Sony Suggests It Could Move PlayStation Manufacturing To United States In Response To President Trump's Tariffs
Sony CEO and President Hiroki Totoki signaled that the company might move PlayStation manufacturing to the United States in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
During the company’s most recent earnings call, Totoki was asked if the company had plans to move manufacturing to the United States.
According to Sony’s English translator, he responded, “Yes, producing manufacturing locally: Rather than saying for the entertainment segment, I want to look at it from the hardware segment and the software segment. In entertainment gaming like consoles these hardware, of course, can be produced locally, I think that would be an efficient strategy. But PlayStation 5 are being manufactured in many areas. Whether it is going to be manufactured in the U.S. or not it needs to be considered going forward. We are not in such a critical situation.”
As part of the same answer, Totoki also addressed President Trump’s recent announcement that he would tariff films produced outside the United States by 100%, “In the entertainment segment, especially content creation, recently in the movies, Mr. Trump is saying that he’s going to have a 100% tariff on films which are not produced, made in the United States. That was announced. But that is still pending apparently. So these are some of the movements we need to consider.
“Regarding entertainment, if you take films, pictures, for example, of course, locations are being made in various areas and it is all put together as a story and there are pictures that are filmed outside of the U.S. because the Hollywood cost has gone up, skyrocketed. So it’s not so much a U.S. problem, but rather it’s an issue specific to the state of California. So as far as contents, we don’t know how it will evolve. So we are paying close attention to the trends,” he concluded.
While Totoki indicated that it might move PlayStation manufacturing to the United States in response to the tariffs, in the short term Sony Chief Financial Officer Lin Tao suggested that it would increase the price of its PlayStation 5s.
She said, “We may pass on to the price and also shipment allocation. So we are taking different measures in managing to come up to the 100 billion yen impact.”
What do you make of Totoki and Tao’s comments?
It's almost like this was the purpose of the tariffs.
Ugh. The only problem with that is the ongoing cultural struggle between Sony Japan and Sony America (moral vs degenerate).
I hope this doesn't mean Sony America is getting any life breathed into it.