*link removed - it's dead Jim!*

Sony needs money :(

*edit* the link died and couldn't find a rez. Basically the story said that Sony is losing money. If you look at any financial site you'll see that it may soon be a good time to buy Sony's stock - it's falling rapidly :)

Disclaimer - I am not a broker, I am not advising buying stock in Sony. If you do, you risk your own money, so don't blame me - so there :p

Heh, if they try to milk any more money out of PC EQ without giving something back they'll have a revolt on their hands. Tired of paying for constant nerfs and being told how I should play a game.

If anything I'd expect them to push harder for an early EQ2 release, or possibly another paid Extension or two for some short term cash flow, coincided with a finance report I'm sure.

And there's always EQ for the Digital Watch...

Tia

Have they released a CD of EQ music?

Started a comic book series?

A cartoon show?

/grin

EQ revenues must be like 0.01% of total Sony revenues.

They would really need to increase the fee big time to make a difference :)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>They would really need to increase the fee big time to make a difference [/quote]

I can't convert yen to dollars, so I'm not sure how much they are actually losing, but 400,000 subscribers x $3 per month is a nice addition to your bottom line. Especially since it'd be pure profit.

Throw in another download-only expansion which was no doubt pretty profitable for them, and you've made a dent in their deficit...

last I saw (and this could be way off) was about 8.65 Yen per dollar.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Have they released a CD of EQ music?

Started a comic book series?

A cartoon show?[/quote]

:evil: At their online store they sell all of those except a <a href="http://formula119.com/eqtaa/news_menu.html" target="top">cartoon</a>.

The exchange rate is currently around 120.25 Yen per dollar btw

Brienna,

You linked some site that requires signing up.

But anyway, the notion that eq is gonna add anything significant to Sony's bottom line is...well...laughable. If they jacked up the price of eq 10 bucks a month, which they would never do, and if all the current subsribers kept on, which they never would, Sony would get about 4 million a month more if they didn't have to pay taxes, which they always would.

4 million bucks a month for Sony is a teensy drop in the bucket (and remember, this is a crazy, hypothetical figure)...Sony is a HUGE corportation. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that most of the Sony execs don't even have a vague idea what Everquest is.

Mappy,

SOE increased the rate almost 30% just a year or so ago.

Aside from gasoline, can you think of any other service that could do that and get away with it? It definately was not based on the CPI, or any other factor.

And the link use to work, it obviously has been changed since the original post. What it said was that Sony was losing 8billion yen(whatever) or something.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You linked some site that requires signing up. [/quote]

It does? I didn't have to sign up - sorry :(

Anyway, it was posted as a jest of sorts, not really a financial analysis of the company.

I know that EQ is a drop in the bucket compared to Sony worldwide, but since when have they needed an excuse to get more money out of players? :)

I don't see them increasing the payment plan until they are more sure how Shadowbane is doing..and maybe not until they have an idea of how WoW will do.

They could always create an expansion that requires a monthly surcharge along with the instore price.

I would say a reduction in fee or teaser fee's for SWG and EQ2...peeps dont even have damn jobs. Raise the fee and I am sure they now more people would leave than the returns they would get in $ and time saved.

If Sony is losing money then typically what a business would do (according to macroecon here) is cut costs by laying off workers, usually raising the price is a last choice thing they want to do because higher prices leads to less purchases.

I wouldn't expect a hike in monthly rates for a while, plus the economy is slowly recovering from its recession, I keep reading the papers which basically say consumer confidence is rising in april and will continue in may.

The Sony in the article is the parent company.

SOE, I am quite sure, is very profitable now.

Also the turn/margin thing of economics is really changed when you get into a subscriber/service based model.

I doubt that SOE lost many customers because they increased the monthly rate to 130%, couple years back.

>>> At their online store they sell all of those except a cartoon.<<<

Am I the only one who thinks the cartoon would work? :)

formula119.com/eqtaa/ (http://formula119.com/eqtaa/)

don't think a price increase is in the works at this time because it was a little over a year ago when they went to a yearly price and the renewal period puts all the people who went that way paid till the beginning of next year now, 2004, so it would not really affect the their bottom line for a good while now anyway

maybe an expansion that would cost to get but loy is not that old yet, and i am sure soe is profit makeing anyway but i would think an increase in the amount of computer needed to run the expansion would be the real money maker.

An animated series would be great. A good way to advertise the online game and also provide many happy memories for those who've played it.

EQ lore already takes so much from Tolkien, they would be smart to capitalise on the popularity of LotR by producing an animated series.

I fear thinking about such things as price increases because you KNOW what the only sure way of them making more money would be, without upsetting people with another subscription increase this soon:

Cloak of flames visa/mastercard 75 bucks
Fungal Tunic visa/mastercard 100 bucks
20,000 plat 50 bucks

etc.

The thing is, you know they'd make a lot of money with that. So do they. I guess its kind of some morality/game balance/legitimacy issue that keeps them from it.
People sell and buy such things in the game anyway, what keeps the majority from taking part is that its perceived as being not very secure. If the game makers themselves were doing it, that would change.

Someday someone will definately be doing that, though, even if its not in EQ.

If they want to quit losing money...

Better customer service. Quit giving out standard bs tech support answers, and giving your customers the lay off routine and run arounds. Calling SOE tech support and customer service has been known to make people more dizzy and ill than a 6 y/o that just ate 5 snickers, drank a 6 pack of coke and hopped on the merry go round at a local park after running around the turn style a dozen or so times. A good percentage of your customers are tech support folks, or just tech geeks that know those are standard bs answers. Some times you have to go through those as part of normal troubleshooting. When you get no help beyond that, that is not good.

Admit your mistakes and fix them. I still can not play with sound on. Although someone did tell me a way to leave my sound card on, and just turn off sound in the EQ options. Thanks to that guy BTW, that's much better than trying to remember to turn the card off.

Just those two things would help a bit. A lot of people out there have quit for various reasons. You can go to many boards and there are people that have quit the game for various reasons, but still post because they still like the game, and still have friends that play it.

That won't get them all of their lost customers back, but it would get some. Word of mouth works great Sony. You should have learned that by now from your electronics.

Sony tried so hard to become like an American company and they have finally suceeded. They went from making great products to making completely assey products. It's an American dream come true.