Either Lasseter or Ross would come to the job with his own story of building a division of the company into a serious profit center.
Sony's film division made a profit, thanks to the success of movies such as Skyfall and Hotel Transylvania.
He saw the work suffer, too the division, which brought in roughly half of the company profit, only won a tiny share of industry awards given for creative work, a key driver for attracting talent.
Since 40% of the company's operating profit (though only 10% of sales) comes from its games division, investors took the news seriously enough to send the company's share price tumbling.
AOL's revenue has been flat, but the division's profit rose 37% in the first six months of the year.
Put it all together and Dell makes 38% of its gross profit in the consumer and small business division from "nonsystem revenues, " up from 31% a year ago.
The Scottish beer division's operating profit increased by 20% in the first half of the financial year, on a 7% rise in revenues.
Last year was no different: its financial arm earned a profit of Y149bn, three times more than the next most profitable division, its US-based film studio.
Forty of Sony's top executives, including Kazuo Hirai, the chief executive since last year, are to give up bonuses worth 30-50 per cent of their pay after they failed to keep a promise to return the division to profit.
The division posted y-o-y growth of 27% in revenue and 58% in operating profit in the second quarter of 2012.
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Its biosciences division, which develops research systems for the pharmaceutical industry, contributes 42% of revenue and 23% of the profit.
The investment banking division, which is the motor of the group's business, posted a 57% decline in pre-tax profit to 447m euros in the final quarter, thanks to a sagging demand for debt products.
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