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Loud_Hot_White_Box on 14 December 2008
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Infamous said:
Plaupius said:

Why is this so hard to understand? Sony as a company is in trouble. It's not that people want the PS3 to fail, at least I don't, it's about facing the reality. Unless Sony can do something miraculous, or unless the exchange rates change to favor Sony, they can't afford a price cut anytime soon. There are serious concerns that Sony, the whole company, is going to lose money. They don't have great reserves of cash, unlike MS. The reason people kept saying "it will change" about the X360 was because MS could afford to cut the prices. It seems very unlike that Sony can do the same, or if they do that they will likely have to finance the price cut with loans.

Why should Sony risk the financial security of the entire company to lower the prices of the PS3? That's the question that I'd like all Sony fanboys to answer. How could Sony regain what they already have invested, pluse the new investments needed to lower the price?

Exactly.

 

Um, infamous' first paragraph is correct.  But those facts are not somehow damaging only to Sony fans who want to see more PS3 sales.  Microsoft fans who like to tout 360's greater sales must realize that there are market forces at work here beyond any fault of Sony.  So: Sony fans, the current economic environment makes it hard for PS3 to sell more and easy for the 360 to sell.  Microsoft fans: the current economic environment makes it hard for PS3 to sell more and easy for the 360 to sell.

As for how Sony, financially, could manage to lower prices, it comes down to whether they think they could recoup costs through game sales...but if their finances aren't that strong, they may not have the ability to wait around for their install base to generate the game sales.  Personally, it's hard for me to accept that they couldn't wait it out and reap rewards long-term after dropping prices and getting more PS3's out there, but thus far Sony are waiting.  I think some time next year they'll definitely drop prices; dropping production costs will happen even though the currency market and consumer spending power is bad for them right now.