Chapter 502 406 What? ! Pokeni Acquired Marvel? !
The great success of Mushishi finally eased the financial situation of Pokeni.
Otherwise, Qing Zhiyuan really didn't know how to face the upcoming console war next year when the bullets were completely empty.
Every penny now is crucial.
...
At the same time, Sony is also staging various dramas in full swing.
Nobuyuki Idei, the successor who looks unremarkable and was once not favored by the outside world, immediately began drastic reforms after becoming the president of the company.
When Idei was sent to Europe by Sony for training in his early years, he was influenced by Jean-Luc Godard, the French New Wave film director, and was full of enthusiasm for innovation.
It was because of this that he foresaw the arrival of the Internet wave early.
Since Idei Nobuyuki took office, he would go to the chairman Norio Ohga for dinner and chat almost every few days, bragging to him about various things.
The legendary fanning the ear
Nobuyuki Idei used the metaphor of "meteorite and dinosaur extinction" to emphasize that the Internet is the meteorite that hit Sony and changed Sony, and that it is necessary to prepare for the difficulty of high growth in hardware.
In other words, it is to find Sony's second growth curve.
Over time, seeing the rising Internet industry, including the growing business of various portal websites, especially the rapid growth of Internet companies on the Pokeni side, and the development trend of the Internet in the United States...
Norio Ohga also gradually believed in Nobuyuki Idei's judgment.
Being able to support Nobuyuki Idei to the position of president shows that Norio Ohga trusts him. Nobuyuki Idei represents Norio Ohga's will to a certain extent.
So the two people had a good relationship in private before, and after Idei took over, Norio Ohga naturally endorsed him.
"If you want to do something, just let it go and do it boldly."
Norio Ohga encouraged with a smile.
"Okay, chairman." This is what Nobuyuki Idei wanted.
…
When Nobuyuki Idei first took office as president, all Sony executives were Japanese, like a small circle.
As soon as this guy came to power, he laid off a large part of the executive team and replaced them with a group of foreigners with a very international vision.
After taking office, the first thing Idei did was to challenge Japan's authority - the lifetime employment system.
Later, Idei applied the advanced management methods he learned in Europe to Sony, reorganized the board of directors that was in name only, transferred 30 senior directors, and drew a clear line between decision-making and execution.
He explained: "If we want someone as good as Welch to work for us, we must first set up a board of directors that he is satisfied with."
Jack Welch, chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE), is a very rare genius manager in American history.
Idei's words are just used as an analogy, clearly indicating that if you need to recruit talents, you must first reform and adjust.
In addition, the department presidents he selected are all very young, and performance-based pay replaces seniority pay, which is also uncommon in Japanese companies with strict hierarchies.
Some people outside the company commented that he was "the entrepreneur who least resembles a Japanese."
Faced with Sony's high debt at the time, Idei could only implement strict performance appraisals to cut costs and put the battery technology and robot business, which had too high investment costs, on the margins.
The voice of engineers who used to have a high status in Sony is also slowly being lost, and the cost of trial and error has become high.
Sony's "Father of the Walkman" Ozone Yukizo said: Under the oppression of performanceism, Sony's people "bend over to work", and the atmosphere of innovation has gradually faded.
…
Less than half a year after Idei Nobuyuki took office, more than 30 members of Sony's board of directors were eliminated, departments were reorganized, the company's internal system was greatly adjusted, and many old members were dismissed.
For this reason, Ohga Norio could hear complaints from people almost every day, even dissatisfaction from company executives and colleagues.
"This guy Deji is so reckless! He is going to ruin Sony!"
"He did this in the name of innovation and change, but in fact he ignored the national conditions. Japanese companies and American companies are fundamentally different in cultural atmosphere, but he had to do it this way.
Now the members of each department are all complaining, and everyone has no passion to work.
They are completely oppressed by performance and can't breathe.
Deji doesn't treat the company members as human beings at all.
If this continues, Sony will be destroyed by him sooner or later."
"..."
In short, Ohga Norio originally wanted to be quiet and quiet before handing over all the company's affairs to Deji Nobuyuki, but now he is very annoyed by various things.
At the beginning, he could still suppress it, but later the number of people who came to him every day increased, and the weight of the people became heavier.
Under such circumstances, Ohga Norio himself couldn't help but doubt it.
He simply called Deji Nobuyuki over.
"Idei, can you be a little gentler? Do you know how many complaints I receive every day? The company's elders all think you're going too far.
They think my vision is flawed, and I chose you to be the company's president.
Now the company is in a mess."
"President, how can reform be without pain?" Idei Nobuyuki explained, "Now the group's business is too bloated."
Yes, Nobuyuki Idei used the word "bloated".
"If we don't reform and reduce costs and increase efficiency, the group will easily have problems in the future.
It's like a patient with cancer. If the lesions are not removed at the beginning and the cancer cells are not completely killed, then the future will only become more difficult to deal with.
