I read the comment from Jumpin in THIS thread and realised that there might be a potential for this.
| Jumpin said: 2023, they can still sell millions in places like Africa and Pakistan. |
He might have been joking there, but to continue to sell the older consoles in "other" markets sounds interesting to me.
I will speak for China now and say that now when the console ban is officially lifted, why not re-release PS3 here? It won't be a huge market but still a market. Well, at least it's very difficult to predict exactly how big the market could be.
They could easily use markets as China, Korea and India one generation behind, and sell PS3 side-by-side with the PS4. Because of less income and more PC-oriented markets, the PS3(and other older systems) has a bigger advantage.
So why not re-release the PS3 here and more or less "start over"?
The price of the PS3 500GB model in the HK PlayStation store is now at 1 500RMB or $245. I don't find any price for the 250GB model, but I would guess the official price is 1 000RMB or $160. So let's say they would re-release the PS3 in those markets I mentioned, and also re-release the games for it, but for much less of course. They could even start with the launch titles from 2006, heck, have the whole 2006 year titles at launch. All of the launch titles like Ridge Racer 7 and Resistance 1 would cost less that $10 today. I did a search and could only find pre-owned versions, $3 for Resistance 2 and $6 for Ridge Racer 7.
They would have a huge number of games that they could sell at a retail price of $5-10 today, and make money.
And re-release the PS3 here, and why not only go with the 250GB model, and sell it for $150 at launch and then do price-drops every year. So in a few years it's down to $100, and even street bums can afford it. And if they could release the PS3 at a launch price of $100 in fall 2014, well, that would be even better.
I can mention this also. Original CS was released in 1999-2000(?) and re-released in China in 2008 as CS OL. CS:Source was released in 2004 and will be re-released in China in 2014 as CS OL2(see my sig). So this is nothing new really, when it comes to PC, and the tacics that Valve uses.
One big question though is if EA, Activision, Sega and of course Sony themselves would be interested in this. Are there really profit to be made here, and if so, is the profit enough? China, India and Korea are three markets where I think this could work. Maybe even in Russia? I don't know much about the Russian market, perhaps the new consoles sell well there. And I suppose there are even more markets in Africa etc.
