Yuri Kageyama for AP:

 Sony’s leader promised a comeback for the Japanese electronics and entertainment company having its best profitability in two decades.

But he said he cannot give away details of products in the works such as those using artificial intelligence or the “internet of things,” or IoT, technology. 

Yuri’s piece is titled

 Sony chief promises profitability, but is short on specifics 

which seems a bit disingenuous. No matter if it’s Kaz Hirai or Tim Cook taking to stage or in this case, at company HQ with reporters, I don’t know of a single CEO that’s ever going to give specifics about what’s to come. Instead, we get comments like this from Tim Cook in 2014

 I think the wrist is interesting. The wrist is natural. 

which then led to Apple Watch. As for Kaz, it’s quite clear with products like Xperia Ear, Xperia Touch, and Nigel, their voice assistant alongside their Qrio Lock is where the company sees their product strategy going and that’s about as much of a hint as any CEO will ever give.

I’m usually the first to call out Sony but this is not one of those cases. What I will call out Kaz on is his quote

 We are a company that moves people 

Outside of PlayStation, I don’t know of any Sony products that people have any kind of loyalty to anymore. Make no mistake, they used to, but all that goodwill for Sony Electronics has eroded in the past decade.

 He stressed the profitability in sprawling Sony Corp., including its lucrative PlayStation video-game business, which just came out with a popular virtual-reality headset.

Hirai also told reporters another important area is Sony’s TV sector, which has been in the black for the last few years, after losing money for a decade. 

He also said profits will be improved in smartphones and movies.

PlayStation is a continued winner for Sony, which isn’t news. As for TVs and smartphones, it remains to be seen. Kaz has done a lot for each division, which is to dramatically reduce cost and overhead. In turn, this has made each division profitable, albeit on a very small scale. Now the challenge he faces is to bring any form of growth. After all, you can only cut so much before there’s nothing left besides overhead, and Sony is now at that point.

With a beautiful OLED TV and an excellent lineup of TVs, perhaps Sony can drive some sales momentum for TVs but mobile will be a much bigger challenge for them. Frankly I’m not sure Sony has the R&D budget or talent to keep pace with its peers, namely Apple and Samsung.

 Sony’s woes have stemmed from having so many diverse areas it has been almost impossible to do well across the board.

When questioned how profitability will be gained in the movies division, Hirai said he hoped to get a hit by working with creators with a good “batting average,” and take advantage of hit content it already has, such as the “Spider-Man” series. 

This following bit is purely from the perspective of a fan and has little business sense but so far, it’s unclear if future Spider-Man movies will take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it’s highly believed the newly announced Venom and Silver Sable/Black Cat movie will also not exist in the MCU. If true, I hope Disney buys Sony Pictures, only to take back their Marvel characters and puts them right back up for sale because it’s that kind of boneheaded, money-grabbing mindset that drives studios into the ground.

If that’s how Sony thinks its going to get their movie studio up and running again, it’s quite clear that they have little to no understanding of how the movie landscape, particularly with comics, has shifted. Venom and Black Cat do no work without Spider-Man and no one wants a small universe of heroes anymore.

Do you think IoT is something that Sony can find an audience and, in turn, success with?