| pezus said: What did Sony hope the price cut would do? Do you know that? I bet they hoped it would make PS3 reach the 15m goal for the fiscal year, and they're right on track. |
That is an excellent question, actually. I can only speculate as to the answer.
I think Sony feared that if the Xbox 360's success in North America continued unabaited it would lose any hope of capturing the hearts and minds of buyers. Not to mention, at the time, there was considerable talk that Microsoft would lower their price by $50 - $100. I think Sony's price drop was not only pre-emptive, but was done to ensure relevancy with consumers.
I'm not saying that PS3 sales would have whithered away to nothing, just that it may not have been able to have as strong of a finish as it would have wanted.
I don't think sales goals are as big of a deal to corporations as they are to fanboys. The latter use them as rallying cries, the former as an expectation based on market conditions at the outset of the financial calendar year.
For whatever reason, Sony put unit sales over profit. My guess is to do something like that, especially when you've just began earning profit on that system, was a major decision. They saw something they didn't like, not that they really wanted to reach 15 mil. in unit sales.
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