A lot of people out here think I'm a Sony-basher and that's not true. I actually wanted a PS1 & PS2 especially so I could play all the games I missed that weren't on my home company's side, Nintendo's. I CAN play other systems and have many times. What soured me on Sony was reports of Sony craftsmanship. I like my stuff to last with me for years. I have a two tabletop mini-arcades one being a Game & Watch Mario's Cement Factory that will be 23 years old this year (yes as old as Kwaad himself!) and a Coleco Pac-Man that will be 22 this year (old enough to graduate from college!). And they still work like the day I first got 'em. I am displeased with Sony's business practices and where they have led the industry in regards to quality control and attitudes more than anything though I can respect their ability to become the champ in the industry.
I actually worry more about Microsoft becoming a leader in this industry. They will ruin this gamething if they ever got real control. As a competitor I don't mind them—they give out a solid product that many people seem pleased by—but as an industry leader I'll stand against 'til the day I die.
OK now that that's out the way here's something I've been thinking about.
Do you think that Sony should have gone all out and produced and sold their next console as a PSX rather than they did as a PS3?
I ask this question because it seems Sony was going for the enthusiast, high-end, videoaudiotechnophile, cosmopolitan audience with the PS3.
I heard rumors of the PSX2 a while back and it was basically the gargantuan version of what the PS3 was.
Price will always matter and when you go to certain price levels you will bar yourself from certain audiences. Some don't pay past $200 or even $150 for game machines.
Sony created a specialist audience machine, a niche machine for a mass market. That won't work EVER. You CAN sell to niche audiences and survive. Thrive even. How many people buy Rolls-Royces everyday? But that company makes profit from concentrating their resources and attention catering it to the needs/wants of their dedicated base.
Advertising will be different and production costs will be different. You make for less people so production is slightly less complicated. Less storage and warehousing. You sell smaller quantities for higher prices and make your money THAT way. Catering to the needs of a few. The total opposite of the mass market strategy.
I think Sony should not have played this $600 game with the PS3 because it was never going to work. It's simply too high and even the XBox 360 is too high. They sell it at a loss thinking not to scare off more potential customers but they don't realize that they have ALREADY scared off most of the customers. And as a result they scare off the developers eventually. Bad business practice. Selling more systems actually HURTS them if they don't make up the difference in software sales & Blu-Ray disc sales.
So shouldn't they have gone all out and created the ultimate version of the PS3 that would be like the PSX? An all-in-one media device that plays games, plays Blu-Ray, edits movies, is a DVR, maybe does Tivo, runs Linux, acts as a stereo/surround player and has Bose-like speakers and all that high-level jazz?
NOT selling it at a loss but REALLY staying true to their "I would work another job to buy one" mentality. Putting the price out at $1000 plus and presenting it beyond a gamemachine but more as an all-in-one mega media device. A TRUE PlayStation that plays EVERYTHING.
Selling it to upscale audiences & their emulaters?
They wouldn't have the volume of sales but they WOULD have the power of profit being that it sells at such a high margin. And no one could complain about price because of all the stuff in the box and that it was never intended to be like the other Playstations. Full-powered Cell to do all these things.
What do you think about that? That would make more sense to me.
John Lucas
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