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Sony Exec Says Luxury Could Be PS3's Downfall
Via Next Generation, an interview with CEO of Sony Corporation Sir Howard Stringer on the site CEO Exchange. In the piece they report that Stringer has gone on record as saying the PS3's price may be its downfall. This is the first indication we've had from Sony's upper management that the console's price may just be too high. "Wii is a wonderful device, but has a different target audience. If we fail, it is because we positioned PS3 as the Mercedes of the videogame field. PS3 is after a different audience and it can be whatever it wants -- a home server, game device, even a computer." Relatedly, a Goldmann Sachs analyst has opined that a PS3 price cut could come this year. Assuming they drop the price by $100 or more, this might blunt the objections many have to the console's lofty pricetag.
They are saying they made a console that costs way more than anyone wants to pay...
If it's dead, you killed it.
Ah, yes, the luxury of playing PS2 games. And a couple of decent PS3 games, too.
Oh, and the luxury of playing Blu-Ray discs, which most people don't care about. I want a game system to play games, not movies and other "luxury" media.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The word "duh" comes to mind ...
I don't think that anyone here will doubt that they would have bought (or be considering buying) a PS3 if they had sold it for $300.
The important question is what will happen to Phil Harison and Ken Kuratagi if (in my opinion "when") the PS3 fails to sell 25 Million consoles worldwide?
If Sony does a price cut I expect MS to do the same. And the rate at which sony loses money per console can they afford a big enough price cut?
Despite it's many problems (I myself have had to return only one 360...second one is 8 months younga nd going strong) I would MUCH rather take the 360 over the PS3.
It's not because I prefer Microsoft over Sony. It's not because I'm a fanboy loyal to one console or another...it's for one simple reason:
Games. The fucking games. Look at the games slated for the 360 this year...look at the games slated for PS3 this year.
Yeah. I'll be keeping my 360 and use that 600 bucks to help build a solid base for a new comp when Spore comes out.
Living With a Nerd
I believe he was referring to as far as HD media is concerned. In other words, it is not available on HD-DVD.
They designed a game machine with an awesome cutting-edge processor, a high-capacity next-gen optical storage, and bottled it up behind a mediocre graphics card. Thus it will never dominate over the cheaper XBox 360 in the screenshot wars. OOPS!
They're not. They want the huge market share they had with the PS2. In fact, they seem to regard it as their birthright. I think they're genuinely shocked that a huge chunk of the PS2 fans didn't just come rushing with $600 in hand.
Bad for them, good for consumers. We need some good competition.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"But we couldn't get our people to understand software. And we are a music company. They saw digital media, panicked and didn't like it." In the end Sony designed a closed music system that didn't work.
Ever one to promote the Blu-ray, Stringer also manages to point out Blu-Ray's 3-to-1 sell over HD-DVD, calling HD-DVD a "transition tech." One might see their blu-ray interests as having a hand in helping the decision to make the PS3 a luxury item, but the CEO doesn't mention any thing about the $600 stand-alone blu-ray player Sony is releasing this summer. This of course really means they wanted a luxury item, not just a trojan tech carrier.
Finally, I think I can see in the article the closest reasoning to why the PS3 is a Sony-tech catch all device: "Each product category was its own 'silo.' PlayStation was a silo. All the divisions were in their own little worlds. There was no sharing of information between these divisions and little acknowledgement of software." What he did was to try and break down the silos with a program called "Sony United,."
It sounds to me like Stringer's decision here could have atleast influenced the PS3 development decision. In a company that tries to engineer superior technology products, perhaps a good degree of separation is necessary to prevent the expensive bloating of some endevors.
Demented But Determined.
A Wii is £179.97 at Tescos, and comes with a bundled game (Wii Sports). Add £194.97 for a Xbox 360 core system and you get a number that may appear to you to be £484.99, but those of us with more of a grip on reality can see is actually £374.94
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I can't imagine that PCs and consoles will unite at any point. There are too many variables with PCs. I have a Wii. I know that if I buy a Wii game, it will perform the same as it does on somebody else's Wii. I don't have to worry about video cards, ram, etc. impacting performance. These variables are one of the reasons I strongly prefer console gaming over PC gaming.
Of course, we all know what happened the last time someone was this blind.
Yeah, he got re-elected President.
Trying to compare video game consoles to cars just doesn't work out. Trying to sell a video game console like it was some super-high priced luxury/sports car(Mercedes, Bentley, or anything namedropped on Top Gear) is doomed to fail. Whether it's a beater or a Veyron, they get you from point A to B. Video game consoles have many more factors, like oh, I dunno, games to play on it? If we compare console titles to roads, there seems to be quite a few more roads the Xbox 360 than there is on the PS3 railway system. The loss of exclusive games(which is increasing by the week it seems) is just going to steer "I'll buy this console just to play this game" people away.
:)
Trying to sell a video game console at a premium price, hyping it is a Bentley doesn't work when there's so few titles available for it. I don't remember it happening successfully before.
So, how long before I can buy a PS3 at the thrift store?
the PS3 is not even close to as expensive as the Neo Geo once you adjust for inflation. The Neo Geo came out for $650 in 1990. That's about $1020 in modern dollars.
Except that this doesn't work, because the price of consumer electronics doesn't increase along with inflation. With consoles, people have become accustomed to paying pretty much the same price every generation regardless of inflation, and getting better and better hardware for that same price. (You may recall that the 360's $400 was initially considered an awful lot of money, though people seem to be getting accustomed to it now -- even though, correcting backwards for inflation, that's quite a cheap price for such a powerful console.) So, if you go back and correct for inflation, yes, the Neo Geo is far more than the PS3. If you look at its price relative to its competitors, though, the comparison becomes more reasonable again...
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