“Yesterday, Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation outlined details of Sony's proposed PS3 launch strategy.Again confirming its release for Spring 2006 - with simultaneous worldwide release currently expected but unconfirmed, his presentation detailed impressive sales figures for other Sony Entertainment products, such as:

PSOne and PS2 have shipped nearly 200 million systems and more than 1.8 billion software units

PSP has shipped (not sold through) over 6 million hardware units

PSP just had the most successful product launch ever in Europe - 185,000 sales in 4 days

He then talked of a proposed group-wide effort to ensure the PS3's success, calling upon the combined efforts of the Entertainment Group - content and applications, the Home Electronics Group - software engineering, Blu Ray disc, optical pickup and drive and finally, The Semiconductor Group - Cell chip and others.

What makes this interesting is the chain events:

Phil Harrison is made Global Exec VP overseeing all of SCE's worldwide output

Sony's development studios are rebranded as a worldwide studio

20,000 jobs are canned across the company, 7,000 of which are in the UK

We can only assume that Stringer's aim here is the same as it was when he commanded a similar streamlining strategy during his time at MGM, where 9,000 jobs and $700 million in annual costs were cut, in aim to improve communication across the group's businesses.

Full Story at CVG