Slashdot Mirror
Sony Open to Considering PS3 Price Cuts
njkid1 writes with word that Sony is considering dropping the PS3's price. The Mercury news reports that Sony Senior Vice President Takao Yuhara has admitted they are investigating whether to drop the PlayStation 3 in price around the world, despite statements previously made that the 'lower' PS3 price in Japan is hurting Sony's bottom line. Profits for the company slipped some five percent in the October-December period, and the shortfall expected through March could be even worse than previously predicted. The article points out the possibly risky nature of a price cut for such an expensive item so early in its lifespan, and notes the stiff competition from the Xbox 360 and the Wii.
But why would I buy a PS3 when the demo units at the stores are usually frozen and the demo game is unimpressive? There are better places to blow your money.
As much as I hate to say it, Sony has no chance, and the fact that they have to do a price drop on their console this early in its lifespan especially when they're taking a huge loss on it already, proves it.
The Wii is selling like hotcakes and the PS3 is already requiring a price drop.
Anyone else betting that Sony learns nothing from this?
They seriously need to figure out that, when someone buys a game system, we want to PLAY GAMES ON IT. We don't need to watch movies, listen to MP3s, view images, surf the web, do our dishes, and drive to work using the same machine.
Sony Corp. will reach only 75% of its global target for PlayStation 3 sales this fiscal year through March, according to a Nomura report released 15th Jan.
They originally planned 6 mil, adjusted to 4.5 mil now. more...
Enough with this PS3 talk. The numbers show the consumers don't care, and there are more interesting things to talk about on /.
That is at least until the (unlikely) event that the non-fanboi consumer starts getting interested in Sony's nexgen child.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
instead of having no sale. The real money is in the games and add-ons after they sell the console. Sure it might hurt them more near term, but not getting into the living room will cost them more down the road.
of course since you can still buy PS2s many might opt that route if they don't like WII or XBOX360
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
By announcing that they're considering a price drop - they'll kill sales for a while. Anyone considering buying a PS/3 will hold off till after the price drop. Except for people who MUST have one now. Given the dearth of launch titles and the slackening of demand - those folks already have a PS/3.
Now they have to drop prices and quickly.
[Insert pithy quote here]
"getting a great deal" is subjective.
Millionares think 900,000 dollars for a home is a great deal, whereas mr. and mrs. joe shmo can think 500 bucks a month for a one room apartment is a great deal.
Unless you have a burning desire to have blu-ray in your home, there really is no good reason beyond a personal opinion to spend 600 dollars on a PS3. the 360 has the same graphics (in some cases, better) and still uses "old" dual-layer dvd technology.
Had sony stayed out of the media market (which they have failed in time after time after time) and just stuck with what works, they would be in a much better position.
Living With a Nerd
Yes. In titles without the image constraint token, the resolution far exceeds that of DVD-Video in both luma and chroma. Even with the image constraint token, the chroma resolution is double that of DVD-Video in each dimension. The major American movie studios that have adopted Blu-ray Disc have agreed not to use the image constraint token for the first few years of releases. But whether Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney, and Fox use the image constraint token in future Blu-ray Disc titles is not Sony's to control.
I probably sound quite bitter, but I hope they don't do it. I _want_ them to get thoroughly boned for their rampant anti-consumer bahavior. Yes, I'm still pissed about rookits, yes, I'm still pissed about fake advertisements. Peoples memories are too damn short, and companies have been getting exploiting that fact for too long. Nothing beats a good financial thrashing for keeping corporations honest.
In America at least, we by nature forgive and forget. IANAL, but only when we feel we've been "made whole" does this occur. That the transgression before us has been repaired to our satisfaction.
Take Coke. We were told by the company that their newest was the greatest shit on earth and all other colas might as well pack it in. They even took away Coke. The Coke we all knew and loved. A Coke that all they had to do was not fuck it up.
And they fucked it up.
And there was outrage. More importantly, there were no sales of this New Coke. Yet people as I recall were selling two liters of old, or Classic Coke for hundreds of dollars.
And they saw this outrage and maybe cared, maybe not. But they saw the sales in those markets. And their New Coke had a short, painful life, and a quiet death. I don't even know if they promoted when the sliver stripe on the cans disappeared and Classic Coke was just Coke again.
Because they could. Because THEIR product does not have to evolve and is unique within their domain. They were smart enough, God help me, to realize that they had a great product in their domain, and their customers were willing to fight for it; all they had to do is not fuck it up.
