to be a great success. Sony has released many different products over the years from transistor radios, computer chips, floppy disks, transistors, game consoles and mobile phones. The first Sony-trademarked product was a pocket sized radio in 1957. It sold for precisely U$40. In the early 1990s, Sony Computer joined with Nintendo to create a Game console known as a PlayStation. We will write a custom essay sample on Swot Anaylsis or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Sony and Nintendo combined two pieces of equipment together, Sonys CD-ROM drive with the graphic expertise of a workstation. The PlayStation was first released in 1994 in Japan, due to serious competition Sony decided to take technology a step further and decided to make production in the US a year later. Several years after the PlayStation, Sony decided to design their own website known as PlayStation. com which helped to sell game consoles and software online. Also in 2000 the PlayStation 2 was created and sold worldwide. This console has become the most successful gaming device ever made. â€Å"Sony have sold roughly 1. 52 billion ps2 consoles† since they have been released till 2011. The PSP was next on Sony’s list of creations. It was a handheld device and â€Å"first released in March, 2005 in the UK†. You could connect to the Ps2, Ps3 and other PSP’s on this handheld console. This device was said to  signal Sonys large-scale entry into the handheld gaming market. Shortly after releasing the PlayStation Portable (PSP) an upgrade of the PlayStation 2 was created. Simply enough it was known as the PlayStation 3. â€Å"The PS3 resets the bar in the entertainment industry by introducing a built in blue ray player into the device†. The main features on the PS3 would include its ability to use PlayStation Network. â€Å"PlayStation Network (PSN) is a multiplayer gaming and digital media online service used only for the PlayStation 3. PlayStation Network was hacked by a popular known hacking group known as Anonymous. This caused Sony to close down online services for three days. Anonymous announced that roughly 10 million accounts had been hacked. After hack nightmare, Sony bars lawsuits with new terms of service (TOS). I believe that Sony have made PlayStation Network much safer to use after the attack and are much aware of hacking. The PS3 is the best known for home entertainment purposes on the market†. This device is in competition with Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Wii consoles. Launched in 2006, the  PS3  was redesigned in 2009 designed much slimmer and lighter and has now sold in the region of 66m units worldwide. â€Å"We can say with a fair amount of certainty that between 500,000 and 600,000 u nits were sold but will not know the exact figure until all of the finalized data is in†. 3. SWOT Analysis |Strengths |Weaknesses | |1. High Quality Products |1. High Prices | |2. Well Known Brand |2. Shared Market with Competitors | |3. Future Awareness |3. Damaged Reputation | |Opportunities |Threats | |1. Wide range of products |1. New competitors | |2. Developing Market |2. Price competition | |3. Online Market | | Table 1 SWOT Summary 3. 1 StrengtHs 1. All Sony Computer Entertainment product meets the high technology demand in the US and Europe. The best known product of Sony Computer Entertainment is the Playstation series; this is a great example of high quality products that Sony Computer Entertainment manufactures. 2. Sony Computer Entertainment is a very strong brand which gives it brand loyalty and credibility in their business relationships all over the world. The Sony Computer Entertainment brand name is worth over 10 billion dollars which may sound good, but Sony Computer Entertainment has lost 12% of its value in a single year. They are now ranked the 85th most valuable brand pposed to 25th in 2009. 3. Every console is anticipated with great excitement and this imminent product launch gives Sony Computer Entertainment confidence for the future. Sony Computer Entertainment will have a lot of anticipation for the launches of the Playstation series worldwide. In Japan alone Sony Computer Entertainment sold over 80,000 Playstations within 24 hours of the launch. 3. 2 weaknesses 1. Due to Sony Computer Entertainmentâ₠¬â„¢s high quality products, many of the products they sell are very high in price. This means that competitors have an edge on Sony Computer Entertainment. Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii are Playstations strongest competitors because they manufacture there products cheaper there for selling them at a cheaper price making it more affordable to the average person that wants to play games etc. 2. Sony Computer Entertainment has a shared market with multimillion dollar companies. Such as Microsoft, Nintendo and the biggest one of them all Apple. All these companies pose a big treat to Sony Computer Entertainment and there market range. Sony Computer Entertainment lost millions of dollars in revenue when the Nintendo first released the Nintendo Wii, because the Nintendo Wii is recognised as a much more family orientated console opposed to the Playstation 3. 3. Sony Computer Entertainment lost over 170 million dollars when the Playstation Network got hacked into in 2011. A lot of users switched to Xbox when the Playstation Network got hacked, Sony Computer Entertainment Countered this problem with the announcement that they will be giving all users who had Playstation Network account two free downloadable games. But this still didn’t fix all their reputation, and do this day Sony Computer Entertainments Reputation is damaged. 3. 3 opportunities 1. With Sony’s wide range of products they can easily branch into other sectors of the entertainment industry. At the moment Sony have: Phones, home consoles, handheld consoles, televisions, computers, mp3 players etc. They are a very versatile company and with the loyal customers who buy all their products, they will find it easy to sell whatever they bring out so long as it’s new and innovative. 2. With Sony being in the entertainment industry, which is a developing market, they have an unlimited amount of opportunities to further their products and push technology to the limits. We already see smart-phones, next generation consoles and smart-televisions. In 2015 the new next generation consoles are expected to be released, which will give Sony a chance broaden their product quality. 3. The online market nowadays is vastly taking over buying discs. Sony can now sell all their products for the Playstation 3 on the Playstation 3 store. This will decrease shipping costs, packaging costs and will also be able sell the games straight to the user, instead of retail stores. 3. 4 Threats 1. One of the biggest threats in the industry is new competitors. This can be very harmful to a company because a new competitor means they have new fresh ideas. This would keep existing businesses such as Sony on their toes. For example; for the first quarter of 2012 Nintendo Wii had more sales than both Microsoft and Sony. The Nintendo Wii is not a brand new product but, it is newer than both the Playstation 3 and X-box 360. 2. Another big threat is this industry is the price of products. Price is a big factor when trying to sell products. Usually the lower the price the more the company sells. A lot of companies are lowering their prices for their products so that they can compete with the other companies who are trying to sell similar products, for example; Sony’s Playstation is in direct competition with Microsoft’s X-box and Nintendo’s Wii. 4. Conclusion I conclude that Sony Computer Entertainment is a very versatile company which has many strengths and opportunities in which it can expand itself into other areas of the entertainment industry and surpass its competition.