Market Forces Analysis

[NJ5]

SlorgNet said:

J_Jay2000 said:

Sony made a larger fundamental error here than microsoft due to their vested intrest in their own proprietary format.

Wii - percieved value v cost is good. The "new way to play" and "novel idea" that is the Wii increase percieved value.

PS3 - Pushes a format that the mass consumer is not ready to adopt.

Xbox360 - Cost v Value is fair and reasonable, but reported failure rates tarnish this.

DS - Time is the DS's major advantage. Especially in japan.

PSP - Suffers in a similar way as does Xbox360 when compared to Wii (DS v PSP). Multifunctionality means all elements suffer in same shape thus reducing perception of value to cost. (yes it does internet, MP3, video, games etc, but a solo MP3 player is much smaller for example. Cramming everything in reduced the "portable" appearance of the device.)

Some good points, here's my own take:

1. BLuRay is not a proprietary Sony technology. Sony is part of a BluRay consortium which includes Samsung, Denon, Philips, Hitachi and a couple other heavyweights. In terms of price, BluRay and HDDVD are almost the same. Technically, however, BluRay's smaller wavelength means it has much greater long-term storage potential. It's hard to imagine consumers suddenly switching to a smaller storage media.

2. The PS3 is not meant to be a mass consumer item. Sony is still selling millions of PS2s and doesn't want to kill the golden goose. Ergo, they introduced the PS3 for tech-savvy users and early adopters. Sometime next year, though, the price of the PS3 will drop to $299, and then it will become a mass market item.

3. The 360 lacks a built-in next-gen storage device. This is a crucial weakness for a console which is supposed to have a six to ten year life-cycle. I'm not sure what Microsoft was thinking - as a PC company, they should've known that you can never have too much storage.

4. It's hard to compare the DS and PSP - they're very different products, aimed at different audiences. The PSP is designed to be a web-capable multimedia center, while the DS is built around stylus input. Both were designed to maximize different styles of game-play.

 

I'm going to be blunt at some points, don't be offended. I'm attacking your arguments, not you:

1- Consumers don't care how much storage those formats have. Most consumers don't even know how much storage those formats have. Consumers care about watching movies, and they care about price. The rest is absolutely secondary (by a far margin).

2- Of course Sony wants the PS3 to replace the PS2 as soon as possible. When a new console generation starts, the console makers are eager to see everyone flocking to it. It's just ignorant to say otherwise. The problem is that Sony can't make people do the switch, not while price is high and games are scarce and mediocre (with a few exceptions). In the meantime, the Wii/360/Wii60 are stealing potential audience from the PS3. Obviously, it's not what Sony planned.

3- Don't give me crap about what a "next-gen storage device" is or isn't. A "gen" is just a way to organize competing consoles by time periods. Having said that, what Microsoft was thinking (and well) was obviously that it needed to get its console out as soon as possible, and at a reasonable price. Does the opposite of those two things ring any *cough PS3 cough* bells?

What Microsoft probably thinks now is "the PS3 can keep its Blu-Ray discs filled with uncompressed audio, we'll keep our DVD-9 which is doing the job".