Sony: We Will Conquer All

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thekitchensink said:

Lone_Canis_Lupus said:

HappySqurriel said:

Lone_Canis_Lupus said:

As BS as this whole PR thing is(which isn't surprising...I mean, no matter the company...PR is usually annoying), that part is surprisingly true in my experience. Most of my friends that have already gone to next-gen systems have all gone to the 360 or Wii...but all my friends that stayed behind with the PS2 to make a choice later are wanting a PS3. He's not talking about the people that have already switched, but the people that stayed with the PS2. It sounds BS...but all my friends that did stay behind with the PS2 are starting to want a PS3 over the Wii and 360. Don't shoot down that quote just yet...he might be right that as the PS2 gradually dies, the ones left behind with it might come in a mass herd toward the PS3.

 

There might still be quite a bit that go toward the 360 or Wii...but reading that quote made me think about all my friends still with the PS2. And I think it's interesting he might be right about that...having a lot of potential customers still with the PS2.

You will always have a segment of the population that is brand loyal, but there really isn't that many of them ...

As an example, one of my friends owned a walkman, discman and a minidisc player and refuses to buy an iPod because it isn't produced by Sony; until the iPod was released he never seemed to care much about Apple at all and now they're the devil for producing a piece of hardware people actually wanted. Even though Sony was super popular with their portable music players for decades this didn't prevent Apple from comming along and dominating the MP3 player market when they produced the right product ...

 That's different...this is a new generation that hasn't been around long at all. There are still a lot of people that haven't moved to the next generation yet. A lot of PS2 users are still undecided. This is the point I'm making...in my case, what he said in that quote is true. All of my friends that stayed behind with the PS2 want a PS3 over the 360 and Wii...this is just in my case though. I'd have to go around and meet a lot of other people that stayed with the PS2 to confirm this.

Well, that's fine, but I personally know two people who only owned PS2's last gen and only own (and intend to own) Wii's.  I don't know anyone else who owns or intends to own a PS3.

 

And yes, in PR, you're actually seen in a BETTER light if you praise the competition and then show how you're better than them.  If Sony were to say, "The competition has a very nice lineup of games this year, but we think ours is better", (for example), then they wouldn't be seen as so idiotic.

I quoted this tree so that we could see the different experiences.

The brand loyalty is usually overestimated, actually if we look at it close enough, it doesn't even exist. There's only brand familiarity or brand recognition.
As "Playstation" have become a synonyme for consoles in most cases, the brand is well recognised, which would mean, that people prefer Playstation over competition. But since the brand has expanded beyond what the brand is, people are buying 360:s and Wiis as the next Playstations just like they are buying PS3:s.

People who bought PS2:s, bought it for various reasons; it was the hot item, familiar brand, games library, it had "the" game, budget priced games, BC for predecessor games, brand loyalty.
Now when you look what PS3 has about the things i listed, it has only familiar brand, propably the most loyalists, BC only in NA, "the" game, while this time competition has similar games or ports of them.

And the competition: hot item, "the" game, larger games library, cheaper games, budget priced/cheap basket games, and the hardware is cheaper.

Brand loyalty/brand recognition means, that from 2 similar products you are going to choose the familiar one, or you are willing to pay more for that product. If you have a more interesting product, the brand loyalty/familiary aspect is gone.

And the companies that rely on brand loyalty, usually end up gone, financial trouble or they need to change drastically and it's even historically shown. The car industry around the world, the games industry, etc. Pick any industry, and you see how companies have gone down, ended in financial troubles or changed drastically because they have thought that their product is so good that the former customers want only their product, while competition has offered something better or interesting.