Thoughts on the PSP2 and the future of Sony portables.

[Procrastinato]

Khuutra said:

Procrastinato said:

Khuutra said:

Procrastinato said:
Sony doesn't care about the blue ocean. They never have. They leave that to Samsung, Panasonic, Nintendo, etc.

The Walkman is probably the best example of a blue ocean device in.... well I can't really think of a better one in electronics.

The walkman wasn't a cheap device, at the time, and as the device progressed, the Sony version was always the highest quality, and the highest priced. You can't really call it a "blue ocean" device, in that regard. Sony invented it, thus it was popular... when it was copied, Sony stuck with the high-end. Unless they utterly re-invent the handheld, they'll be going with the high-end, and not the blue ocean.

Right, it was high-priced, but it was priced low enough to serve a market that nobody else was catering to. That's kind of the definition of blue ocean: a place where there's no competition. And when it came out, the Walkman had no competition whatsoever as a truly portable, discreet music player.

I guess I would argue that there is no blue ocean in the handheld market, any longer... or rather, if there is one, Sony will have to discover it, and it can't include the iTouch demographic or DS demographic or PSP demographic, or at least has to be significantly larger than those demographics to qualify. I guess I was referring to "Blue Ocean" as in "mass market appeal", which is how it was being referred to, in previous elements of this discussion. Sony devices rarely have mass market appeal, because they are usually the "high end"... that was my point. Sony isn't shooting for marketshare, per unit, they're shooting for marketshare, per revenue dollar.