Sony’s 83-year Plan to Reestablish Console Dominance

Posted by Keith Hahn, Jul 26, 2007, 12:44pm

sony.jpg Sony is on the cusp (in the glacial sense) of reemerging as the dominant home console maker with a hefty 21% gain in PS3 sales from May to June. It looks like chopping $100 off the staggeringly short-sighted $599 “I can buy two Wiis and two games for this” initial price worked. The Blu-Ray revolution is here, a format so innovative that it can properly eulogize the Mini-Disc and UMD.

The PS2 is famously cited as selling over 100 million units, averaging over 15 million units sold per year. To contrast, Sony sold 98,500 PS3s in June. SeekingAlpha points out (was not too lazy to do the math) that at this pace, it will take 83 years to sell 100 million consoles, a shade off the 5-6 year time frame Sony execs projected. Monthly PS3 sales would have to increase over 1500% to about 1.65 million to hit the century mark by 2013. That 21% sales “surge” looks a little empty in context.

Sony reports that its $100 price cut has shot (unreleased) PS3 sales up 135%, although the slashed $499 console is soon to be phased out, displaced with a “new and improved” $599 version. “New and improved” defined by Sony is 20GB more on a hard drive, boldly charging $100 for about a $10 manufacturing cost difference (got to make up those negative margins somewhere).

Microsoft balked on announcing an Xbox 360 price cut during E3 this year, but there are rumors that Microsoft will slash $50 sometime in August. The Core Xbox 360 costs $299.

The Wii-coup is almost complete, and Nintendo holds almost half the next-gen home console market, completing the first to worst to first circle. The Wii sold more than twice the number of Xbox 360s sold last month, which sold more than twice the number of PS3s.

Game Over For Sony In The Console Wars [SeekingAlpha]
PS3 Price Cut Is Fake [DigitalBattle]
Xbox 360 Price Cut Coming? [SlipperyBrick]

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Posted in: Sony, Video Games

Comments

Posted by Lee D, Jul 26, 2007 12:55PM

Hey, don't go dragging MiniDisc into this! MD was a cool-ass format. It just should have been released 5-7 years before the advent of cheap burnable Compact Discs, instead of at the same time, which was purely a strategic error.

Posted by , Jul 26, 2007 4:00PM

The 80gb version (at least the initial stock) will also come with a copy of motorstorm ($60 retail), but that game doesn't quite live up to expectations. but even $40 for an extra 20gb is a rip.

sony has said they're going to re-evaluate the market during the next few months while they sell off the 60gb stock at the reduced price, then make a decision then, so they might insert another $500 (or even $400 as some rumors state) version in a few months. They do need about 16 booster shots in the arm right now though, and some A-list exclusive games, which look like they're coming eventually, but maybe not in time for the critical holiday season.

Posted by Some guy, Jul 27, 2007 6:01AM

Sarcasm overload. Must... lay... down.

Another smart-arse anti-PS3 blog. True sales are still pretty bad right now, but Sony will eventually reclaim there console crown and go on to sell even more than the PS2. Oh now I'm being sarcastic!

(Damn it! This comment is a day too late)

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