They laughed, they cried: Sony’s latest movie, Not easily broken, pushes all the right buttons. For Sir Howard Stringer, tasked with turning round the ailing consumer electronics and entertainment giant, Not easily fixed would be more apposite.

Laughs are few. Sony forecast operating profits of $2.2bn for this fiscal year; but Japanese media – often prescient on such matters – reported it would lose $1.1bn. That would be Sony’s first since 1995, and implies an operating loss approaching $2bn in the second half. The red ink need not stop there.