The Legitimization of the Arcade

[amirnetz]

flagship said:
Sony's best strategy would be to use the weak points of the Arcade as it's strength. Start running adds about the 360's lack of a hard drive (of course not mentioning that it's only an arcade problem) and the limits it sets on online experience if there's one thing people hate it's buying the inferior system and missing out on the best experience they'll probably never use.

Also multi-pack bundles would be a great idea, a PS3 with a game and a couple hot BluRay movies should help justify the extra expense.

So essentialy you are suggesting that Sony will try to de-legitimized the Arcade model again. Questionable startegy. Using your airtime to discuss the competition is something that draws attention away from you. The results are also questionable. Microsoft is openly positioning the Arcade as a "starter" system. Sony can only re-enforce the same message, but can hardly chip at the system credibility with the Arcade current positioning.

There is something pretty smart about what Microsoft is doing here: When you want to push a system, make sure to position it as the "moderate priced" or the "mid-level". Microsoft Microsoft wants to push the Pro, so indeed they have a cheap model (Arcade), a medium price model (Pro) and share with Sony the expensive ones (Elite and PS3).  This way Microsoft is covering both the low-end of the market with the Arcade and offering the Pro to the masses of "risk avert buyers" - the ones who are afraid to buy the cheap system (because they may miss something), and will also avoid the higher end systems (becuase they don't think themselves as rich and they don't want to overpay).

By establishing these three tiers, Microsoft pushed Sony to be in the "luxery" department. And the luxery products rarely get mass market adoption.  

BTW, the arcade is lacking a hard drive, but it is not lacking a full on-line experience.