Sony’s Mobile Communications division continues to struggle in Q2 2015
Sony released their latest quarterly financial report revealing struggles continue for their Mobile Communications division. For the second quarter of their fiscal year, Sony saw sales of smartphones decrease by 15.2% with revenues falling from 329.5 billion yen ($2.7B USD) to 279.2 billion yen ($2.3B USD) compared to the same period in 2014. Perhaps more troubling is the fact that for the sales that continued to occur, Sony saw operating income of 5.5 billion yen ($45.4M USD) fall to an operating loss for the division in the amount of 20.6 billion yen ($170M USD) year-over-year.
According to Sony, the “significant decrease” in smartphone sales is due to a decision to focus on profitability instead of trying to expand their scale of operations. In terms of operating income impact, Sony thinks they have improved their product mix to focus on higher end “value-added” smartphone models and they reduced their marketing and R&D expenses. All of the changes the division has been undergoing resulted in an increase in restructuring charges, which contributed to the loss.
Despite the sliding sales numbers and impact on operating income, Sony says their annual sales forecast is unchanged. For 2014, Sony sold 39.1 million units and they are predicting sales of 27 million units for 2015. From Q1 to Q2, smartphone unit sales fell from 7.2 million to 6.7 million in 2015. For the same periods in 2014, Sony sold 9.4 million and 9.9 million units respectively.
source: Sony
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Befriend a bear or get killed by it in PS4-exclusive ‘Wild’
When Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman, first demoed Wild, the PlayStation 4-exclusive game set in a lush Neolithic world of ancient tribes and animals, it was generally met with raves. After nearly a year, however, gamers actually want to know how it plays. At Sony’s Paris Games Week event, Ancel replied in the best way possible: By showing you could ride a freaking bear. In Wild, you can also take control of animals and play as them, summon spirits and walk (or swim) around the vast open world. But before any bear-riding happens, you’ll need to get savvy about your environment. As Ancel explained in his charming French accent, “For hours and hours at the beginning of the game, you will be killed by the bears.”
PlayStation in Paris: Lots of trailers, not much news
Paris Games Week 2015 became a Iot more interesting when Sony decided to hold its fall event there instead of at Gamescom. So after all the hand-wringing, how was it in the end? Comme ci, comme ca. There were a few important announcements, like a release date for No Man’s Sky, the launch of Gran Turismo Sport, complete with an entire league, and the reveal of Quantic Dreams’ beautiful-looking Ex Machina-type game called Detroit. We also saw gameplay for Wild, Michel Ancel’s (other) eagerly anticipated title. Otherwise, it was a bit of a letdown, with a lot of rehashing and still no solid release date for PlayStation VR. For more, check out our wrap-up video below or yesterday’s liveblog.
Aaron Souppouris contributed to this report.
LG’s mobile business just lost $67.8 million
If you were under any doubt that companies will struggle to make a profit from the smartphone business, you won’t after today. LG has updated its financial results to reveal that the firm’s mobile division lost $67.8 million in the last three months. That’s in sharp contrast to the previous quarter, where the company could boast of squeaking a 1.2 cent profit from every handset that it sold. LG believes that the recent launches of both the Nexus 5X and V10 smartphones will help to wash away some of that pain. If executives were looking for reassurance, they’ll get it from Sony which also posted its updated financial results today. The rival mega-conglomerate conceded that its own mobile division is losing $1.9 million every single day — ouch.
Source: LG
PlayStation and a strong dollar help Sony turn a profit
Twelve months ago, Sony was busy recalculating the losses it was expecting to report, due to its beleaguered mobile division. Today, the firm’s announcing a 33.6-billion yen ($278-million) profit thanks (once more) to PlayStation and its image sensor division. Overall revenues came in slightly lower than a year ago (down by 0.5), but a general uptick across the company’s many divisions has helped push it into profitability. Despite this, mobile sales continue to slide (down 15-percent this quarter). Sony’s Xperia brand is an expensive pastime, costing the company approximately $1.9 million per day in losses.
Source: Sony
Sony will acquire Toshiba’s image sensor business by the end of the fiscal year
Although Sony has not been performing as expected in the mobile business, it has been significantly growing in the image sensor business. In fact, its image sensor business is what has made up the largest part of its recorded profits in the first quarters of 2015. In order to continue growing, Sony confirmed that it will acquire Toshiba’s CMOS image sensor business for about $20 billion yen by the end of the fiscal year.
Sony’s image sensor have been heavily demanded from companies such as Apple and Samsung, and have been used in top-tier smartphones such as the iPhone 6s and the Galaxy S6. In order to continue growing in the business and generating much-needed profits, Sony had recently bought Softkinetic System to continue improving its image sensor technology. To further to do so, Sony has negotiated terms with Toshiba and has confirmed that it will acquire Toshiba’s image sensor business, which includes Toshiba’s manufacturing plant in Oita, Southern Japan, and its 1,100 workers. Toshiba, as a result, will officially stop participating in the business to focus on recovering from its $1.3 billion accounting scandal. The deal is worth approximately $20 billion yen ($166.15 million). This acquisition will help Sony to keep and expand its dominant position in the mobile image sensor business, which adds up to about 40% of the total CMOS image sensor market.
