Can Sony Get Its Game Back? Print Preview: Battery, PS3 woes are just the start for the Japanese electronics giant. October 2, 2006 Print Issue Sony just can’t catch a break lately. More and more laptops continue to catch fire and explode due to the company’s faulty batteries, and repeated delays of its PlayStation 3 game console have analysts and gamers in a furor. As a result Sony shares have fallen as much as 39 percent over the past year, leaving the Tokyo-based electronics and entertainment behemoth fighting a public relations war on multiple fronts. The battery problems hit a crescendo in August after Dell recalled 4.1 million Sony lithium batteries after they set several laptops ablaze and made news headlines around the world. Shortly after Dell’s recall, Apple yanked 1.8 million Sony batteries, and Toshiba pulled another 340,000. Even with all the recalls, Sony batteries are still wreaking havoc. Just last week, another Dell laptop went up in flames at a Yahoo office in Silicon Valley. As if negative publicity over its batteries weren’t bad enough, Sony has an even bigger PR challenge in launching its much-anticipated—and much delayed—PS3. Sony pushed back the console’s United States and Japan launch date from last March to November, and now... For the rest of this story subscribe to the digital edition of Red Herring magazine, or pick up the October 2, 2006 copy of Red Herring on newsstands.