THEY could say they fucked up, go back to the Classic taste we all loved, and sure, even drop the price if they wanted to to sweeten the deal a little, slight pun intended. And we would forgive them because they made us whole, we had our Coke again and the world was right.
Their product allowed for a fuck up of such massive proportions. A gig in management there must be sweet.
Sony assumes that the BRANDNAME "Playstation" carries all the attributes of a Classic Coke. No. Their product does have to evolve and becomes less and less unique by the day. They cannot just apologize, with their tails between their legs go back to what they had, drop the price a little, and make us all whole and happy with their product again.
Sony must make their "New Coke" fly.....and now they must try to repair the injury to their fans and make them whole again. A price drop alone cannot accomplish this, I wonder if anything they do really can. I wish them luck but I'm betting this will be another how not to succeed example in business classes across the globe in a few years.
To be quite honest, selling the PS3 hurts the bottom line more than not selling right now. The last estimate I heard was that 30 software titles or accessories must be sold per system to break even (on the 60GB). This would require purchasing every single title currently available, three extra controllers, and a dozen Blu-Ray movies.
While the long-term view says that they need to sell as many PS3s as possible before the 360 runs away with the game, there is a need to see production costs come down to prevent very substantial financial loss.
Personally, I think that Sony is in serious trouble this year. There are so many very highly anticipated titles coming for the 360 that will almost certainly be system sellers (Halo 3 being the ultimate), and so few coming this year for the PS3. If it takes another year for a system-selling title to come out on PS3, Sony might not even be able to get close to the market share of the 360.
(I don't consider the Wii to be a direct competitor, as it will almost certainly be the #1 selling system by the end of the year. However, for many people it will be a second system. For blockbuster games, the 360 and PS3 are the competitors.)
They do though! But they planned much better for it.
The Cell processor uses 7 cores, but each one has 8 physical cores on it.
The reason for this is that they expect a roughly 1 in 8 failure rate of the cores (or close to it). By having 8 cores, many chip yields will have one bad core, but it's okay. They test them, disable the bad core, and ship the chip with the dead portion disabled.
When they happen to have a good chip with all cores good, it'e either used for other applications, or it has a random core disabled anyway and goes into a ps3.
When there's more than one core dead, I'm not sure what they do. I'd guess they either scrap it, or use it in less demanding applications.
It's a somewhat clever model. But it makes me wonder if they're releasing chips with cores that might me marginal into the market.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Someone mentioned a huge throbbing joke in there somewhere, but I'm boned if I can find it.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Sony has done absolutely *nothing* right this generation. They're too late, with technology to match their intended launch date of last year. They threw in a GPU too late to the game because they thought their wonderfull cell processor would make a powerfull enough GPU. The cell is nice in theory, but there's too many restrictions and memory-wrangling in practice. They're up against the 360, with a 10+ million installed base, second-gen games, and a lower price point - Oh and Halo 3 is due out this holiday season or there about. They're up against the Wii at less than half the price, and cheaper games they can't match on innovation. The launch catalog was anemic with no real stand-outs, and there's nothing big on the radar except MGS4. They're losing exclusive third-party titles left and right to the 360.
Devs are comfortable on their competitors' machines - The Wii is just a faster gamecube (literally) with a neat controller, and while the 360 is relatively complex they've got wonderful top-notch tools to support development and an architecture thats doesn't have a split memory model or hobbled assymetric CPU.
Despite the high price, they're loosing about $175 - $225 per unit (depending on the model) while their competotors' machines are already profitable hardware. Nintendo has never sold an unprofitable machine, and right now, Microsoft could give consumers a $50 price drop and take each new owner out to lunch before they would go back into the red.
Mark my words -- If the earth doesn't shake for Sony real soon they'll be a distant third this time around, and may be foreced to drop from the race early or even for good, and if Sony's game division fails its going to make a huge hit on the entire company's bottom line.
They're arrogant over an overpriced architecture that hurts more than it helps, all in the name of pushing their BluRay format.
Sony will be Japan's General Motors.
Like GM is to the US, Sony is the poster child of Japan's industrial growth -- and in ten years
they will be in a desperate struggle for survival.
Think that's too grim?
Watch.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
The original Xbox dropped $100 5 months after its launch, 1 day after Sony dropped $100 from the price of the PS2 (both down to $199). Let's hope one of them budges and history repeats itself, because I am really interested in Gears of War and Crackdown, and the triumphant return of co-op play.
I had an xbox, but it caught my house on fire. so I got another one, but it cracked open and spilled battery acid on mom's new rug.
then I got another one, and it broke the TV, make the cat crazy and insulted my parakeet.
and it doesn't even have blue-ray