When it is in the late stage and the disease is incurable, there will be no way to save it."
Ohga Norio frowned. In fact, he knew more about the company's affairs than Nobuyuki Idei. It was for these reasons that he let Idei do it.
Sometimes, changing people just requires a manager who can move the knife and be ruthless.
Now it seems that Nobuyuki Idei actually meets his expectations.
"Then can you be faster? If it takes too long, I can't bear the pressure."
"Okay, Chairman."
...
Internal reforms and major strategic adjustments of the company were completed after Idei took office.
These measures seemed crazy to the members of the company.
A Japanese company must become an European and American enterprise, regardless of whether it is suitable or not.
And there were a lot of layoffs and department reductions.
When Nobuyuki Idei was doing these things, many people thought of another guy in their minds -
Qing Zhiyuan.
To some extent, the two of them are quite similar, both of them carried out drastic reforms on the company with thunderous hands.
It's just that Qing Zhiyuan's changes are smaller, because Sega's size is not as large as Sony.
Nobuyuki Idei's situation and the resources he holds are very different from Qing Zhiyuan.
Qing Zhiyuan is the chairman of the board and has absolute power. He can change whatever he wants.
But Nobuyuki Idei is just a CEO, and many things have to be voted on by the board of directors. If it weren't for the chairman Ohga Norio's desperate support for him, Idei's reforms would have affected so many people's cakes and interests, and he would have been kicked out of the board of directors long ago.
Not to mention being the president, I'm afraid he can't keep his position.
But Ohga Norio just believes in him unconditionally, which allows Nobuyuki Idei to complete his ideas.
…
After July, Sony integrated and cut its departments, and also shifted its business focus, gradually shifting its original products from electronic hardware to [content output].
In other words, Sony not only wants to make electronic products and PS game consoles, but also games, and many, many games.
It also wants to make movies and music... and a lot of entertainment content.
Idei proposed a DDK (Digital-Dream-Kids) plan, namely "Digital Dream Kids".
On July 10, when facing reporters, Nobuyuki Idei said:
"Mr. Ibuka Masaru is a transistor kid, Mr. Morita Akio is a Walkman kid, Mr. Ohga Norio is a CD kid, and we must be digital dream kids."
He believes that hardware will not always maintain high growth, and if Sony wants to survive, it must develop software and entertainment content.
…
When Qing Zhiyuan saw the news media reports, his heart skipped a beat.
The new president of Sony seems to be more capable than he thought.
Being able to perfectly foresee that the future is a digital age is quite remarkable, and he was also able to carry out a comprehensive and substantial reform within Sony. This courage and means are really rare in the world.
You have to know that Qing Zhiyuan is a time traveler from the future, so he naturally knows the direction of the development of the times and can easily make judgments about the great times.
And Idei Nobuyuki, this person, obviously made decisions based on his own experience, market analysis and keen sense of the future.
This is quite remarkable.
Guys who can predict the future can basically succeed, and the key is that this person also has super strong execution ability.
In less than half a year after taking office, Sony was transformed into what it is now.
To be honest,
Qing Zhiyuan had a deep sense of crisis for the first time.
It was like seeing another time traveler.
There was not much time left for Pokeni.
...
In fact, Qing Zhiyuan's premonition was right.
In July, Idei Nobuyuki, who was worried about not being able to take action against the president of North America, finally seized the opportunity.
On July 17, 1998, Sony announced in its quarterly financial report:
17 out of 26 films released by Columbia lost money, with a total loss of $150 million.
The company's investment assets decreased by $2.7 billion, and there was an operating loss of $510 million "to deal with outstanding lawsuits and contract compensation", with a cumulative loss of $3.2 billion.
This figure shocked Hollywood and Wall Street, and the media even asserted that Sony's acquisition of Columbia had suffered a complete failure.
Before this, although Nobuyuki Idei was the president of the group, it was always Schulhof who had the final say in North America. This person, together with the two producers of Sony Pictures under him, basically spent money without restraint.
Since Sony's senior management knew nothing about the film and television industry, they spent a lot of money to dig Peter Guber, the producer of "Batman" and "Rain Man", and his partner Jon Peters from Warner after acquiring Columbia Pictures.
Guber and Peters are the kind of playboys that can be found everywhere in Hollywood. They are very particular about enjoying life and office decoration. Sony's parent company has always been under pressure from public opinion and is not good at the film business, so it dare not interfere too much in the daily operations of the two.
The Los Angeles Times even accused Sony's senior management of knowing nothing about film and television production, neglecting management, and managers of squandering money and fooling their investors in the form of a cover article.
This was the case during the period of Norio Ohga, but Norio Ohga did not deal with it, but left these "black sheep" to Nobuyuki Idei.
Now he finally got the chance.
So Nobuyuki Idei directly applied to the board of directors to dismiss North America President Schulhoff, and at the same time fired Peter Guber and Jon Peters.
