PlayStation 3 May Play Too Much

Businessweek has a piece looking at the PlayStation 3, worrying that Sony is confusing the consumer with all of the technology it's trying to work into the console. From the article: "Some question whether Sony is trying to cram too much into the new box. The PS3 is expected to cost $350 to $400. While it has the potential to be a megahit, Sony's message might get muddled in the process of going after too broad a market, says Deutsche Securities analyst Takashi Oya. 'It would be difficult to sell PS3 initially as anything other than a game machine,' Oya says. Sony declined to comment on such concerns."

Comments

It'll grow into itself.

[Raven42rac]

Much like buying a child a shoe that is a half size bigger, the PS3 will grow into itself. There's no such thing as "too much" on a gaming console. The more you can do with it, the better.

Re:It'll grow into itself.

[engagebot]

No, there's definitely a such thing as 'too much' on a gaming console.

Remember the Dreamcast? Dial-up modem, the whole thing. It tried to do too much at the time, before the consumers were ready for it.

I don't care if blue ray IS the next big thing. Its not the big enough thing now to get the word out that the PS3 is more than a game machine.

Re:It'll grow into itself.

[engagebot]

The 'rampant success' of the PSP you speak of is nothing on the scale of what they're trying to accomplish. PSP may be big to you. Personally, i know two people that have them, and they're kids (relatively).

If they're gonna get on in every living room, marketeing it as the next gen HD movie format, they're gonna have to sell it to my mom and dad too. I don't know anybody's mom and dad that watch movies on their PSP. You see the difference in scale i'm talking about?

Re:It'll grow into itself.

[CastrTroy]

The PSP isn't as popular as any of it's game boy cousins, which only do 1 thing. The iPod is way more popular than any of those PDAs which cost about the same amount, and have way more functionality. Often, people would rather buy multiple devices that do one thing well than buy 1 item that does everything. Why do people own toasters when you can toast your bread in the oven?

Re:It'll grow into itself.

[Threni]

> Remember the Dreamcast? Dial-up modem, the whole thing. It tried to do too much at the time,
> before the consumers were ready for it.

The Dreamcast was nothing special. I know there are always a few people who say "No, I liked $game" but it just didn't inspire people to buy it. But they certainly didn't fail to buy it because they were afraid it would do too much.

There's "costs too much". The PS3 might do alot of stuff, but the problem at the mo with Xboxs and the like is that they only really add `playing games` to a list of things which you can already do on a £30/$50 DVD, but they charge ten times the cost of that DVD player to do it. Unless you're a hardened gamer, or very well off, that's just really terrible value for money.

Re:It'll grow into itself.

[BewireNomali]

PSP's success isn't rampant. Game Boy's success is rampant.

People don't want to be able to do everything with one device. The Treo isn't a rampant success; it's just successful relative to other devices that try to combine multiple functions. And the Treo isn't that good of a device.

I'll give you a poor analogy - I work in film, and film meetings go like this: "This is a great idea, but we need to dumb it down." The intelligence benchmark used by the film industry is a 12 year old boy. This isn't to say that they gear products toward 12-year old boys (although they do) but to say they assume the avarage audience, regardless of age or demographic, to be that smart. Why? Because people hate feeling that they're not smart - or that there's something going on behind the curtain they can't comprehend. The worst thing that happens with a dumbed down film is that people figure everything out (and feel good about themselves for doing so). In this instance, the industry did its job in serving up an opiate. Hence IPOD - one wheel - anyone can use it. Hence the dumbest movies making the most money. Most people would rather something banal and predictable because it affirms them, rather than something that does not.

To conclude, you do not want a device that does all things. Complex technology often reminds people that they know little to knowing of tech. It smacks of purposeful obscurity (I've witnessed marketing tests where test subjects get mad, bang the unit on the table like an ape, then complain that the designers don't want the working man using their products). Nintendo is right in that most people don't play games because the user interface looks intimidating from the outside in (You have to step into the shoes of someone unfamiliar with tech and just sees a bunch of buttons). Sony is in a can't lose situation - the PS installation is so huge, all they have to do is shut up about the device and deliver it soon before really good games start coming out for the 360. The only way they lose is if they self destruct. They've already started down the path.

Standard in films is that the classic hero doesn't do much talking. Why? Talking is considered weakness in films - most people talk not to convey something, but to hide something else. Sony is doing a lot of TALKING RIGHT NOW. People are justifiably nervous.

Re:It'll grow into itself.

[Antifuse]

Hrmm... I don't really think the reason the Dreamcast failed was because it "did too much". Dreamcast was a great platform with some great games, but Sega did basically dick all to promote it. Add in the fact that 3rd party developers like EA didn't hop on board (love em or hate em, if you don't have EA on your platform it's going to be a lot harder to get the frat boys to jump on the bandwagon) and suddenly you are looking at a console flop.

Re:It'll grow into itself.

[soft_guy]

One of the main reasons that people (including myself I must say) bought the PlayStation 2 when it first came out was because of the fact that it could play DVD movies. At the time a DVD player was almost as much as a PS2 ($400.00). It seemed like a good deal to me at the time partially because of this.

I think the same could happen with Blue Ray.

Re:It'll grow into itself.

[Lobster Cowboy]

I think this is the main problem with games today. We're stuck trying to appease adolescent males, and I think the ideas have run out. For the love of god, no more midless war games, shitty first person shooters, and games with pointless displays of scantily clad women.

