Sony Boss Getting Fed Up With PPL Telling Him The PS3 Is Too Expensive


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Few weeks back, Activision boss Bobby Kotick had some strong words to say about the price of the PS3. Today, Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer has some strong words for people bugging him about a PS3 price cut. Responding to Kotick's threats that Activision may "stop supporting" Sony consoles, Stringer says "He likes to make a lot of noise. He's putting pressure on me and I'm putting pressure on him. That's the nature of business."

Stringer was equally blunt to anyone else banging on about the price of the PS3, telling a Reuters reporter asking about the logic of not cutting the console's price "I (would) lose money on every PlayStation I make ? how's that for logic."

No need to get so touchy, Sir Howard. It's noyour i>fault. Just blame Ken Kutaragi! Problem. Solved.

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Just more confirmation that there will be no drop until there is a major hardware revision. That Slim can't come soon enough.

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Slim or no Slim, Sony missed the boat. They should have dropped it last year to boost holiday sales. With the economy the way it is, it's going to be even worse this holiday. A hardware refresh isn't going to save that. On top of that, other than the guy wanting a Blu-Ray player, they have no software to drive the sale. People don't buy consoles based on a hardware revision, they buy it based on library and price. Neither of which Sony has aggressively gone after.

I can't even remember the last PS3 software commercial I saw.

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Perhaps if they're sick of it they should, I don't know.. LISTEN TO IT?!

Agreed. They refused to listen so I got an Xbox instead.

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Perhaps if they're sick of it they should, I don't know.. LISTEN TO IT?!

Thats crazy talk. Next you'll suggest they look at sales figures and other sorts of whacky indicactors.

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Perhaps if they're sick of it they should, I don't know.. LISTEN TO IT?!

Maybe because they have a better idea on how to run a business then the average Joe, hmm? people can bitch and moan all they want but fact is the PS3 is as low as it can go for now, it ain't cheap to make the PS3 and selling it at a huge loss to please cheap arse whiners is bad business, period. You don't like the PS3 price? then don't buy it simple. Yes, Sony made a huge mistake putting the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3, while it may of helped [blu-Ray] win the war but it comes at a terrible cost, it keeps the PS3 in a high price range. Sony are working on making it cheaper and it will eventually drop and if you can't afford/justify the cost then wait, it's not like the PS3 is the only console, you can pick up a 360 or a Wii or just game on a PC. People need to stop bitching about the price of the PS3 like it's the only console on the market, damn does it annoy me! :p

EDIT: Also, there is no evidence Sony doesn't listen! for all we know they are taking everything on board, you know Sony want the PS3 cheaper too because they really want it to sell but it's not that simple, they can't just drop the price for the sake of it. There are many other things to consider. If companies ran in the way consumers wanted them too, they'd be all bankrupt and consumers would then be bitching and moaning about that.

Edited by Xerxes
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Isn't that the double edged sword though? If you don't lower the cost of the console, you are potentially losing even more sales by people going to the other brand. With the economy being the way it is, people are less inclined to buy multiple consoles, especially for 1-2 exclusives. Either way, you are losing money.

I personally own all three consoles, but right now, I honestly couldn't afford to buy all three if I didn't already have them.

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Maybe because they have a better idea on how to run a business then the average Joe, hmm?

It's not the average Joe he's addressing that are complaining about the price, it's people who are just like him - heads of rather large companies that do, in fact, know how to run a business.

Sony dropped the ball this generation, that's all there is to it. Assuming they've learned from everything that's gone on this time around, they shouldn't have any problem doing much better next time around.

