Sony Shifting PS3 Marketing to Focus on Blu-Ray

Tabernaque86 writes "What started as joke among gamers Sony is now using as a Christmas advertising campaign. Kaz Hirai, president of the games unit, has been quoted as saying that the PlayStation 3 'makes a great Blu-Ray player'. That theme will be central to a wave of ads in North America and Europe. From the article: 'Sony on Thursday disappointed analysts by failing to cut the PS3's price, but Mr Hirai did not rule out a future price cut. "Going aggressive only on price without being able to back it up with content doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me," he said. A price cut would have a "real impact" on sales only if there were enough software titles to support the PS3. But analysts were skeptical and said Sony could miss its shipment targets for the year. "Without a price cut close to Christmas, reaching 11m shipments is going to be very tough," said David Gibson, analyst at Macquarie in Tokyo.'" This is regrettable, too, because there really are a number of strong titles coming out for the console this year.

Comments

Games, games, games

[vlad_petric]

... which are made by developers, developers, developers.

The main problem with PS3 is not the price, it's the games. There are a few good ones, but certainly not enough. With respect to developers, developers, developers, Sony made a few wrong moves:

• The CELL is perhaps the most difficult platform to develop for. Instead of a clean SMP interface, they opted for a two-instruction set asymmetric architecture. They took a relatively complex problem—developing for a multi-processor—and made it much, much, worse. I always hear that current generation games don't fully utilize the PS3 ... to which I reply "D'oh, if you only knew what it takes to fully utilize it ... "
• They did not release proper tools and libraries. Our developers are smart people, we'll let them figure it out ... That worked out well for the PS2, but it certainly doesn't work for PS3
• Their arrogance (most likely) alienated quite a few developers that'd have produced exclusives.

Conclusion: bad moves -> few games -> third place as a console

Confused

[Ajehals]

I'm not a gamer and I don't own a console, so I may be missing something but does

Going aggressive only on price without being able to back it up with content doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, mean what I think it means? i.e. "We are not dropping our prices because we have don't have much content as yet, but when we do have more content we will drop our prices".

I mean I can see the sense in the fact that more games will drive sales, but I don't see why people would pay more for a console when there are only a few titles* why not drop the price, have people buy it as a blueray player and then *not* drop the price again when the titles are out (after all it will already be as cheap enough as if they dropped the prices when the titles came out). Wouldn't that mean that more people would consider buying the console before the content is available (albeit at a lower price)

Anyway,makes no sense to me, but as I said I'm not a gamer.

*I have no real idea how many titles are available for the PS3 or how it stacks up against its rivals, so take that statement at face value rather than assume I am insinuating that the platform is not as good as or worse off than $otherplatform.

Re:Strong Titles?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"The Wii is in 1st place in large part because of its price."

You make a good point, even if it's wrong. The price is part of why the Wii is on top. The majority of the reason is because Nintendo says it's a Game Console first and foremost. It's not a Blu-Ray player. It's not a media center. It's a low priced game console that offers strong gameplay and a unique controller.

Re:Strong Titles?

[king-manic]

Heavenly Sword looked awesome back when it was a potential launch title and no one new it was only 6 hours long.

I bought it on friday and am about 1/2 -> 2/3 done. It's a good 6h. No filler. I guess you take it as you will. Some 30h games are mostly filler. This is a 6h game that is very good without filler. It's well paced, somewhat difficult. Frustrating but fair. Very polished. But short. IT's been more then 6h right now. I think they mean 6h if your good at god of war. I'm not that good and I keep trying to play it like ninja gaiden so I'm only 2/3 of the way through after about 12h.