Ail said:
I don't think turning up a profit will be as hard as it seems.
The PS3 installed base is starting to be big enough for software sales to start counterbalancing hardware sales.
One example :
April 2007 : 372k PS3 sold, 636k PS3 software sold ( incomplete numbers but what VGChartz has). 1.7 software units sold per console.
April 2008 : 682k PS3 sold, 4.1 millions PS3 software units sold( VGCChartz numbers again). 6 units of software sold per PS3.
Keep in mind this is April the month in the quarter without big titles.
May and June will be more like 7 or 8 software units/console with GTA4 and MGS4...
And as time pass this ratio will become bigger and bigger.( I woudn't be surprised if we get to something like 10-12 in 6 months for the holyday period).
Sure PS2 software are slowing down to counterbalance the rise in PS3 software but I can't believe Sony is still making that much per sale of PS2 software these days seeing how most games are priced at 30$ or less NEW....
This rise in PS3 software sales ( which will keep happening as the installed base increase ) will be the key factor in PS3 turning a profit and will be what will enable more price cuts ( I still think we will have at least a 50$ cut around the holydays).
PS : this is the same thing that made the 360 turn a profit last year, once you have over 10-12 millions console out the monthly ratio of software/console sold increases a lot and software start covering for hardware loss...
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Well actually the Xbox360 is probably sold at a profit at the moment, and that profit will increase with the Jasper revision.
But the real question is $3,000,000,000 in the hole. They would need to sell 430million third party titles to break even @ $7 per copy. So to really even think about breaking even they have to profit from console sales as well, yet to do that will slow down the rate of console sales and therefore slow the rate of software sales.
Furthermore, until they can increase the userbase substantially their 1st party developers are a weight around their neck and not a boon at all. Since they've been forced to bundle these titles instead of selling them, its probably added to that net loss and not helped really.
