KBG29 said:
The only products that are turning a steady and growing profit are the ones running on thier OS and Cloud ecosystem. The rest of their products have seen massive sales declines in sales and have razor then margins or are loosing money. Nothing is going to change the fact that Android and Windows on Sony is a bad mix. Getting as many people as possible on thier OS and Ecosystem is of the highest importance. Sales such as this one on the PS4 are the best thing for Sony right now. Long term they need to get even cheaper, and increase engagement with consumers on thier platform, ex. things like Phones, Handhelds, TVs, Car Audio. $249.99 sales on the current PS4 are great. A $249.99 standard price on the 1TB model this holiday + 1 game will help things. A digital only PS4 at $199.99 will push sales even further. Offering them at $149.99 Digital, $199.99 Slim, $299.99 Pro during Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks will ensure they remain on top, and continue to impress investors.
My views on digital may be scewed a bit since I live in Western Washington, and pretty much everyone has 100mbpd or greater internet speeds. I don't know anyone that has bought a physical game for PS4 or XBO. So something like this would be ideal here. Other places in the US were high speed internet is sparse or places around the world with slow net and small caps it definitely doesn't fit. That doesn't negate the fact that it would be highly successful in certain corners of the market, and a very profitable option for Sony. |
How about we ask Samsung how much running Android has hurt their bottom line? Or how much Blackberry thrived under "their ecosystem" while the world moved onto better things? Do think that instead of EA making Origin and competing against steam, they should have made their own OS and competed against WIndows? How about we take a look at how well the Vita sold with it's custom Sony OS. Have you possibly considered that the OS is only a factor when your OS detracts from the user experience, and that the mere presence of a third party OS on a device is not actually indicative of success or failure?
It's completely coincidental that the only products that are turning a profit are the ones running custom OSs. The demise of Sony's VAIO computer line had literally nothing to do with the fact that they ran Windows, and I know you're not silly enough to claim that Sony should make their own PC OS to go against the likes of Microsoft and Apple and relaunch their computer line aloneside it. The only devices that have a custom Sony OS are devices where the users expect a "walled garden" experience, such as game consoles. Just try introudcing a new phone OS here in 2017. If Microsoft couldn't make it work with Windows Mobile, and RIM couldn't make it work with Blackberry OS (and those devices mostly failed because the OS paled in comparison to iOS and Android. The same goes for car stereos. Just try making a car stereo in 2017 that doesn't run Apple and Google's versions of car play. That is easily the most sought after feature of car stereos in recent years, and you just want Sony to make their own version that would undoubtedly only be compatible with Sony phones and other electronics, because you can bet you ass no other phone manufacturer will touch this with a ten foot pole. As for TVs, my Sony TV already has apps that are PS4/PS Now friendly. Why does it need a "PS4" OS? The closest thing you'll see is a "PS4 like" UI like is already found on some Sony Blu-ray players because anything else doesn't actually make for a better user experience.
Besides, you don't need an OS on devices you make them integrated with the "Sony" ecosystem. You just need fully-featured apps that integrate with other Sony devices easily (and no, not the half-assed offerings they have now). Why make an entire OS when an easy to use app can do things like change the music playing in the background of my PS4, or give me the ability to manage and transfer cloud saves amongst all devices I own that are linked to my PSN account? As I've already said. Sony is already doing this, and not doing it well. What makes you think that Sony could adapt an OS as feature barren as the PS4 OS to compete with the likes of Apple and Google, and actually pull that shit off. I'll give you the odds on that being successful.
Zero percent.
It is completely delusional to think otherwise. Sony's strength has never been OSs and never will be. Sony would lose millions trying this nonsense, nevermind the tarnishing the brand would take such an inept, anti-consumer move. The same would be seen for a digital-only PS4 as it effectively eliminates the ability to buy used games. Are you forgetting how horrifically that shit backfired for Microsoft? Four years later and they still haven't recovered from it. Have you seen how the Windows Store, and Microsoft's push behind it has actually tarnished their reputation, and turned off many prospective buyers? Sony is barely holding on in the mobile phone market, and has completely abandoned the portable game console market, and you have them doubling down, and taking a far more walled-garden approach that would turn off consumers from portable Sony devices even more than they are now.
It's amazing how out of touch you are with reality, yet how confident you are in how correct you must be. Any one with any bit of sense of the consumer electronics industry would see how obviously your suggestions would very quickly bankrupt Sony. You wrongly attribute the reasons for all of their successes and failures. You make completely unsubstantiated conclusions about how correlations are actually causations, and assume it's obvious to everyone in the entire world. Go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate how Sony has to appeal to millions of people who you very clearly do not understand. Perspective is very important when trying to evaluate these things, and you need to look beyond what would be nice for you, and consider what the average prosectve buyer would actually buy based on what the market is dictating to us.
