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Sony Finally Turning a Profit On PS3s
When the PS3 launched in 2006, estimates pegged the price of producing the consoles to be as much as $250 more than the price at which they were sold. Production costs have dropped since then, but there have been several price cuts as well. Now, almost four years later, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida says they're finally turning a profit on the hardware.
"This year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3,' Yoshida said. 'We aren't making huge money from hardware, but we aren't bleeding like we used to.' In May, Sony began shipping new PlayStation 3 consoles with smaller and more cost-effective graphics chips. Now, Yoshida said, Sony is looking at replenishing retail stock that has been running on empty since January rather than cutting the price. 'When we bring the cost of hardware down, we are looking at opportunities to adjust prices if we believe that will increase demand,' he explained. 'At the moment, we are trying to catch up our production.'"
Why not return the features that were removed? Why not add more features? I was going to buy a PS3, but scrapped those plans when several things went out the window. How many other people are like me?
A cheaper turd is still a turd.
The old hardware's too pricy to keep making, there's not enough of the new cheap stuff so they're bleeding in new and interesting ways - not having enough product to sell is making distributors angry and their profits small. They're hoping that passing on some of the savings to some of the distributors will make them less angry. That will make their per-unit profit even smaller but they hope to compensate with volume, maybe, someday, when they are able to make enough of the damn things.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
"What's that?! Speak up! I can't hear you from this giant pool of money I'm swimming like Scrooge McDuck!"
Now, they can start not making a profit again when they ship Move!
I remember the 90s being full of consoles:
3DO, Dreamcast, Saturn, PS1, Atari Jaguar, N64, Philips CD-i, in addition to existing ones like Genesis/SegaCD/32x and SNES which were in the prime of their lives in the early 90s.
Now the 360 has been out for five years and the PS3 has been out for four. Neither company seems interested in making new hardware anymore, which is understandable since they lost so much money working out the bugs. But it seems that nobody wants to one-up the other anymore.
Rather than pursue hardware that is clearly superior to their competitor (as many attempted in the 90s), they just blow money purchasing exclusives.
You know we can see these shelves, right?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Dear Sony (I know your a shiver corporate hivemind is lurking here)
Like to topic says, good job and congratulations on finally turning a profit on your product!
You only had to alienate a large section of your customers and potential customers. Hell you even managed to piss off The USAF, so that's something at least.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
I never knew that was on Sony's mind when they lauched the ps3 ? What were they expecting, brand loyalty ?
Maybe they noticed the success of casual gaming (Wii mostly), and figured that better profits await if they can sell equipment to wider audience.
Or maybe they're gluing feathers onto their bodies and trying to fly. I wouldn't say "casual" is exactly the right word for Nintendo's strategy.
To make this profit, though, Sony had to cut a few features from consoles (retroactively for already-sold ones as well, unfortunately):
* Linux can't be used anymore (we already know about this one)
* Blu-ray playback now includes commercials every 15 minutes
* When connected to the Internet, you must allow it to be a node in a botnet, or online play will be disabled
* To save cost, gaphics are now displayed as in The Matrix, but they say you'll quickly be able to see everything in 3D with some practice