Business
John Hofilena on May 24 2013
In anticipation of broadcasters and TV distribution services offering ultra-high definition 4K content next year, Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers are ramping up marketing campaigns to create awareness for their own 4K television products. Digital TVs with 4K resolution offer image quality four times that of the regular high-definition images.
Tech & Science
John Hofilena on May 24 2013
Microsoft’s Xbox game console franchise – while it is the face of a platform that competes with Sony’s PlayStation globally – represents a conundrum of sorts for the software and gaming giant when in Japan. That it took Microsoft’s console unit eight years to update
Xbox 360 is a testament to the enduring value and engineering that went into the best-selling console, rather than Microsoft’s dillydallying. But while the franchise has found relative success in North America, Europe and other markets – it has continually failed to attract the Japanese gaming market.
Business
John Hofilena on May 22 2013
Around a week ago, an investor known for radical corporate action put pressure on
Sony Corp. to sell off part of its lucrative entertainment business. A week hence, Sony has made it known that it plans to discuss hedge-fund investor Dan Loeb’s
proposal of a partial spinoff of its music and movie division with the company board.
Japan electronics giants
Sony Corp. experienced a rare surge in the company’s stocks on Wednesday after a US hedge fund – who has considerable investments in the company – called on the multimedia company to sell part of its profitable entertainment unit. This is one of the rare times that a foreign investor has tried to effect change on one of Japan’s strongest and most influential industry leaders.
Japan's
Sony Corp. revealed today that it recorded its first annual net profit in the last five years, with much of credited to the recent weakening of the yen and the resulting increase in overseas revenue. For the fiscal year ending March of this year, the financially beleaguered electronics giant earned 43.03 billion yen (approx. 436.08 million dollars), a quick turnaround from the 456.66 billion yen in losses that were recorded one year earlier.
PlayStation Vita – officially abbreviated as
PS Vita – is electronics giant Sony’s official successor to the PlayStation Portable handheld gaming platform, but it might not receive the acclaim and success that its predecessors had. While the touchscreen handheld gaming console is selling better these days, that doesn’t equate to its owners being overjoyed by the mobile
video game device either.
While it may not threaten the future of
Google Glass directly, Japanese entrepreneur Takahito Iguchi and his lean team of 8 people are in the process of developing
Telepathy One, a wearable image-streaming device. What's more, one of the first apps they used is one that will make you see the world through "manga eyes".
Starting next week, Toys R Us Japan will start distributing a tablet device specifically targeted for kids. The global toy store chain hopes that the Meep
tablet, meeting moderate success in the United States and European children’s market, will also be a hit in Japan. Aimed at children ages 6 years old and above, the tablet computer will be released next Friday,
priced at ¥14,999 (approx. $150).
While
Microsoft's Xbox 360 has been the leading video game console in the US, their sales in Japan have been so low that some stores have stopped selling the console and its games. As a push to get more Japanese interested in the Xbox (and become loyal to the brand as well), they are launching the 1 Million Hours campaign.
Troubled Japanese electronics giant
Panasonic has decided to take some steps to cut costs, moving to reduce the salaries of its top positions – specifically the president and the chief executive – by 50 percent. The action was also made to for the top executives to take responsibility for the firm’s financial difficulties.
