Squilliam said:
thismeintiel said:
Squilliam said:
The whole point in releasing a product like the PS3 is to make money. Sony may or may not continue their market share at all reasonable costs mantra by continuing to offer lower priced products. Whether they would make a little profit anyway from cutting the price yet again is beside the point. Theres no point in making a console if they cannot make money from it and they certainly cannot justify releasing a PS4 with even higher development costs on the console end if they cannot turn a reasonable profit.
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I think Sony has already come to the realisation that, as a whole, the PS3 will never be profitable. Right now, they are going to try to just remain profitable from here on in and try to regain as much marketshare as possible. As far as profits go, there are more ways than one to earn people's money, so Sony isn't just relying on HW being profitable for this. The more consoles you sell, the more games and accessories you sell, which have a higher gap between manufacturing costs and MSRP than a console. And having a larger marketshare this gen is only going to help their launch position next gen.
As far as the PS4 having a higher R&D cost, I highly doubt that. Sony is most likely sticking with Blu-ray through the next gen, only this time using a 6x or 8x drive, so cost for the drives will be relatively low. They are probably going to incorporate an evolved form of the Cell inside it, as well. Which again, will mean less R&D since Sony spent a lot of money developing the Cell for the PS3. In the end, this is going to make the PS4 a much cheaper to produce console. I mean the only reason the PS3 cost so much was because Sony developed 2 brand new technologies for its release. I wouldn't be surprised if the PS4 released for only $400 off the bat.
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And yet they haven't really turned any significant profit inspite the fact that their market share and market penetration increased significantly. Beyond this having a high market share in a previous generation isn't so helpful once the next generation of consoles are released as proved by this one. Oh and Phill Harrison a former Sony SCE executive was the one I was basing the comments of a more expensive to develop next generation console, yours is just speculation unfortunately as you never see the entire picture from outside.
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They haven't made significant profit because the PS3 has only recently become profitable by itself. That, and Sony has quite a few other things on its plate besides consoles, most of which took a hit when the recession hit. But what I'm saying is that next year, with little doubt, that the PS3 will remain profitable with a $50 cut. Plus, I highly doubt that Sony is going to let the PS3 go over 2 years with no price cut. Sony will cut next year, you can qoute me on that.
And Phil Harrison left Sony in Feb of '08, just 1 1/2 after the PS3 launched. In other words, he probably knows little, if anything, of Sony's plans for the PS4. So in the end, he's speculating just like I am. And nice way to conclude I have my blinders on just because I see things a little different. I'm just using common sense about what Sony can do to learn from its mistakes and have a good launch next gen. Because if someone believes they haven't learned from the mistakes of the PS3, than they are being quite foolish.
