| Torillian said: @Avinash You really do think they'll win for the rest of the video game industry's life don't you? Wish I had that kinda faith in just about anything. The Titanic is unsinkable Honestly, at some point they'll bone up, just like everyone does. Hell, just like they've done before (obviously they'll screw it up differently). And that's not even to say that MS or Sony will be the ones to win, because I don't even honestly know if they'll be around, but you are truly silly if you think that the future is so set in stone. And yes, third parties did come to Sony, but alot of their ability to gain market share was from the fact that they sold the console at a loss and depended on software as their money maker. Not a great long term plan, but it certainly helped win it for the PS1. |
Selling at a loss helped them win, and was completely irrelevant for both the PS1 and PS2. Selling at a loss is not some magical idea that will draw consumers to you. People will not buy a product simply because you sell it for less than manufacturing costs regardless of name brand, or actuall value (see PS3). The fact that the PS1 and PS2 were sold at a loss probably meant absolutely nothing to the general consumer, and likely did very little to help over-all sales. Most of the sales for both systems came after they were sold at a profit. It is hard to believe that selling for a loss is critical if it was not done for the most of the console's life.
At the same time the concept of selling at a loss was critical to the success of the PS1 and PS2. This may seem contradictory, but I can explain. It was not the fact that Sony took a loss on every unit sold that made the differnce. It was the price point itself that was the bigger factor. Should the PS1/PS2 have been a bit weaker but cost the same I would wager that the over-all sales would be near identical to what they are now. The technically superior N64, GC, and Xbox did little to hinder the sales of the various Playstations. Similarly the PSP and PS3 have done little to hinder the Wii and DS. It was necessary to sell the systems at a loss only because Sony over-shot the mark for technical specs at the time and needed to price competitively in order to ever stand a chance in the market.
