| KBG29 said: The PS3 Story (So Far) 1. They started off selling a $900 product for $600 dollars. 2. Due to number one they did not market the system to sell extreamly well, do to obvious reasons. 3. A competitor came out strong with a much smarter buisness model, and a catchy gimic. 4. Thanks to a stupid idea of selling the console at a nearly $300 dollar loss per unit, combine with low sales numbers Sony started to freak out. Developers were not happy, and the threat of loosing third party support looked very possible. 5. Sony fumbles the ball even more, removing b/c to lower the price of the unit while removing massive value, and foricing viablity on the PS2 to help counter major losses. 6. With the price cut getting idoits on board, and Sony loosing less money things started getting better. Sony regained trust in third parties, and they won the HD video war. However, the losses per unit sold was still effecting the profit, therefore, Sony continued to let the system sit on the market with no advertising. 7. Some big franchises help the system gain some appeal, and Sony adds much needed features that add even more value to the system. For one week it tops the almighty Wii, and things are starting to move uphill. 8. With their lead slipping Microsoft makes a move to bring their system into the mainstream making it possible to buy 2 360's for the price of a PS3. 9. Sony enters the holiday season still in a tough spot finacilally, and to make matters worse the world is in the biggest economic meltdown it has ever seen. This leads to a sustained price point, and a failure to properly market their major in house efforts. Sony made a lot of stupid moves with this system, and to make matters worse the competition made very smart move, and the economy completly bombed. Many are stating the PS3 is done for, but that is just pure blindness. If the last few months have proved anything, it is that entertainment does not get effected buy a bad economy. Things have been getting better and better for the PS3 over the past 2 years, and 09 will fianlly see the system become viable from a buisness stance. With the PS3 reaching the point in which Sony can make money off it next year a lot of things are going to change. The marketing team will finally start to change the way consumers look at the system, and really try to sell some units. Gaming changing services will make thier way to the platform. Home, The Store, Online gameing functions, PSP to PS3 communication will all play major roles in the way PS3 is precived in the coming year. Sony may have lost a good deal of marketshare, and making it back this generation is nearly imposible. Luckly the mistakes have been fixed and lessons learned. The SCE division is now stable, and the game is back on. Playstation may not be back on top during this generation, but thanks to a few of the stumbles that messed up the early years of PSP, and PS3 the foundation for the next gen has been built mighty strong. Expect a very competitive Sony for the rest of this generation, and the even more so come PSP 2 and PS4. |
SCE will in all likelyhood not make a profit this year. What's even worse is that now the whole comapny is in the shitter. Before the losses of SCE (over 3 billion, mind you) could be more or less evened out by other division. Nevertheless the Stringer (CEO) was very clear that SCE needed to be profitable. With Sony as a whole losing money there will not likely be any reluctance to cut on SCE. They'll probably have to sell production houses and I really wonder whether they'll have the money to cut the price.
The sword is cutting in so many different ways. Sony made the technically most advanced console, but not only did they lose/lost money on each console sold, it also made the development of their 1st party games (bread and butter if you use the razorblade model) much more expensive. On top of that the console sold/sells very bad because the consumer doesn't see the value. This hurts the software sales, which actually needed to sell more than last generation in order to make the same profits. This is of course very hard to get out of. Cause if they produce less 1st party games the PS3 will even be less attrctive, due to most 3rd party games being multiplatform.
What you also say is that next year everything will change. But the problem is they lack the money to change anything. It will be cutting costs. And if they cut the price of the PS3 they'll have to cut even more costs. This includes R&D costs for the PS4.
