| Kyros said: had nothing to do with the fact they were selling the console at a profit. The PS1 had a CD drive and better graphics (translation it was more expensive to make). The PS2 had a DVD drive and was out earlier (translation it was more expensive to make at the time it was released) If Sony had sold them at the price they were making them things would have been different. The reason you give are in addition to that. |
Uhh besides the ability to play FMV (which isn't to be understated in this situation) the PS1 had inferior graphical capabilities to the N64. The CD drive, game price, and Nintendo's blowhard stance towards developers was the real death nell there.
Sony dropped prices on the PS1 to compete with the Saturn initially, and forced Nintendo to do the same. The loss they were taking was never significant so it was never that big of a deal in relative comparison. The PS2 obviously took a larger loss, but Sony was in the position at the time to take a loss. That being said, having a one year head start to build a market base sure helped a lot more than dropping the price at near the exact same time as both of its competitors.
On another note, why is this guy getting crucified for suggesting that Sony is making a poor market decision? They obviously could use a bump to get them above their current sales position and it seems sort of like their current strategy isn't working. Sony has made a lot of mistakes this generation, which I don't think you can fault the writer of this article for noting. the fact that he suggest that they are really hurting themselves in this market to keep investors happy in the short term does not seem to be such a terrible conclusion.