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Sony rolling out new update to Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact Marshmallow beta
Android Marshmallow has overall been a great update, bringing upgrades to battery life and more. Unfortunately, only one new device has launched with it onboard so far, with others simply planning timelines to have it ready. However, Sony is hard at work, as the company has just released its first update to the Marshmallow beta for its Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact smartphones.
Sony initially released the Marshmallow ROM for these devices earlier this month in hopes that the community would help the company test out Marshmallow. And already, Sony has released this new update to it. That’s certainly more initiative than other manufacturers have shown.
This update will give you a build number of MRA58K.Z1.2085, and brings double tap to wake functionality, MIDI support via USB, updates to the keyboard, and support for higher bitrate flac audio. If you’re in the beta, expect to see this update hitting your device soon.
Sony is well on its way to getting Android 6.0 on many of its devices. For a company that doesn’t get much love, that’s a noble need.
source: Xperia Blog
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Sony confirms purchase of Toshiba’s image sensor business
A few days ago, rumors surfaced which suggested that Sony was preparing to close a deal to purchase Toshibas’ CMOS image sensor business. Today, Sony has confirmed that this is the case, although no financial details have been disclosed. The two have a contract to complete the deal by the financial year ending March 2016.
Sony also recently announced that it would spin off its image sensor business into a separate division, called Sony Semiconductor Corporation, in order to help keep the group competitive. The newly acquired business will fall under this new division, and all of Toshiba’s fabrication facilities, equipment, and employees at its plant in the southern Japanese city of Oita are set to come under the division’s control. As a result of the deal, approximately 1,100 employees are set to be transferred between the two companies.
Sony is notably the largest player in the image sensor business, and the division is viewed as highly important for the company, especially given its struggling mobile sales. Its Exmor RS image sensors have proven particularly popular in smartphones, catering across mid-range and premium segments of the market, which has allowed the company to profit from the success of its competitors. In fact, all of the smartphones that recently topped the DxOMark camera benchmark are packing Sony image sensors.
Read more: Who’s who in the smartphone camera business
For Toshiba, the deal comes as part of a restructure following an accounting scandal in which they overstated about $1.3 billion in earnings. Sony’s announcement states that the deal will allow Toshiba to “devote its resources to products where it has a high technological advantage”.
This deal ensures that Sony will remain on top of the image sensor industry and should see the company continue to profit a market hungry for improved camera technologies.
Feature Focus: up close with Sony Xperia Z5’s camera
As smartphone cameras become more impressive, the case for a dedicated camera becomes less and less compelling, and with its new Xperia Z5, Sony says it has the best camera ever used on a mobile smartphone.
As revealed in our blind camera shootout however, this isn’t necessarily the case but an interesting point raised was Sony’s oversampling mode: enabled by default, the 8MP oversampling mode takes the detail of the 23MP camera and combines the detail into a smaller 8MP image, which is meant to deliver an all-together more impressive image.
Does this actually work though and what else can you do with the Xperia Z5 camera? Sony is known for some interesting camera modes that set Xperia devices apart from the rest but are these worth using on the Xperia Z5, the smaller Xperia Z5 Compact or the world’s first 4K smartphone, the Xperia Z5 Premium? Let’s take a closer look at just what you can do with Sony’s latest smartphone camera
Superior Auto Mode
A mainstay feature of Sony cameras in general, Superior Auto mode aims to create vibrant rich photos by automatically detecting the scene and automatically changing various settings to take the best image. When in Superior Auto mode, you’re able to configure the brightness and correct the colour in an image (although bizarrely, these controls aren’t available in manual mode.)
A particularly cool feature of the Xperia Z5 is its ability to detect various different types of subject and change settings accordingly; whether it’s food, documents, portraits, night photography or more, the Xperia Z5 can detect the scene and apply the settings it thinks are the best.
Here’s a range of images captured in Superior Auto mode:
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Manual Mode
A feature increasingly being found on flagship devices is the ability to control various advanced features in the camera through a Manual or Pro mode. Most devices give you the ability to configure a variety of controls but on the Xperia Z5, Sony have somewhat limited the functionality to setting the exposure, ISO and white balance and turning HDR on or off. Nested inside the settings is also the ability to enable an image stabiliser, which helps compensate for the lack of OIS, although this isn’t an option when using Superior Auto mode.
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However, Sony have added a variety of scenes (which you might normally find on automatic modes) that configures various settings for you. Such scenes are useful to have but the implementation on the Xperia Z5 is different to what you might expect from a manual mode. It’s also worth noting that on some scenes (such as High ISO sensitivity), the manual controls slider is disabled meaning you can’t configure the controls listed above.
Camera Apps
Alongside the superior auto and manual modes, Sony has also added various other effects to help you get the most out of the Xperia Z5 camera. There’s a total of 14 apps preloaded, with a further 13 available to download.
