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JackHandy on 04 May 2025
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RolStoppable said:
JackHandy said:

Remember that E3 where Sony came out on stage with two guys and snarkily exchanged a physical game to highlight how "pro-consumer" Playstation was compared to Xbox (this was before Microsoft abandoned their planned DRM nonsense)? That event single-handedly sealed PS4's dominance. If Sony could somehow manage to keep their prices the same, or even lower them a smidge, they could easily run with the pro-consumer thing again and win the day. I mean, this is their big chance. Fate is once more winking at them from the corner of the room. Will they? Probably not. But if I were in their US marketing department, that is exactly what I'd be trying to get the top guys to go along with.

The defining moment of E3 2013 was the announcement of the PS4 price at $399, $100 cheaper than the less powerful Xbox One. The physical game exchange was merely adding insult to injury.

Today there's no such thing as a "big chance" anymore. The Xbox Series sold only 2.7m units in the USA in 2024 with the trend continuing to point downwards. Sony doesn't need to do any competitive marketing anymore, because Xbox is on its way out. And in light of this Xbox price announcement, Sony is very likely to follow suit and raise their PS5 prices in the USA for the first time. Xbox is so beaten that it doesn't even matter that Jim Ryan committed a huge blunder with his GaaS offensive that resulted in several cancellations and leaves the PS first party lineup crippled for a few years.

I disagree on it being pointless. I once asked Tom Kalinske what his recipe for success was. He told me that is comes down to two things: do what your competition can't do, or do what they aren't willing to do. And right now, Nintendo is either not willing to play the part they've been playing for a long, long time, which is the cheaper, pro-consumer option, or they can't. So If Playstation's president went live and said they are going to lower prices because unlike the competition, they believe it's all about the gamers... trust me. It would reverberate. Suddenly, you have Playstation looking like saviors and everything else looking like the crooks that the cynics have been claiming they were all along. 

It would work.