I have the same concerns about Sony not having visionaries. The situation with Apple + Jobs was unique. Still, Apple's turnaround shows that stuff like that is possible. Sony has still enough assets they could sell in order to fire up R&D for one last hurrah, win or loose. But as you say, they need a visionary. I'd say it must be an outsider, so no Japanese. Renault-Nissan has done quite well with Carlos Ghosn I'd say, at least to me they look more innovative than most other Japanese brands.
What's so maddening about Sony is that they still hold so many good cards in their hands, they just don't have a game strategy.
It was in the 1990s that Sony was completely dominant in a few markets. Their PlayStation crushed a few upstarts, was probably the reason the then ruling console maker Sega rushed and later abandoned their Dreamcast system, and the PS2 was as much the de-facto console for a whole generation, an unprecedented position.
Their Trinitron TV technology was the envy of pretty much everyone, consumer or competitor, and was an essential component in any tech-savvy household. Well, at least until LCDs took over, and Sony seems to be a second rate player since they don't make their own panels.
Their cameras and video recording equipment were still superior to anything on the market, with Betacam being the unquestioned standard for broadcast video. Then digital pretty much squashed that.
Sony's always been a fighter even when it didn't work out. The MiniDisc was a bust. Their MP3 players never amounted to anything because of their stubborn insistence on some awkward, native encoding format until it was too late to matter. Their MemoryStick was too big, too expensive, just plain too Sony to ever catch on.
Now they're desperate for a hit that isn't coming. The PS4 has zero hope of being the dominant platform, not with Microsoft still committed, with Nintendo nipping at their heels, and Apple positioned to throw their hat in the ring as well.
To fix Sony you'd have to tap into what little cachet they still have left. People like their stuff, their style, their charm. If only you could curtail their obnoxious arrogance and inability to focus on making a few amazing things instead of a whole plethora of junk...
See, I'd like to think of it a bit differently. If you look at the consumer market Sony does separately, none of it really has much growth potential, even worse, most of it is in a dwindling position.
The thing is, Sony is in a bit of a unique position because of their combination of home electronics, game electronics and media. The question they should ask themselves is: What advantage do we have over our contenders when we combine those assets.
What's so maddening about Sony is that they still hold so many good cards in their hands, they just don't have a game strategy.