By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Wlakiz on 28 December 2012
Edit Thread
BuckStud said:
Wlakiz said:
You guys aren't taking in account of other factors.

1. Can supply keep up with the increased demand if they lowered the price?
- They can definitely sell more at a a loss but what is the point? They don't have the supply to cater to market demand at that price point. When they become overstocked (due to lack of sale), its an automated process that they will do a price cut to purge their stock even at a loss but until then, the price is fine where it is.

2. 3DS and PSVita are different enough in capability that they each cater to a different demographic market (age, gamer, income-earner). Which means, if someone buys a 3Ds, it doesn't mean they won't buy PSVita and vice Versa. So 3Ds taking a massive mobile gaming market share right now should not have an effect on the life time sale of the PSVita.

3. PSMobile - Sony is pushing their PSM platform similar to google play/IOS. Until the games/Apps numbers hit critical mass, there is no reason to damage the brand, by getting more people on board to a 'lack-of-content' platform.

Sony has stated before, their strategy for vita is to for their content to be the incentive for people to buy their vita not the price.

1. Sony would be more than happy to produce (and very capable of having them produced) 1m Vita's a month if they thought that they could sell them. They even projected that the first full fiscal year that they would sell 16m of them, then dropped it to 12m then again to 10m. They're going to be lucky if they sell 5m.

2. Your competition selling a similar product to yours always has an effect. Every young person who gets a 3DS for Christmas is another person helping your competition. Some of them may eventually get a Vita, but that isn't enough.

3. Sony looses money on every Vita sold but makes money on all software after cost. They can't afford to lower the price of the Vita by much, otherwise they would have already. Printer companies have sold their printers at a loss for years, then make the money back on the ink they sell. It's similar, but they were typically able to recoup their cost quickly as ink cost pennies per unit and next to nothing to develop, where as the bigger Vita titles cost many millions to develop. The low number of Vita's currently sold is very harmful to their bottom line. Anyone who believes that the Vita has been an overall money maker for Sony, truly doesn't understand business.

1. It is a basic supply and demand problem. If they wanted to sell 100 million.. set their vita price to $1 and see how the market would react. A good example is the HP's TouchPad, as soon as a substantial price reduction came in place, the tablet became the second fastest selling tablet but thats not what they want.

2. Thats like saying anyone who buys a Civic is hurting the Ferrari sales. VIta is not catering to grandmothers and 10 year olds. They are catering to teens -> adult players that can and would spend money on downloadable apps and games.

3. Are you even addressing my point or making a tangent one? No one cares about whether or not Vita is making a profit or a loss for Sony. You can make wild assumptions that "Sony would have done blah blah if they were making money", but the fact is that you don't have facts. Companies do whatever they can do to maximize profit/sell while factoring in other things like royalty and licencing fees. As PSP/Wii shown, having hardware sold does not equate to software sells. The average PSP owners only own 3 games (IIRC). Even wii, the users are usually just content with Wii sport and don't bother purchasing anymore software. PS Mobile is suppose to mimic the mobile phenomenon by capitalizing on user-generated content. Even if third parties don't pick up PS Vita, if PS Mobile hit critical mass, it would have enough content to be self-sustaining.