Sony Looks to 'Refine' PS3 Price

Via GameDaily a Financial Times interview with with Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's CEO, gives fans the first hope that price cuts may be coming soon. Lauding the Wii's performance in last month's NPD numbers, Stringer says that Sony is looking to 'refine' the PS3's pricepoint. "'Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise, and a very good business model, compared with ours . . . because it's cheaper,' Mr Stringer said in a video interview. 'That [price cuts] is what we are studying at the moment. That's what we are trying to refine.' Sir Howard said he expected 'energy [in PS3 sales] by Christmas, and then you will begin to see break-out games'. Sony is launching a virtual-world game called Home this year, and up to 30 other games."

Comments

It Needs "Refined"...

[morari]

By about $350...

Re:It Needs "Refined"...

[MS-06FZ]

That's funny, but just stupid. The PS3 is and always has been worth well more than its price in the store for a lot of reasons that nobody should have to justify anymore. That's ridiculous. Value is subjective. Sure, the PS3 is a fine machine, but to say that it's worth the price - that's something people have to decide for themselves. You could put $3000 worth of computer hardware into a little black box that does nothing but play MP3s - it doesn't matter that it cost you $3000 in hardware, though, because the thing is still worth no more to me than what an iPod costs.

If Sony's doing well at selling the PS3 at its current price point - then fine, good for them. For me, it's too damn expensive. There are much better ways I could spend $600, you know?

Re:It Needs "Refined"...

[poot_rootbeer]

That said, people aren't always willing to pay what something is worth

On the contrary, which people are willing to pay for something is the DEFINITION of its worth.

Re:It Needs "Refined"...

[twistedsymphony]

I think the point is most of the things that the PS3 can do don't appeal to the people who consider it to be over priced...

Maybe that $3000 MP3 player also plays games and Blu-Rays discs... but it's still just an MP3 player to those consumers who don't want to play games or Blu-Ray. To use another analogy if you were looking at two houses that were equal in all aspects except one had an extra 5 car garage and cost twice as much... if you have no cars, it doesn't matter if those 5 bays are "worth" the extra cost because you have no intention of ever using them, it's just a useless extremity that needlessly drives up the price.

The problem with adding features that drive up the price of your console is that every feature you add shrinks the potential market of people who will find 100% of your features useful and valuable.

Would be PS3 buyers who aren't interested in Blu-Ray see the blu-Ray features valued at $0... would be PS3 buyers who aren't interested in WiFi see the WiFi features valued at $0 etc... Eventually you have a machine that "just plays games" because a large group of gamers don't care about the noise and your console suddenly isn't valued at what you thought it was in the eyes of the consumer.

What was their first hint?

[realinvalidname]

Maybe the fact that a PS3 with one game costs as much as a 360 and a Wii combined?

So...

[brkello]

It is about every 2 days when we get someone from Sony talking about price cuts then someone else at Sony saying that there won't be price cuts. Now come all the posts on how it is stupid for a company to announce a price drop until they are ready to actually drop the price. blah blah blah...news worthy? blah blah blah. It's Friday morning...I need something better than this to get me through the rest of the day.

Games

[strider2k]

I don't really care about the price. I'd be glad to pay the $600 US dollars for the premium. The sad part is, what games will I get? The answer is none. I don't have a big HD tv. So unless they release at least 1 big gun soon (MGS4 or FF13) then there's no incentive for me to buy. I guess I'll play my ds/gba (lots of good games) or board games (Settlers or Puerto Rico)!!!

When they do bring the AAA top tier games, then it'll be World War III in console terms.

Re:Games

[drinkypoo]

So unless they release at least 1 big gun soon (MGS4 or FF13) then there's no incentive for me to buy.

the sad thing is that they said that the console would heat up for christmas, but the great games wouldn't come out until after that. So Sony has what, one maybe two A-list titles until after christmas?

That's a long time.

When they do bring the AAA top tier games, then it'll be World War III in console terms.

I don't know, will it be? Will they still be in the running by then? I'm kind of thinking that there's some good games on the Xbox 360 right now, that pretty much everyone in the market has a PS2 so back-compatibility is a total non-issue, and that people will be buying Wiis (they are becoming more available even now) and Xbox 360s while they're waiting for Sony to get their shit together and get out some games.

But, maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Re:Games

[Lightwarrior]

It's worse than the PS3 needing just AAA exclusives - there's a general dearth of quality games available. Check out Game Rankings / Metacritic / GameStats / the rating grouper of your choice; the only game above 90% is Oblivion. There are four exclusives in the Top 20: Resistance, Motorstorm, Virtual Fighter 5, and flOw.

And once you get out of the Top 20, the ratings has already dropped below 80%. That's a serious, serious issue.

Re:Games

[amuro98]

The PS3 needs exclusive games that are "good" or better. Darkness isn't exclusive, nor is Assassins Creed.

I don't know why people keep mentioning Singstar. Do you honestly think a karaoke/DDR game is going to convince anyone to buy a PS3? Even fans of those games aren't going to spend $600 (or even $500) just to get a single game.

Warhawk is very confusing, as it was first a Blu-ray game, then was a online only deathmatch type game that you would download, for free even. Now it's supposedly both a BR AND download game?

Furthermore, even if Sony did manage to lower the price this year (unlikely) and quadruple its sales, according to the latest data, that would put the PS3's sales at about 350k in the US. This is lot better, and may even beat monthly 360 sales for once. Unfortunately, the 360 still has its 12 months head start, plus months of outselling the PS3. Also, any move that Sony makes will simply be matched by Microsoft who unlike Sony, is actually making a small profit off their hardware at the current time. On top of all this, the Wii is expected to continue its strong sales into 2008, meaning it will still be ahead of the PS3, and ever gaining on the 360.

