TOKYO (AP) 鈥 Japanese electronics and entertainment company Sony says it鈥檚 focusing on creativity in movies, animation and video games, rather than old-fashioned gadgetry.
Its chief executive, Kenichiro Yoshida, outlined the company鈥檚 strategy Thursday, saying Sony was helping creative professionals deliver what he called 鈥渒ando,鈥 or a moving experience.
Yoshida did not speak about reports Tokyo-based Sony and Apollo Global Management are interested in buying Paramount Global.
Yoshida said the company is now emphasizing the creative process itself instead of prized products of the past like the Walkman portable music player and Trinitron color TVs. He said 鈥渟ynergies鈥 are no longer between entertainment and electronics, but determined by intellectual property spanning animation, music, games and films.
鈥淲e will continue to support people鈥檚 creativity through our technology,鈥 he said in an online briefing.
Sony is adapting to tougher times, with rivals making cheaper but competitive electronics. Critics say venturing into movies, music and other entertainment can be unprofitable.
Starting with its acquisition of EMI Music Publishing in 2018, Sony has invested approximately 1.5 trillion yen ($10 billion) in the last six years to strengthen its content creation.
In 2021 it acquired Crunchyroll, which has more than 13 million paid subscribers and delivers Japanese animation globally. Another was Yoasobi, a Japanese music duo that includes Vocaloid technology, or singing voice synthesizer software, and is attracting global fans.
Sony鈥檚 real-time computing technology that records 鈥渢his moment,鈥 as Yoshida put it, is being used in cameras at sports events because it can capture quickly moving subjects without distortion.
It's also used for news coverage and editing and in 3D video and computer graphics, including hit movies like and games based on human athletes鈥 movements, according to Yoshida.
its quarterly profit rose to 189 billion yen ($1.2 billion) from 141 billion yen the year before. Quarterly sales for the maker of the PlayStation game machines rose 14% to 3.48 trillion yen ($22 billion).
But for the fiscal year through March, Sony recorded a 3% decline in profit at 970 billion yen ($6.2 billion) due to a weak performance in its financial services segment, which will be partially spun off next year.
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Yuri Kageyama is on X:
