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Sony Probably Going To Do PlayStation 4
Nomura Securities' Yuta Sakurai has been quoted as saying that 'he cannot imagine a PlayStation 4' because of Kaz Hirai's promotion. He sees it as a move (eventually) towards Sega-like software focus. Sony has, of course, immediately denied this because ... they (understandably) like money. From the article: "Following the launch of the PlayStation 3 just a few weeks ago, and witnessing the huge consumer demand for the product, I think it would be rather short-sighted for anyone to predict there might not be a next generation of PlayStation product."
So after keeping up with Sony news on Slashdot, I've learned that on launch they shipped around 150k PS3s and they sold out. I also learned that they lose something like $200-300 per console.
So I guess I figure that they lost around $37 million dollars on that day. So I would imagine that this will look pretty bad on their shareholder report card when their fourth quarter profits for 2006 come out.
Now, they'll make more than that in the future licensing the games. But I doubt they'll make that back before Christmas. So I would suggest holding off on PS4 speculation until the holiday season is over, all the facts are in and the shareholders tell the games division of Sony what to do. In the end, it's not Kaz Hirai or Yuta Sakurai that determine whether or not a PS4 happens, it's the reaction by Wallstreet and the people holding the shares.
My work here is dung.
Its not really a matter of new technology being available. Usually, a console company tries to squeeze 5-6 years out of a console, so that their customers' investment lasts for a while.
The last company that rapid-fire released new consoles and upgrades to try to keep up with the technology curve was Sega, and it basically destroyed their reputation.
4 is an unlucky number in some Asian countries.
No shit sherlock. The PS3 would pretty much have to not sell any units before ruling out the PS4 would seem plausible.
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Well, yes and no
Sony's strategy for making money off of a videogame system is drastically different from Nintendo's strategy. Sony makes money because a lot of third parties sell a ton of games on their systems and Sony gets their licencing fee (cut) out of it; Nintendo on the other hand tends to be the number one developer on their own systems by a large margin so they profit through the sales of their own games. For Sony to be really profitable they need to have a very large chunk of the market share so that third party developers have no choice but to develop every game for the Playstation; if they lost enough marketshare that developers were focusing on another platform they would probably be better off leaving the hardware market.
Personally, I don't know the numbers that would require Sony to leave the console market but I suspect if they sold in the Gamecube/XBox range with the PS3 the PS4 might not happen.
Here's my conspiracy theory.
Sony is very very far behind on its road to being the system with the most boxes in the living room. In less than 2 weeks, Nintendo has already moved about 1.5-3 times (depending on if what figures you look at) as many Wiis as Sony has PS3's. This also doesn't take into consideration the fact that the XBox360 has been firmly engrained in the market for almost a full year. For sony to have had a successful launch they would've needed to at least tied with Nintendo for the amount of consoles shipped. By the way, the Wii goes on sale in Japan and Europe next week, so expect the gap to widen.
Then there's the brewing 3rd party discontent. Let's see: PS2 golden child Grand Theft Auto has gone multi-platform, and was confirmed for the XBox360 before the PS3 version was announced. That's a first. Square-Enix has been slowly having an affair on the side with Nintendo, to the point where they are doing another direct PS2 game sequel on a handheld system (FF12-2, first being Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories), in addition to two confirmed titles on the Wii. Then there's the whole business a few years back about them wanting to revisit and revamp FF7-9 to have FFX or better graphics. Well they just got done with updating 1-6, which have sold pretty well. There's a new untapped market for them to exploit with the Wii. Forget the FFVII PS3 tech demo. They could easily pull off some impressive visuals with the Wii if given the chance. And quite honestly, there's going to be a decent market out there for them to sell remakes to, especially if they get crazy with the wiimote and offer the usual hard-ass bonus dungeon + bonus content that they've been offering. Plus they can still make overly impressive FMV if they so choose. In addition, we have Kojima being less than pleased with the lack of rumble on the Sixaxis, which is something they're dealing with but I don't think he's the sort of designer/director who likes to have his style crimped. Sony needs to find a new golden child / poster boy for their system, or they are going to go no where fast. Sure this is probably over analyzing/extrapolating from an ant hill of problems, but there's no denial that these are the franchises that helped a lot to get the PS2 and PS1 to where they were in previous generations. If I was Sony, I'd be more than a little concerned about dissension in the ranks.
I think I read somewhere that Sony needs to sell about 30 games per console for them to break even on each unit sold. That's an awfully large task considering that most games are going in the $40-60 range. That's a minimum of $1200 per gamer. And as the hardcore audience becomes more hardcore and less diverse in their interests, finding 30 worth buying / must have games in their respective niches is gonna be a tough act to pull off. There's no way for them to catch up at this point. Microsoft will have an XBox360 price drop well ahead of any by Sony, and then there's still the Wii which is well ahead of both their price points. Not to mention the fact that the Wii is already the cheapest to make, Nintendo is actually making a profit on each unit regardless of bought games, so they are in the perfect position to drop the price when they want to and not worry about it, especially since manufacturing costs are going to go down as the process refines itself.
Long story/rant short: Sony faces a monumental uphill struggle at this point.
Insert Sig Here
xXx State of the Union LOST Sony 60 Million. Did that affect their stock? Nope. Their entire movie studio division posted a net loss of some 65 Million for 2005. Did that affect their stock price? Nope. What did shareholders have to say about that? Not a damned thing.
From Sony's site:
At current rates, that's about 64 billion US, with a pre-tax proft of just under 2.5 billion. Do you know how many consoles sold at a $300 loss it would take to make a dent in that? Answer: a lot more than they can make in a quarter.
Dude, you've got to apply some reality to the fantasy. In this case, fantasy loses out. 30 million dollar loss. Not a big deal to a company posting pre-tax profits in the 2.5 billion dollar range. Additionally, they had revenue from the PS3 prior to a single console being sold. Game companies started licensing deals with Sony over a year ago.
Wall Street and shareholders will have no net effective opinion to Sony about the PS3. That is a pro AND con about a company the size of Sony. They can do stuff like the PS3 and not care so much about the shareholders' opinion. Same with MS and the XBOX division which also still loses money on console sales.
You can also look at it anotehr way. One of the deals with the PS3 for Sony is the rapid commoditization of the Cell processor set. While the Gaming division may have funde dmuch of Sony's investment, Gaming will not be the only beneficiary of the Cell. Same is true of the BlueRay component. If you look at strictly Gaming Division numbers, there is likely cause for concern. However, when you factor in the advantages to establishing Blue-Ray as the dominant choice (more licensing), as well as the use of the Cell (and requisite licensing) in computers and multimedia devices as well as who knows where else, Sony would actually be wise to continue this trend. GM, as well as Ford, does the same thing. The C5 Corvette's engine, the LS1, was funded not by the sports car/performance division but by the Truck division. The Truck division moved it's base engine to the LSx design, the Corvette group benefitted. Sony is likely doing this in reverse.
So PS4? Absolutely. The only question is when and what advantages/advancements/improvements over the PS3? Multiple Cells? Large solid state drives instead of spinning hard drives? Obviously they'll keep PS1-3 compatibility, it works so well for them to have that, and to be the ONLY one to say that all prior [platform] games will continue to be usable. Which means it will still had a drive capable of reading them, even if they moved to a non-disc format for some reason. Who knows. I see absolutely nothing to indicate they won't make a PS3 and a PS5.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
I think the key with PS2 was that they ramped into it. Backwards compatibility was key to this, since Playstation was still being supported a good while after the PS2 came out thanks to it. So if you're an early adopter, you get your DVD player and next-gen games. Otherwise, your old Playstation still has games (albeit less than before) comming out for it, and when you finally can afford a PS2, all those games you bought work on it.
Thats why I don't think price is as much of an issue as people think. Yeah, its expensive (and I don't think I want to pay $500 for it right now, we'll see in a couple months when its actually available), but my PS2 probably has at least half a year in it before its hard to find new games for it, and even then I can get discount games. It can last me until the PS3 price drops.
And brand is a really strong factor. The Nintendo empire wasn't destroyed in a day. The real key to Playstation dominence was that they expanded the market, like Nintendo is trying to do right now.