Aielyn said:
PS2 cost $129 by the time the PS3 released and had a massive number of exclusive games, and had all of the momentum and brand awareness prior to the Wii's release. PS3 currently costs $250 for the cheapest version, and lacks the brand awareness due to the Wii becoming the best-known system, and has relatively few exclusives. But more than all of that, the PS2 was given strong ongoing development support well into the following generation, whereas the PS3 is unlikely to see such support. And with Sony lacking funds really badly, they can't price the PS3 low enough to produce the necessary sales boosts without losing money (which they'll be loathe to do, especially if it eats into potential PS4 purchases). |
A couple quick points. The PS3's entry model may currently cost $250 but you can not compare that to the cost of the PS2 during the PS3 launch for the simple fact that we may very well be over two years away from the PS4 launch. I would assume that the PS3 will have reached a lower price point by that time. The PS3 is currently outselling both of its competitors and its been a while since its last price cut so I imagine that this counts as having momentum. I haven't read much on brand awareness but I was unaware that it was a problem for the PS3, in fact, I thought it was one of the system's strongest assets. Also, what do you base your assumption that the PS3 will be unlikely to foster a similar level of late life-cycle developer as its predecessor? We're talking about a capable piece of hardware which many developers will have years of experience with and an installed user base of at least 80 million.
