Many people have been talking about the PS3 and its "high price" I was thinking about the last generation and how many people eventually bought two or all three systems (xbox, ps2 and gamcube) Perhaps the price of the ps3 is to discourage buying multiple systems initially. The "high price" might be part of a strategy to ensure single system commitment among consumers. Yes I know the HD player and many other factors are making the system expensive to produce, but it seems to me sony has decided to choose a certain small group as its customers for the PS3, the rest be damned. I am not for or against sony, so I am not too concerned over the price. But it appears to me that sony has decided not to retain some of thier current customers. The high price is like an "oath" to sony consoles that ony a portion of sony customers will take. Does that mean us mutli-system owners could be viewed as "bad" customers by sonys marketing execs, so better to just sort us out from the dedicated fanboy with a discouraging price?
Doesn't somebody working in the industry have an opinion based on factual evidence? I am sure someone on this board has some insight into the marketing behind the PS3. I am really curious about who they want to sell this system to and how they expect to deal with initial fallout from current PS2 customers.
The gamecube went trough this generation with a minimun market share, thats why the Wii is designed to take advantage of that market model. The PS3 on the other hand can and will only succeed if it reaches a market penetration equal or superior to that of the PS2. If it does not, then sony is teh dead.
there's no intentional marketing scheme behind the high price of the Ps3. Sony has indeed spent alot of money in RnD and is making a state-of-the-art console, pushing the envelope of customer's expectations from an all-in-one entertainment device. The downside of this risk that Sony has taken, is of course the price. Sony follows the dynamic growth model presented in escalation from the first to the second playstation model. In other words, in the same way that the PS2 had many more functions than the original PlayStation (not by kutaragi's desire, but rather the rest of the sony board actualy, as I recall Ken wanted to release a "simple" version of the console at some point before actual release), in that same manner Sony hopes customers will embrace the growth philosophy. For any other company this would be a fatal mistake, but knowing that most people nowadays have related video games to the PlayStation brand, a powerhouse like that seems to make sense for the whole family. Most people don't buy things because they need them, they do follow a certain trend. Look at the ipod. It's overpriced imo, but everyone and his mother wants one because it's "cool to have one" or something along those lines. On another discussion in the forums, it has been suggested that Sony does realise the high price of the product, and has tried to lower it by tax technics. Thus dubbing the Ps3 as a computer system. This effort was made previously by all the playstation products, as they were labeled "Computer Entertainment System" , with the word "Computer" being the champion for tax reasons - this didn't meet the standards though. Another reason for sony releasing two different versions for 100 dollars price difference is to underline the "computer"-ity of its new console. So sony goes on saying that they arent two different versions, but "built on demand( ?)" as a computer with different configurations. In its effort to push the Ps3 as a PC and reduce cost, they also include "linux as one of the standard OSs". If you may recall, sony criticized Microsoft's tactic to release two different versions of the console, by saying that Sony doesn't want to confuse customers. So it's obvious from the get-go that sony wanted a single product, but is taking the "hit" of releasing two "configurations" in a desperate hope to classify the product as a personal computer. The use of "off-the-shelf" components for expansion also seem to point to that direction, as sony would make more money on licensing peripherals than choosing the open model. Edutainment titles should also appear to enforce this view, at some point. From the above efforts it is obvious that sony realises that their product is gonna cost them and the customer an awful lot of money. They re not happy with it, but they're willing to take the risk. The fact that they present the high price point as a "good" thing is just marketing. After all, no matter how bad your product is, u r never going to admit it while you're trying to make a profit out of it, same goes with the price (i didn't say PS3 was bad btw). I hope this clears things up. Sony doesn't care to seperate loyals from infidels. As a company they want to make a profit, and don't discriminate if it's my money or yours, as long as its money and there's more comming.
true, true, and i can see some effort from them to reduce costs on the machine if you think that the standalone BR players will be over 300$ they are giving away a nice technology for the remaining 299$, not that it might make such a big difference for someone that pays it if the ps3 was available at 320$ with just DVD people would have been happier
If Sony thinks they can label the PS3 as a computer they're nuts. Sure it's got linux now, but so does the PS2, Dreamcast, XBox, DS, and so on. The XBox is as close to a computer as consoles will every truely get in a literal sense and I don't think MS got the taxs for it. They're betting purely on the unwashed masses having a rabid urge to buy the new Playstation without care for the fact the most people either do not have $600, their parents don't have $600 to put down for XMas, or the people who are loyal to a point. The rich people, the ones who saved money, and the guy who sells off his previous consoles to buy the latest ones are going to be the people who own this one. For a while things will look just dandy, like the PSP. Not hard to find one of those on eBay with a game or two for $120....
The prices of the newest consoles is such a point of discussion that MONEY magazine even mentions the xbox 360 in and article about saving money and retirement funds. The writer of the article says that parents should tell thier kids that they cannot afford an xbox 360 and that their retirement fund takes priority over an expensive console system as a gift. If MONEY magazine is plugged into the price of this toy and is giving advice to pass on purchasing it, I think upcomming expensive systems may be in trouble. The high cost has passed into mainstream media outlets of upper middle class adults, I would think that its a very bad sign considering that it is thier money that gets sony products into the hands of minors.
the linux version on the ps3 is said to be a real complete distro, it's impossible to compare it with dc that didn't had wince as people toughs in, ps2 or even xbox that just used and NT kernel not windows OS. even tought they are wrong, in some aspect ps3 is far closer to a pc than most of the preceding console were. not that i think they should get tax discount, tought.
The Xbox is essentially off the shelf PC components and has full Linux distros for it (unofficial of course) where as the PS3 is pretty much all custom hardware. Having Linux should not be an excuse to just classify something as a computer anyways because it's been pretty much been ported to everything known to man.
I remember when I was in spain some years ago than sony was asking the chamber of commerce for a tax deduction since the PS2 was a computer. Maybe thats why they still sell that linux distro for the system... About the PS3 being a computer, well it may use linux, but I think the big point is the fact that the CPU will be available in IBM servers soon, and that the GPU is a modified version of one found in nVidia VGA cards. Anyways, to close I like to say: why sony? why you had to screw things like this with the PS3? I mean, lets face it: both PS2 and PS3 have and will sell thanks to the Playstation brand. Both are engineering disasters and in the case of the PS3 you could get the same power with a simpler, cheaper design. Just because squeezing it until my hands bleed I "may", in theory, get a little more power than the much cheaper X360, that doesnt justifies the pain and costs...
