I like Sony. Who doesn’t? They’ve got a lot of great games, they’re leaders in technology and research, they have their fingers in lots of good pies, and so on. But if they keep pulling this kind of garbage, they’re going to be begging for mercy from the rest of the industry in five years. “At the end of the day, the iPhone is just a phone,” says Kaz Hirai. Sure, buddy. I’m not iPhone maniac like the rest of the CG crew, but calling it “just a phone” is like calling Godzilla “just an iguana.” What it is, Mr. Hirai, is an effective assault on almost every device your company makes, and you’d do well to consider it so. But this isn’t the only time Sony has shot itself in the foot lately.
How about the PSP Go? Pricing it at $250 misses out on a huge opportunity to put it below $200, entice upgraders, put it in the “casual buy” section of people’s minds. But Sony is “comfortable with where the prices are sitting right now.” The PS3 has been priced too high since launch, yet they’re comfortable with that as well. Sure, Nintendo hasn’t exactly lowered its price either, but that’s because they picked the right one to begin with. You didn’t, Sony! You never do! And then you just plug your ears and start singing about how it’ll all work out with your 10-year plan.
Sony, you had it so good. With the momentum of the PS2, you could have completely dominated the console gaming market, but you refused to capitalize on your success. You may have lost money with every PS3, but no amount of lost money will make up for lost market share you’ll never capture again. And you had so much money anyway. It was as simple as pricing it equal to the Xbox 360, at which point you could say “It’s newer, it’s better, it’s more powerful, and it’s a Sony.” Your sales would be great, you’d lose a ton of money, and then you’d gain it back because all your PS2 partners would still be your friends. The Wii would have taken off anyway, but at least Microsoft wouldn’t be eating your cake right now. Remember all those great exclusives you unveiled at E3? Neither do I.
Being completely disconnected from market realities and pretending everything will be all right is no way to go through life, Sony. And I’m afraid that at this point there’s no turning back. If, during the first year of the PS3 and PSP’s lifetime, you’d seen the terrible sales and said “we blew it,” you might have been able to save yourself. But I’m convinced you’re going to keep missing opportunities until you’re out of the race.
Just don’t croak until the PS3’s magnum opus comes out (probably The Last Guardian, let’s be honest). You may not even compete in the next generation, but at least people will look back at the PS3 the way they look at the Saturn or Dreamcast, and say “What a waste. There were some decent games on that thing.”
Declaring Sony dead in the console war because of one bad generation? You don’t need to look any further than the Wii to see how well Nintendo was able to rebound from the lackluster GameCube. Sony has taken a hit but that doesn’t mean the PS4 can’t be just as successful as the PS2.
I don’t know, I think you’re missing what E3 has become of late. I don’t disagree that some mistakes have been made on Sony’s side, but I highly doubt they ever would have been able to start the PS3’s price at $400, losing more than %50 of cost, right there. I mean, that translates to unfathomable losses. I could be wrong, of course.
That having been said, I think we’re going to see even more from Sony at TGS (hopefully, sans media leakage), especially a ton on GT5 for the PS3. Given what Kazunori Yamauchi was quoted as saying earlier today. And to be perfectly honest, given the sales numbers, I think GT5 will sell far more units than The Last Guardian (although, I’m fairly certain that’ll be a big seller too).
Anyway, the PS3 definitely has some life left in her, and I really don’t think Sony’s out of time yet. As you said, the Wii just took right off and there was probably never any catching it. But, the 360 still seems to be within sights…they just need to clean up their advertising issues, and keep the steady stream of quality 1st party titles coming out. Outweigh the 3rd party disparity with high scoring inovative and unique titles, something that the Sony boys are really good at…
Morne
Also, it’s not just a phone “at the end of the day.”
It will be “just a phone” tomorrow, and the next day, and it was “just a phone” yesterday.
I hate when people say “at the end of the day” when they don’t mean “at the end of the day.”
It seems to affect mostly people who make above $100,000/year.
For the most part I totally agree with you. Sony has a HUGE problem with their pricing. The PSP Go is cheaper to manufacture and yet they jacked the price up $80 from the 3000 model.
But I must say that you are fooling no one when you say that Sony didnt reveal any good exclusives @ E3.
1.Uncharted 2
2. MAG
3.Last Guardian
4.Final Fantasy 14
5.Heavy Rain
6.God of War 3
7.Ratchet and Clank
I am probably missing a ton. Regardless of your thoughts on Sony you cannot deny the AWESOME lineup it has.
only 2 of those were actually revealed at E3, Last Guardian and Final Fanasy 14. Every other one had already been discussed, or previewed.
Ben Heck made a great point about the PS3 in Doug’s interview from earlier today.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever taken apart a PlayStation 3, but it’s frickin’ awesome. Like all these heat pipes coming off the main chips, and there’s this fan that’s like six inches in diameter. So mostly at the base is this fan that’s turned by a big radiator. If you think of a Chevy Metro or a Smart Car, this is probably bigger than the radiators in those cars. But seriously, the whole bottom of the PS3 is basically metal, copper, fans, and cooling. Instead of, like, oh here’s some fans on the back that’ll just lazily pull out air.
