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NEWS: Sony to Sell US$1.1 Billion U.S. Headquarters Building




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ajr



Joined: 29 Nov 2010
Posts: 465
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:00 pm Reply with quote
So I guess the real estate market's not totally dead after all. Sony needs the money, so this seems like a pretty smart move to me.
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MeggieMay



Joined: 08 Jun 2004
Posts: 607
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:20 pm Reply with quote
The savings in not having to pay property tax on the site is also a potential boon. Since I would think Sony has another building out in Los Angeles, they should be OK on that front as well (that front being they have a place to run their business out of after the three years is up with this deal, if they don't have something else worked out by that point).
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5823
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:23 pm Reply with quote
Three quarters of a billion dollars net profit is not bad either.
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nhat



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 922
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 5:08 pm Reply with quote
Manhattan is freaking expensive to live in so they'll definitely save money lol
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Catseyetiger



Joined: 20 Oct 2009
Posts: 779
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:30 pm Reply with quote
I hope Sony can get it back together.

I like my old PS3.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14754
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 8:11 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, Sony needs the money - they've been in the red 4 straight years, and Fitch Ratings just downgraded Sony's debt to junk status. That means it's going to get more expensive for them to borrow money, i.e. higher interest rates. So instead of doing that, another way to raise money is to sell off assets, like this.
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GeorgeC



Joined: 22 Nov 2008
Posts: 795
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 11:43 pm Reply with quote
I'll say this ---

I DO NOT think a videogame industry without at least 3 competitors is a good thing.

I would NOT want an industry solely composed of Nintendo and Microsoft as console manufacturers anymore than I would want to see Sony monopolizing things, either. Any one of these companies being overly dominant is a really, really bad thing!

(I just wish more people would stop being lemmings and send a clear message to both MS and Sony on their first-run production consoles... Make the damn things reliable and NOT overheat/melt themselves in a month or forget about us buying your product! Of course, it'll never happen... There have been more than two console cycles that show people will buy defective hardware if it is the "it" device to own! Mob mentality always overrides common sense.)

Most people here are not old enough to remember but it's been awful in the past when one company was clearly dominant in the videogame industry. I can think of two really bad times when a company monopolized the electronic gaming industry.

Back in the early 1980s, Atari was clearly the industry leader... The problem was their quality control and insistence on keeping the Atari 2600 in production despite being a clearly limited machine that COULD NOT support decent home conversions of arcade games and was already considered fairly @#$#@$ in its heyday, too. Atari's failure to upgrade its home console line in timely fashion (the Atari 2600 was launched in 1976!) and maintain some standard of software quality assurance -- the 2600 defined the term "shovelware" or at least preceded it pre-PS1 by over 10 years -- were a major component of the game crash in late 1982/1983. It took the better part of FIVE years for the home console market to recover from that crash and it was another company that took the industry lead from that point on into the mid-1990s -- Nintendo. Atari faded to a mocked memory in spite of a great catalog of arcade games and an iconic console (limited as it was).

Nintendo quickly used its power as industry leader to quell third-party support for the distantly second-place Sega Master System. The company also created an artificial silicon shortage which drove cartridge prices up at least an additional $20 for about a 12-18 month period in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Very, very crooked business practices but they got away with it because the videogame industry didn't have the watchguards that it does today and Nintendo was pretty much the only game in town: play by their rules, or get out of business in the console software industry.

Again, it's a very, very bad thing when there is no competition in an industry. We as consumers end up paying more for product and there is less incentive to ensure quality in the end result and innovate.
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Primus



Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 2758
Location: Toronto
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 5:24 am Reply with quote
I didn't read the entirety of the last post, but this isn't Sony Computer Entertainment (ie, the video game division) who is selling off their HQ. It's general Sony Corp. Sony Computer Entertainment America's headquarters are in California. They're unaffected in this.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:54 am Reply with quote
ajr wrote:
So I guess the real estate market's not totally dead after all. Sony needs the money, so this seems like a pretty smart move to me.
It pretty much is for business properties like that. They can ask for that price, but I'd be surprised if they ever get it.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14754
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 12:47 pm Reply with quote
GeorgeC wrote:
I'll say this ---

I DO NOT think a videogame industry without at least 3 competitors is a good thing.


I dunno.............. Sony did just fine during the PS2 era..............


Primus wrote:
I didn't read the entirety of the last post, but this isn't Sony Computer Entertainment (ie, the video game division) who is selling off their HQ. It's general Sony Corp. Sony Computer Entertainment America's headquarters are in California. They're unaffected in this.


Yep. Sony is just selling their building in NYC - they'll still remain there as a tenant. Good thing too since sometimes we go there for their "not open to the public" expos where they showcase stuff before they're available to the public. Smile
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