Now I'm not saying those games don't have a place in the industry. My problem is that they ARE the industry. While I'm not even sure I want a next-gen console, at least Nintendo's Revolution gives off the _appearance_ of trying something different.

Re:It'll grow into itself.

[hackstraw]

Remember the Dreamcast? Dial-up modem, the whole thing. It tried to do too much at the time, before the consumers were ready for it.

Remember the Apple Newton, the TiVo, and plenty of other things that came to market before their time??

The thing is that the Playstation has a following for game developers and gamers. So long as it has good playable games it will do fine. If the other features work as advertised (or better), then that is icing on the cake. Only a few of us /. geeks would ever buy a Playstation or an Xbox with the intention to do things besides games. Believe it or not, we are not like the majority of the human population.

If it works well with slideshows of pictures from a digital camera, and works well with HTPC kind of stuff, then that is only free advertising to sell more of these boxes. If it sucks at playing games, no matter how good the extra stuff is, it will fail. If they are able to pull off all of the extra bells and whistles, I see no problem with it selling or confusing the user, and it will only be an extra plus to the system in general.

I don't even play video games, and I'm planning on buying the 2nd rev of the PS3 when it comes out. The graphics and capabilities of the thing seem amazing, and who knows, maybe I'll learn how to play a game or two.

Is this guy joking or what ?

[tibike77]

Hmm... "It would be difficult to sell PS3 initially as anything other than a game machine" ?
So what if ? No, wait... better: does anybody even expect to buy it as anything else than a gaming rig in the first place ?

XBox360, between 300 and 400. Games. Plus some other stuff.
PS3, between 350 and 400. Games. Plus some other stuff.
No idea on Nintendo.
Barebones but decent PC (plus cheap monitor or TVout capable), between 400 and 600. Trivial stuff. Plus some older games.
Reality check for PS3 ? Checked.

People who buy the PS3 will buy it *primarily* for the games ANYWAY.
They MIGHT use it for something else too, but at a price tag comparable to any other decent alternative, what's the harm ?
If anything (*shock*), people who didn't plan on buying it for games might actually buy the console.

Will PS3 games sales plummet because of that ?
If you look at it from a games sold per unit of console sold, then yes, that might go down.
But as an absolute number of expected sales... I really, really doubt a significant decline, no matter what anybody else might say.

Too Broad A Market?

[ivan kk]

People won't adopt it because it has too many features?
Who comes up with ideas like that. If anything more features will drive more sales. Don't need to buy a blu-ray player, the ps3 will do it, along with movies and music.
Both Sony and Microsoft are trying to put a media pc in our lounge rooms, and they're free to compete for my dollar.

Confuse the consumer? Do too much?

[bilbravo]

People know what a Playstation does... it plays games! If it does more than that, great. Don't underestimate the consumer! People are anticipating this release, and just because it does movies, internet, PVR (does it?), washes the dishes and takes the dog for a walk... well, that isn't going to change the fact that Gran Turismo 5 and Grant Theft Auto are going to be played on it--consumers won't forget that!

This is how it works

[thefirelane]

says Deutsche Securities analyst

This is how it works when you are an analyst: Make anything sound negative. Either it has too little features, or then it has too many. Never is anything just right, or well done.

That way, if it fails, you can say "See, I called it". If it succeeds, you say it did so in spite of those shortcomings. That's how it works.

PSP = Bad Comparison

[bitkari]

from tfa: If consumers buy the PS3 as a multimedia machine, they might not purchase as many video games...

since the PSP also plays music and movies, fewer people are buying games designed for it. In the PS2's initial

year on the market, players bought more than three games for each machine that was shipped. For the PSP, that

ratio slipped to 2 to 1.

I suspect that the reason for this was not the fact that the PSP can play music and movies, but the fact that

(and I'm bracing for the karma burn here) the PSP simply hasn't released enough quality games.

Sure, there are some good titles, but nowhere near enough of the quality and variety needed to really push the

PSP platform.

As long as the PS3 manages to maintain a game catalog akin to that of the PS2, it should do well. Having a slew

of additional features should not harm sales, as long as the games are there in force.

In other news...

[Last_Available_Usern]

Chrysler announces it's latest offering of cars will not come with air conditioning or a back seat amongst other features. They are quoted as saying they want to focus on the "driving experience" only for now. They fear some potential buyers might be scared off by the superfluous features.

Re:In other news...

[Slightly Askew]

Laugh if you want, but there are some high end sports cars that do not come with a radio, back seat, automatic transmission, air conditioning, and many other "features". And yes, the purpose is to enhance the driving experience, whether by making room for more power or forcing the user to concentrate on the driving, not the radio/cell phone/passengers.

I use my PS2 for 3 things

[bhunachchicken]

1. Playing PS2 games
2. Playing PS1 games
3. Watching Movies

Hopefully I will use my PS3 for 4 things

1. Playing PS3 games
2. Playing PS2 games
3. Playing PS1 games
4. Watching Movies

Lots of options have really hurt PC sales...

[PFI_Optix]

Consumers don't want to be confused by products who do more than one thing. Just look at the abysmal PC market (including Macs). I mean, once people find out that these things surf the internet AND send e-mail AND play music AND play movies AND play games AND store/edit images AND let them store all the information they can think to store, they'll run screaming to the other side of the store and buy a notepad, ledger, calculator, typewriter, DVD player, WebTV console, CD player, and game console. These computer things will never catch on.