It’s very well built – too expensive, though. Maybe that’s why it’s so expensive.”
I’ve never had any issues with my PS3 and Sony hasn’t been plagued by hardware issues like Microsoft. If Sony would lower the cost of their console, I guarantee that it would be right up there with the Xbox 360.
Publishers have probably been forced to take PS exclusives to the Xbox because they know Sony won’t be able to move as many units as Microsoft because of the price. That and the fact that everyone complains about how hard it is to develop for. If I were a pub, I’d be looking for the cash cow instead of going with the better hardware. But what do I know?
Oh Snap! :-/
“Remember all those great exclusives you unveiled at E3? Neither do I.”
PS3:
1. MAG, (PS3 exclusive)
2. Uncharted 2, (PS3 exclusive)
3. The Last Guardian, (PS3 exclusive)
4. God of War III, (PS3 exclusive)
5. Final Fantasy IV,
6. new motion controller,
7. Heavy Rain, (PS3 exclusive)
8. Gran Turismo 5, (PS3 exclusive)
9. exlusive Rockstar game called “Agent”, (PS3 exclusive)
10. inFamous, (PS3 exclusive)
11. Ratchet & Clank: Crack in Time, (PS3 exclusive)
12. White Knight Chronicles, (PS3 exclusive)
13. Demon Soul, (PS3 exclusive)
14. Lost Planet 2 announced for PS3 too
15. Killzone 2, (PS3 exclusive)
——–VS——-
MS E3 was only
1. Natal,
2. Alan Wake, (X360 exclusive)
3. Splinter Cell, (X360 exclusive maybe)
4. Halo ODST, (X360 exclusive)
5. L4D 2, (X360 exclusive)
6. Halo Wars, (X360 exclusive)
7. an announcement of Metal Gear Solid:Rising (is coming for PS3 too BTW)
What I want to say is, are you on crack @Devin Coldewey ? Or are you just misinformed?
Now waiting for Tokyo Game Show…
lol Natal beats all 15 of those by itself. no one even cared about any of the sony exclusives, and now the Wii and Sony motion control seems completely dated.
MS #6?
I’m really not going to touch the tired old “Sony is out of touch with reality” argument I’ve been hearing from every tech blogger on Earth since about the instant Apple launched a portable music player.
What I am more interested in, is this proclamation that the iPhone “is an effective assault on almost every device [Sony] makes.” Really, you think so? See, this is what I find so fascinating about the tech blog iPhone lovefest. You seem to want to have it every way, as long as that looks good for Apple, but not want to accept any negative for Apple.
For example, if the iPhone is a competitor to the PSP, then doesn’t that make it a really distant 3rd in the the race, behind the PSP’s 40+ million units, and WAY behind the DS’ 100+ million units? In fact, compared to DS sales figures, aren’t the iPhone’s 20 million unit sales figures kind of laughable? I’m not even going to get into how incomprehensible it is to think that the iPhone is an “effective assault” to a TV or a home stereo, which are the bulk of Sony’s products.
We get it, you work for a tech blog, so as far as you are concerned, your car, your microwave, your TV and your pet all better watch out because the iPhone threatens to make them all extinct, since once you have an iPhone, you don’t need anything else in the universe. The thing is, this is an awful lot of big talk for a device who’s entire business model seems to be to sell a new version of the device to the same 10 million media professionals and hipsters every year. I mean, you would think iPhone sales would spike a little now that they are giving the phone away for free in a lot of places, but so far that isn’t the case. So far it is the same people spending their days blogging about how incredible the device is, and waiting with baited breath for the new one to come out.
I really wonder how long tech blogs will be able to continue with this story of the iPhone as the runaway mass market success, revolutionizing every market from communication to gaming to the food service industry, while the device continues to languish at around 10 million units a year sold. No doubt the very same tech blogs are more than willing to declare the PSP a complete and utter failure with better sales figures than that. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, tech blogs have spent years talking about the lack of consumer acceptance of Windows Mobile at 15 million units a year. But, it would appear that at 10 million units a year, the iPhone singlehandedly threatens to put Sony out of business, because it “is an effective assault on almost every device [Sony] makes.” Interesting how different 10 million people look when they are all bloggers.
It’s so funny when MS fanboys say NATAL won the show with there motion tech… these are probably the same dudes that said the eye toy and eye pet are lame. No matter how well MS did with natal it’s just a gimmick, yes the eye is also and the eye toy wands they showed.
It really comes down to the software they can develope for said tech, and no matter how great natal is, sonys device is much more practical in that department and they said it will be backwards compatible with ps3 games.
Also in regards to sony being dead this gen. They have sold 2.5 million more units then 360 has in the same time frame. And catching up in sales month to month in america at twice the price, that is momentum for you.
But I can agree with you on the iPhone, it is a very sexy competitor to handheld gaming, plus it’s a phone! I don’t think you can have the psp experience without the psp, but still sony should take that thing very seriously!
Time will tell what Natal does for MS. If it doesn’t respond the way you would expect or the games written for it doesn’t do it justice it could be a big flop.
Think Virtual Boy