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Here’s a few of the noteworthy preloaded apps that I’ve used:
AR Effect
This effect is guaranteed to provide laughs-a-minute, as it allows you to superimpose various characters onto the scene in front of you. For example, ever wondered how Westfield, London would look if the dinosaurs roamed amongst humans? Now you somewhat have an idea:
Or what about if Westfield was underwater:
Of course, this isn’t exactly a necessity, but it is fun and the novelty does tempt you to take your phone out and take some snaps just to see how they look:
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AR mask
AR mask is similar to AR effect above in its nature to apply effects in real time but where it does differ is in which camera it uses: AR effect works on the rear facing camera whereas AR masks uses the front camera to apply a style to your face.
Sony says the AR mask lets you “mask your face with the face of your friend to take an impressive selfie” but what they don’t mention is the range of preloaded filters. For example, if I wanted to see what I would look like with the face of a cat, gorilla, lion or either a (stereotypical) person, the Xperia Z5 could show you:
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Style Portrait
One feature you’re likely to use more than AR Effect is Style Portrait, which allows you to automatically apply styles to selfies you take in real time. For example, if I wanted to see how I looked with red lips, the Xperia Z5 could show me in real time:
What is particularly useful about this mode is that it can detect your facial features and apply styles automatically; when the red lips style is enabled, the Z5 automatically detects your lips and applies the style but when you cover your lips, the style doesn’t show on the image at all. The implementation is certainly clever and useful in certain scenarios.
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4K video
The Xperia Z5 wouldn’t be a flagship without its ability to capture 4K Ultra HD video at 30 frames per second. As covered in our Xperia Z5 review and my first impressions, the Z5 does overheat a little (by approximately 20 degrees) but can record for almost 15 minutes before overheating and closing the camera app.
This is a vast improvement over Sony’s last flagship – the Xperia Z3+ – would overheat almost immediately after you turned on 4K video. The recording time is on par with most other flagship devices and should be more than satisfactory for almost all use cases. Video itself is relatively smooth and audio is good and while the lack of OIS can occasionally result in slightly shaky videos, the video stabiliser does a relatively good job.
Sweep Panorama
The last scene we’re going to consider is the Sweep Panorama mode, which stitches together several images to create a panorama image and is perfect for capturing a wide angle scene. The Z5 asks you to start capturing from the left and move in a rightward direction so it’s worth keeping this in mind if you’re standing in the middle of a scene you want to capture.
As you might as expect, the sweep panorama mode works mostly as described and does a pretty good job of stitching together various images. Colours are accurate and images are mostly full of detail but I did find that it is noticeable where some images have been stitched together.
Oversampling vs full resolution:
A particularly interesting part of the Xperia Z5 camera is the picture size, with Sony stating that the camera is a 23MP sensor but enabling the 8MP oversampling mode by default. Why did Sony do this? Simply put, the Xperia Z5 software isn’t optimised for the full 23MP mode. Instead, Sony have optimised it to take the ‘best’ images in the 8MP mode.
The full res 23MP image
While this is the case in some scenes, the 23MP mode is better in other scenes and as such, you can never be sure which is the best mode to capture in unless you take an image in both sizes. In some cases, the 8MP oversampling mode delivers better colour, better dynamic range and better textures but in others, the full mode takes the better image.
The 8MP oversampled image
Xperia Z5 camera – the wrap up
There you have it – an in-depth look at the various Xperia Z5 camera features and our thoughts on whether to use the oversampling mode or not. There’s no doubt that the Xperia Z5 is one of the most capable smartphones cameras ever produced by Sony and it is definitely impressive but it doesn’t quite hit the heights many have hoped for.
The lack of full controls in the manual mode and the confusion over whether to use the 8MP oversampling mode do somewhat let the camera down but for the most part, the Xperia Z5 takes great picture in good lighting. As covered in our Xperia Z5 review, a drop in lighting results in a drop in quality and for Sony to deliver a camera that is only really good in bright lighting, certainly leaves more to be desired.
What do you think of the Sony Xperia Z5 camera and would you use any of the effects and/or scenes? Let us know your views in the comments below guys and don’t forget to check out our camera shootout including the Xperia Z5, Galaxy Note 5, LG G4 and iPhone 6S.
Sony rolls out first Marshmallow concept build OTA update
Lucky entrants into Sony’s Marshmallow concept build program first managed to lay their hands on the beta operating system, which is based on stock Android, last week. Today, Sony has begun rolling out its first OTA update for the group.
The updated build is numbered MRA58K.Z1.2085 and contains a selection of new features. Tap to wake is now supported, as its MIDI via USB and a new updated keyboard. The OS now also supports higher bit-rate FLAC audio content, which will please the audiophiles out there.
Currently, the Marshmallow Android Concept program is only available to a select number of Xperia Z3 (D6603) and Z3 Compact (D6603) smartphone owners in the following European countries: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Sony hasn’t suggested if or when more countries will be able to join the program, but you can always check out Sony’s app from the Google Play Store to try your luck for an entry ticket into the group.
The update should be hitting devices in the program within the next few days.
AIVAnet 