4d ago

Companies (Sony) rising prices globally to cushion US prices

www.reuters.com

reuters.com

Should we also boycott companies that basically do what Trump wants by making other nations pay the US tariffs? E.g. in the link you can read about Sony (Japan) and Xbox (Microsoft - US). I know Microsoft is already American, but it is another major manufacturer that is hiking prices globally.

Those are so far few companies, but I read that some clothing brands and even food markets are discussing about this option.

What do you think?

Late Stage Capitalism @lemmy.world

RockBottom @feddit.org

4d ago

Companies (Sony) rising prices globally to cushion US prices

www.reuters.com /business/xbox-joins-playstation-hiking-console-prices-amid-us-tariff-pressures-2025-05-01/

36 comments

Yup, as much as possible.
Basically "the US is hitting us hard, so we'll instead hit other countries in order to appease to US consumers". To me they're contributors to the problem, plain and simple.
- Bye bye, Sony!
- They fear a decrease of revenue in the US market and thus raise prices across the board for everyone else. Number must go up, that's capitalism for you: a giant game of real-life cookie clicker. It has nothing to do with appeasing US customers, those companies don't care about their customers.

IMO you're aiming your ire at the wrong target. This is what happens when major economies apply tarrifs to components used in retail products that ship globally.
They're not doing it to "appease Americans", they're doing it to protect their bottom line. Blame capitalism. Blame "fiduciary responsibility". Blame Trump. But the execs at these companies don't really have a choice here.
It works like this:
Tarrifs, if passed only to US consumers, would raise the price of the product by, let's say, 30%
A bean counter determined that the loss of revenue from decreased sales in the US with that kind of price hike would be more than the loss of revenue if they spread the cost across the globe.
In other words, the math looks something like (US-sales@130% + Global-sales@100%) < (US-sales@115% + Global-sales@115%)
Fiduciary responsibility forces leadership to do whatever is best for their bottom line, or they risk being ousted AND sued by shareholders for failing to act in their best interests
Now that they know which approach is more profitable, their hands are tied unless they can make a REALLY compelling case why taking a big loss now will create a bigger win later (which is extremely hard to do in this kind of situation)
The whole system fucking sucks. It's grotesque. But that's what's going on here. Not some "oh no don't anger the Americans" politicking.
It's about dollars. It's always about dollars. And multiple countries have literally written laws to force publicly traded companies to maximize dollars for shareholders.
I don't say all this as some argument for buying Xbox/Sony products. I simply want to point out that the problem here is the system itself, because even if Sony or Microsoft were to drop out of the business tomorrow, the next publicly traded company to fill the void would do the exact same thing.
And there are plenty of other problems with privately owned businesses.
Pick your poison 🤷
- You make a great argument for boycotting Sony. If enough people in Europe stop buying their products, that equation will flip and Sony will change course.
  
  A boycott will not be universally supported and the lack of popularity of this move among the customer base is sure to be factored into the price adjustments. Avoid by all means but I'm skeptical of the impact such actions would have.
  
  The loss of your revenue has already been factored into the decision. They know some people will think and act as you do. It's just a question of how many.
  Maybe you can get enough people to move the needle, I guess. But I'm pretty sure they have a pretty good grasp on how the silent majority will behave
- Your argument actually supports a boycott. We have to make it more expensive for companies to spread price hikes around than to hit the US exclusively.
  
  As I said elsewhere, there is no doubt that any attempted 'boycott' has already been factored into their calculations.
  If you can shatter their predictions, good on you. But I'm not holding my breath
- As a consumer it’s becomes an easy choice for me though. I’ll choose the company not hurting other economies. Instead of my dollar going to Sony, it goes to a Samsung. If more people do this, Sonys prices will quickly decrease.
  But I agree with on the rest of your statement.
- The overview is nice, but in the end we are trying to balance back what the bean counter said back into the original situation.
- Yeah. I'd bet they are even making some extra money off this adjustment, rather than losing. It's not about Trump, it's about capitalism.

American here. I'm good not buying things for the next 4 years. I have enough things.
- I wish more people felt like this (any nationality really).
- Except, you know, food...
  
  Buy local as much as you can.
  
  Looks like I’m going fishing.
- As if the economy will magically fix itself in four years. It’s going to be a lot longer than 4 years so I hope you’re stocked up.

Right on time for my yearly ps plus subscription to expire.
- Don't forget to cancell it. They usually do this thing, where it renews automatically.

The surprising thing is that we hear about it. Price setting strategies tend to be black boxes for outsiders.
The buyers should start demanding more things that piss off MAGA, like diversity in game characters and stories, and more i18n.
- I think announcing it is part of the strategy to make consumers expect higher prices.

Just buy good value at low price. This rule has always applied.
If they raise their price, welcome an alternative

Was about to buy a pair of their earbuds. Normally I have Bose stuff but of course they’re American so it was going to be Sony.
Now, Cambridge Audio will get the money.

Because that's what heroes do. Thanks sony...
- They're beholden to nothing but their bottom line.

Both japan and south korea are occupied by the US and act for the interests of the US, so yes absolutely boycott them.

Boycott and pirate whenever possible.

For now my plan is to just buy Chinese as much as possible.

Thinking back I’ve basically already been doing that “accidentally” by buying all my games second hand 😆

They will lose international business if they actually do it. So they won't do it. So they are lying... This is really obvious, right? It's basic economics. If they raise prices and their competitors don't then their competitors will win.
Of course that's not true for businesses that have monopolies, but not so many businesses have solid global monopolies.
- Sure, but this was officially announced, and it seems Nintendo is also thinking about it, so basically 3 pout of 4 consoles on the market. Its like phone operators, if one increase prices, the others do not see it as an edge to keep their prices, rather they also increase prices, because money. They are basically cartels, but a tacit one.

36 comments