Heavenly_King said:
Yeah, I think they should do that. More market share, means better support from 3rd party, and better support from 3rd party means more money from licensing fees. More market share and more money means investors are happy, and users too :) |
People have been saying this forever. "When the PS3 is $199, it will make the majority of its sales" etc, etc.
The reality is, it's too late in the current hardware generation for pricing to matter enough in major markets to make a significant difference in marketshare.
Sure, lowest price still matters in new and smaller economy markets (the ones that are still buying the PS2 currently), but these sales do not drive the overall market.
Marketshare (or more specifically, changes in marketshare) is not even of any real significance at this point as the primary reason for gaining majority marketshare is to gain the most third party support and subsequently sell the most third party game units and generate the most licensing fees.
With developers already working on next gen platforms, none of them are waiting to see which current platform they want to develop their games for as they are already looking ahead to the next generation of hardware in terms of where they want to direct their future projects.
What matters most to investors at this point in the ROI which means profitability. It's no coincidence that the new PS3 Slim was not accompanied by the price cut literally everyone was expecting, despite being cheaper to manufacture.
The message sent is that SCE is focusing on profitability, not marketshare.
