PlayStation 3 Drags Sony Further Down

What a bad week for Sony, which has seen its shares plummet this week. First the lithium-ion-battery-replacement fiasco, then a Tokyo-based analyst writes a report detailing the malfunction of several PS3 machines at the recent Tokyo Game Show.

Sony says the malfunction had to do with the heat generated by so many consoles held closely together in the same place without much ventilation, that it's the kind of thing that happens all the time at trade shows. This is true. Product malfunctions are frequent—I have sat through countless demos of not-yet-launched, prototype software or hardware that simply doesn't work. And that doesn't always mean a product won't rock when it finally does hit the market (though plenty of these lemons hit the market and still don't work). It's just the nature of pre-manufacturing prototypes, so I tend to take prototype-stage malfunctions with a grain of salt.

But if this kind of thing happens all the time, or even has the slightest chance of occurring, then someone at Sony should have had the foresight to design the booth with more breathing room, and, oh, I don't know, maybe some fans? It's reflective of a complacent corporate culture with so much hubris they don't even see the end coming (because if PlayStation 3 fails, it will be a seriously costly mistake for Sony).  It's funny that it took a Wall Street analyst to point out this particular example of sloppiness around the PlayStation 3, something that stockholders—who usually care more about the overall health of a company rather than its employees or products—obviously took note of.

That said, in happier news, Sony Ericsson said it was aiming to be one of the top three suppliers of cell phones worldwide within five years. The company could well achieve this, having pulled ahead of LG to become the fourth biggest supplier almost one year ago, largely due to a wide selection of powerful and innovative music-and-camera phones.

Since its focus is entirely on GSM phones (the kind used by Cingular and T-Mobile), Sony Ericsson doesn't have much of a presence in the U.S. Does this recent announcement mean Americans will be seeing more of its sexy-looking camera-and-music phones in the near future?