…
When he received the news, Schulhoff was furious and cursed Nobuyuki Idei for not understanding what film and television production was at all. He sentenced Sony Pictures to death based on some cold numbers with the eyes of an outsider.
This is totally unfair. Nobuyuki Idei obviously planned to kill me!
The internal struggle on Sony's side became fierce.
Schulhof joined many board members to impeach Nobuyuki Idei, saying that he abused his power and wanted to bring down Sony, and expressed concern about Sony's future.
Nobuyuki Idei proposed to reorganize Schulhof and the two Playboy producers on the grounds that the North American company was messing around and wasting money, causing huge losses to the company...
The two sides were on the verge of a fight, and it was either you or I... Sony's situation became complicated.
...
However, for Pokeni, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The war between Nobuyuki Idei and Schulhof was actually foreseen in the strategic plan formulated by Satoru Iwata.
The fact that Norio Ohga gave the position of president to a board member like Idei, which was the last seat, meant that a war would inevitably break out between him and the board members.
Schulhof is the touchstone that Ohga Norio gave to Idei, and Idei is naturally very clear about this.
So it is better to suffer a short pain than a long pain. Instead of waiting for the future to fight, it is better to take advantage of the present to get rid of the opponent in one go.
The war within Sony is like a bomb, which brings a series of chain reactions after it explodes.
First of all, North Missony originally planned to acquire Marvel with a bid of up to 400 million US dollars, but the board of directors rejected the proposal.
Nobuyuki Idei's reason is also very simple. If you want to buy, it is not now. You, Schulhof, have made such a big mess. You don't even look at what your financial report looks like, and you still want to buy, buy, buy?
The purchase of Columbia Pictures was already criticized, and now you have to spend a lot of money to buy Marvel?
Clean up your own ass first.
...
So in the case of Sony's internal strife, Marvel also has a strong sense of crisis, and took the initiative to interrupt the acquisition plan with Sony, and quickly threw itself into the arms of Pokeni.
Finally, under the mediation of Satoru Iwata, Pokeni successfully acquired Marvel for 400 million US dollars.
When Qing Zhiyuan saw this news, he was finally relieved.
After confirming the copyright, Spider-Man and Iron Man are still there.
It's great!
The key is that not only does Pokeni want to acquire Marvel, but Marvel is also in financial crisis and needs money. It is also helpless to be forced to acquire.
As the current chairman and publisher of Marvel, Stan Lee actually hopes that Sony is his dream company rather than Pokeni.
It's just a way to compromise, and he also expressed his extraordinary helplessness.
So at the press conference, Stan Lee, who is already 66 years old, smiled bitterly throughout the whole process, and the smile on his face was as ugly as it could be.
However, Stan Lee has some acting talent in him. When facing reporters' questions, he still tried his best to take care of Pokeni's face.
"I am really happy to be able to cooperate with a company like Pokeni that has many talents and world-class technology.
I believe that with our joint efforts in the future, Marvel can do better."
Taking care of Pokeni's face is taking care of Marvel's face.
That is to take care of Stan Lee's face.
Iwata's speech was much more conscientious, "Maybe many people are skeptical and controversial about Pokeni's acquisition of Marvel, but I think that from the perspective of corporate strategy, the acquisition of Marvel is undoubtedly a win-win choice.
For us, Pokeni is the world's leading game maker.
We can turn the amazing imagination that can only be seen in comics into an immersive game that can be experienced and operated.
For example, can you imagine using Spider-Man to jump back and forth in the city in the game?
Can you imagine using Iron Man to fly in the sky in the game?
I believe everyone has had the same dream in their life -
Dreaming of becoming a superhero.
Dreaming of saving the world.
For the young people in Japan, in the dream, we are Astro Boy, we are the Super Saiyan in Dragon Ball, and we are Nobita Nobi who has Doraemon.
For American children, their dreams are Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, or the Hulk.
However, no matter who we are, no matter where we are, and no matter which country we are citizens of, we all share the same true and beautiful wishes for humanity.
We all hope to save the world and dedicate ourselves to world peace.
Gamers are the same. We transform the world through games so that children's dreams can be realized and continued in the games...
So I believe that the cooperation between Pokeni and Marvel must be the beginning of a beautiful dream.
I also believe that everyone will see this day in the future, when Pokeni makes the players' dreams come true. ”
At the press conference, after hearing Iwata’s speech, Stan Lee, who was sitting next to him, was stunned.
Iwata’s words seemed to awaken some of his dreams and excitement buried deep in his heart.
It is such a great thing to be able to let the children’s dreams continue. How can we deny this just because the other party is a well-known company that has never made a decent film and television?
…
After Iwata’s speech, the press conference was filled with thunderous applause.
The media reporters were encouraged by his words, but…
Is it really possible?
What will the combination of Pokeni and Marvel look like in the future?
…
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There is another chapter in the evening (end of this chapter)