PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3)Sony "No PS3 Pricecuts Before Summer 09"Kotaku - December 19, 2008
Submitted by Animate (241)
at 7:36PM PST on December 19, 2008
SCEE's David Reeves says no price cut for PS3 anytime soon, not even in the Spring 2009. He also says "That doesn’t mean we are going to add pieces of software – we might add original ideas to the machine."
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Personally, I don't view the competition as having much to do with it. Certainly competition *does* have an effect but whatever that is I see being easily cancelled out by the growth in new market sectors Nintendo have opened up where quite frankly, they don't have any competition right now. Neither of these are tangible factors, so we may have to agree to disagree but thus far I think the evidence points to the latter of having the bigger impact.
Thus far;-
* There are almost zero signs of competition affecting current Wii sales momentum. Despite not being the cheapest console on the market they sold a massive 2m last month. Furthermore, that figure is clearly what they shipped so demand is still not undercutting supply, 2 years after launch.
* The different experience offered by the Wii console encourages multiple console ownership. i.e. it's quite likely those interested in upmarket (HD) gaming would consider owning a Wii as well. More so than last gen where the only real differentiating factors were a handful of exclusives and/or LIVE vs the PS2 library with a massive number of exclusives and most of what the other platforms had.
The number of users who would buy an Xbox just to play say, Halo, is less likely to be as many who may want to play HD & waggle. If the publishers get their act together and start releasing compelling third party content exclusively for the Wii, this will increases.
* There are some similarities with last gen (i.e. the Wii, 360 & PS3 taking the roles of PS2, Xbox and GameCube respectively.) Now clearly the 360 & PS3 will perform better than the Xbox & GC. How much so depends on how much the console market has grown overall. General concensus is that the console market is growing, so even without taking into account any new customers the Wii is bringing in from non-traditional sectors, there would be in theory a bigger pie than the PS2+Xbox+GC to slice up.
Now factor in the new customers Nintendo are brining in. Bigger numbers than last gen does not necessarily translate to bigger marketshare % and/or restrict sales from Nintendo, more so given the increased possibilities for multi-console ownership.
Again this isn't tangible but I don't think the theory is too loony. What I do think, which is slightly more controversial is that HD would not be making much difference even if there wasn't a recession, much less likely now there is.
Microsoft do have a problem with their top end model now they are knocking out 60GB's, the value isn't there. Adding value to it is certainly necessary but Blu-Ray isn't it. It's only technically feasible with an expensive add-on and only relevant to a dwindling market segement who have an HDTV, know what Blu-Ray is, don't have a PS3 and don't have a standalone (which themselves are declining in price rapidly). Potentially this hurts their drive to digital download which they've been VERY vocal about. Most of the HD-DVD guys seem to have moved on to working on Silverlight to boot.
Microsoft don't need Blu-Ray to hurt the PS3 value proposition and it would have limited impact on their own for the Elite. I'd feel confident enough to stick half of my networth on their not being a Blu-Ray 360 :)