| JGarret said: mrstickball....honestly speaking, even after E3 2006, did you think that 2 years after its release, the PS3 would still be 5 million behind MS´s second system? Or when you heard the famous "599 US Dollars", you kinda knew this was how things were gonna play out? |
Yes.
In all honesty, I was in chatrooms arguing about the Playstation 3 costing consumers well above $500 USD before Sony made it's infamous announcement. Merrill Lynch had a great report well before E3 about what was going to happen:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/18/playstation-3-costs-900-sez-merrill-lynch-mob/
With those kinds of preliminary, staggering numbers, it was only safe to assume that Sony wasn't going to take a $400+ loss per console to allow sales to flourish at a reasonable ($400 starting point) price.
Since Sony didn't do that, I have always been negative about Sony's blunder. Say what you will, Playstation fans, but Sony as a gaming division has pulled a Sega Saturn this generation. 15 years from now, we'll look back and redicule $599 even more than we do now, because it'll go down in history as the thing that killed Sony (not saying they'll go under, but reduce their role as a 2nd fiddle player).
The Playstation family has always done well due to 3 pillars:
- Cost (cheapest and fastest. Invented the loss-leader concept of hardware sales)
- Software (always the best from the best)
- Innovation (always providing the next-gen experience)
Unfortunately, the Playstation 3 only has one of those 3 things. I assumed that, in the beginning, Sony would maintain something that resembled #2, but that utterly failed when Microsoft snatched up all the 3rd party games in the west, and Nintendo cleaned up in Japan.
Here's the best analogy of the Playstation family: Playstation 1 was a remarkable engineer that developed something truely ahead of it's time. Playstation 2 was a savy CEO that dominated his industry, and Playstation 3 is a spoiled runt living off of the coattails of it's predicessors. Where is the ambition, Sony? They've pulled the Sega Saturn, they've mastered the N64-type turnaround. They've done virtually everything that's counterintuitive to their business model. Yes, you can and should take gambles with your hardware, but they took the step backwards by forcing their loyal consumers to adopt to an overpriced, under-gamed system.
Those are strong words, but I think they're warranted considering the Playstation 3 is still in 3rd place. Say what you will, but Sony is still in 3rd place. The Playstation 3 has spent more time in last place than any other Playstation system in history has. That's not a good thing, that's a bad thing.
And to finish (and reiterate what I've already said): 15 years from now, if Sony fans still exist, they will deride this generation as the specific time that Sony had it all, and lost it like Atari, Sega and Nintendo all did at times before.
Kilter - I think the argument and assumption of consoles doing well, late in their lifespan has more to do with how well the console sold earlier on versus anything else. I don't hear anyone singing the merits of late lifespan N64 sales, do you?
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