Finally, consider this, the 360 has Halo3 coming this fall, and that alone is expected to be a major incentive to buyers. The PS3 has nothing nearly as compelling on its schedule at this time. Yes, I know Lair! Heavenly Sword! But remember - those games aren't out yet. Many folks feel they got burned by the PS3's launch lineup which only managed to turn out 1 OK/good exclusive game. Even Genji, which was expected to be a major inticement for gamers, turned out to be fairly mediocre and worse still, buggy. I sincerely hope that Lair, Heavenly Sword and others live up to their hype, but past experience tells me that this is rarely the case. I'm sure they'll be good games, but not the WOW-GREAT! titles that the PS3 needs right now.

Re:Games

[DrEldarion]

Man, if you think that's bad, look at the Wii's rankings on GameRankings.

Re:Captain' Obvious

[Daniel_Staal]

Actually, it's not obvious. The XBox 360 for instance is also cheaper, and not getting as much buzz at the moment. (Perhaps just because it isn't 'new' at the moment, but also because it isn't as 'different' as the Wii is.)

Yes, the Wii is cheaper, and yes it is sucessful, but is it sucessful just because it is cheaper? I sincerly doubt it. I think Sony and Nintendo intentionally aimed for different target audiences, and Sony found out that the audience they targeted at didn't exist in the numbers they thought existed. Now they will have to scramble to market a product to an audience it is not designed for. Meanwhile, Nintendo judged their market quite well.

"..and then you will begin to see break-out games"

[tonywestonuk]

erm, I could buy a C64 from ebay, and play "break-out" games...

Blu-ray is the problem.

[Fross]

A common argument for the high price of the PS3 is that "hey, it includes a blu-ray player!" Which is true, and changes something.

The PS3 isn't the most expensive console, rather, it is the cheapest available Blu-ray player.

So not only does Sony have part of the market for the next-gen console market with the PS3, but it also has the vast majority of the HD-video market as well.

The sales figures are testament more to the fact that nobody wants HD video at the moment, and forcing people to take it in a bundle is crucifying them. The PS3 may be better than the 360 (the games look about the same to me), but it costs $300 more (at least here in the UK) - that's a lot to a gamer. You can make a car with a gold steering wheel for an extra $50,000, but if nobody *wants* a gold steering wheel, then your car isn't going to sell at all, as good as it is, unless you can sell if without the steering wheel.

Re:Blu-ray is the problem.

[SparkyFlooner]

I have the 360 add-on HD-DVD player, and I find myself ignoring HD-DVD titles and just renting regular DVDs. (and yes, I have an hdtv) Regular DVDs still look good, you know? Even 200 bucks on an HD player seems like too much for what you get. I would've been content watching regular DVDs until the price of an HD player came down to 100 or less.

Re:When will they learn...

[Floritard]

I'll tell you right now, the price is stopping me. And that is all that is stopping me. I had a Wii for a few months. I bought it on an impulse (right place right time), partly because I was intrigued by the new control scheme, but mostly because it's waaay cheaper than the other "next-gen" systems. I have since given it away to a friend of mine because I promised to buy her one at some point, but also because there are no games out for it that I really want (yet). While I did get bored of it already, the lack of games wasn't something that stopped me from buying it in the first place. And the Wii is so cheap that I'll easily pick one up again when they become more available. Not so with that wallet monster PS3. I can build most of a new PC off newegg for the price of that little bastard. Games or no games, it gives me pause dropping $600+ on a fucking console, they're supposed to be the cheap alternative to PC gaming. As it stands now I really don't know what to do, there are games coming out that I am looking forward to but luckily they aren't here yet. I'm on the fence here, I'll definitely get another Wii, but I will also want either a 360 or a PS3 for those truly next-gen games. Despite Sony's incompetance of late, I really dislike Microsoft's history of foul play and would prefer to stop buying into their products, especially after this power-grab Vista/DX10 business. I'm not especially excited about giving Microsoft so much control over the gaming world. But that PS3 is so damn expensive that I'm worried if I buy it I'll be stuck with a failed system. An expensive failed system. This whole gen is off to a bad start if you ask me. Too much risk. I'm waiting, and the industry isn't getting my gaming dollar.

Re:Captain' Obvious

[stratjakt]

AH NEO GEO now you're talking.

Actually, Neo Geo was originally designed as a rental machine, the idea was you'd go to EB and rent one for your birthday party, so you could play real arcade games at home. Hence, the high prices. They put the cartridges on a different physical format so arcade operators couldnt use them, otherwise the hardware and games are identical.

Anyways, once they started showing up, people wanted to buy them - so EB started selling them. The prices never dropped, once again, they were being sold to EB for the purposes of rental. Eventually SNK realized what was going on, and tried to market to the rest of the home crowd with the Neo Geo CD. The load times killed the "true arcade" feel, and the appeal really was to arcade gamers, since there were only weak attempts at making home console titles for it.

So, you can't compare PS3 - if you look at it in perspective, the Neo Geo AES was a completely unexpected success.

The story of SNKs decline and demise is long and sordid, but sadly had little to do with tech or their products. You can read about the Barones on the googleweb.

Re:Hope...

[Pluvius]

Certainly Sony knows that the Wii is currently selling because of a combination of price and hype. Hype wasn't mentioned because the question Stringer was asked was about the PS3's price. You'll notice that Sony is trying to combat the hype problem elsewhere, like in their new blog.

BTW, here is a transcript of the interview in question. You'll also notice that Stringer did counterargue the idea that the Wii is selling better because it's more fun.

Rob