-Spenser

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Maybe because they have a better idea on how to run a business then the average Joe, hmm? people can bitch and moan all they want but fact is the PS3 is as low as it can go for now, it ain't cheap to make the PS3 and selling it at a huge loss to please cheap arse whiners is bad business, period. You don't like the PS3 price? then don't buy it simple. Yes, Sony made a huge mistake putting the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3, while it may of helped [blu-Ray] win the war but it comes at a terrible cost, it keeps the PS3 in a high price range. Sony are working on making it cheaper and it will eventually drop and if you can't afford/justify the cost then wait, it's not like the PS3 is the only console, you can pick up a 360 or a Wii or just game on a PC. People need to stop bitching about the price of the PS3 like it's the only console on the market, damn does it annoy me! :p

One could argue that it's their fault that it's so expensive to manufacture in the first place but it's not like things can be changed dramatically now (except the retail price). :p

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We all know they have a slimline in the pipes that will probably be here this fall, in time for Christmas tops. Most people think they are going to drop the price by $100 with the slim. Why not just drop the price of the current one by $50 now? They need to get rid of the stock anyway. Any loss on the hardware should be just about made up in extra software sales. It would keep both consumers and publishers happy until the slim is ready.

You've got to think too, that the publishers that have gone public with their complaints are only the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure there has been a lot more complaining going on in private.

I've got to say though, I think any price drop is far too late and the damage is done. PS3 is going to be 3rd this gen. It's kind of like Vista. It was garbage at launch, but eventually became a very good OS. People never accepted it though and it will always have that stigma attached to it. Same with PS3.

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Sony say they can't make the console cheaper but perhaps they shouldn't of wasted everyone's time by shipping such an expensive to make console in the beginning. The cell processor however great was not needed as has been proven by the XBOX360s cheaper CPU.

Sony screwed up this time. The PS1 and PS2 were runaway successes and mainly due to the other consoles being underpowered or having another type of Hardware deficit. For example the PS1 vs the N64 - The N64 cartridges were exspensive to make reducing the amount of money that the developer made and the Cartridges were only 64MB in Size, shipping multiple cartridges for large games was simply out of the question. This lead to most of the 'good' games on the N64 platform being made by Nintendo and very rarely would you get a game that was both fun and graphically impressive for the N64 platform that wasn't made by Nintendo. Thus the PS1 took off.

A similar thing happened with the PS2 it had DVD as a storage medium the Dreamcast did not. It wasn't cheap but it wasn't overly expensive either the Game Cube although a nice console suffered similar problems to the N64 and didn't give Sony much competition it wasn't until the XBOX showed up that Sony got some competition and even then it was always trailing behind the PS2 because it launched first and had a certain amount of refinement. The XBOX was new and had a lot of rough edges which Microsoft sorted out with the 360.

This brings us to where we are now. Microsoft has a capable console out which launched before the PS3, Nintendo has a low-priced console that is selling like crack due to the Wii Remote motion controller and the PS3 is the most expensive console out there it may be a very powerful device but without developers to utilise it what's the point? And if consumers are presented with the choice of a PS3 that plays all there games or a XBOX360 that plays all there games (for a significantly lower entry price) they are obviously going to pick the 360.

So Sony has lost this generations console war but its not such a beaten defeat that they are going to pull out they are doing good enough to keep selling Consoles and games are still being released its just not doing as good as the 360 or Wii which would be considered the winners. To put this in race terms Sony hasn't lost the race they just came 3rd when before they came 1st every time. I don't know if the PS3 Slim will change things I suspect it's to little to late as the 360 and Wii has such a foothold and with the 360 suspected of getting its own redesign next year with integrated Natal it will be hard for Sony to deliver something compelling to match that value at the same price point.

Just my views. I own a PS3 and I don't own a 360 or a Wii. I wouldn't consider myself bias as I do enjoy my PS3 but I can clearly see the pitfalls of the platform and I squarely blame Sony for being more ambitious than was necessary to make the PS3 successful.

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"It's expensive because it has Blu-Ray!!" Ok, hypothetically speaking, lets put a DVD drive in there.

"It's expensive because of the Cell, should have put in multiple PPC cores in there!!" Ok, hypothetically speaking, lets also put a Tri-Core PPC architecture in there.

Wait, now what's the difference between a PS3 and a 360? Virtually none. I'm not 100% justifying the PS3 hardware, but people saying it should have done what the XBOX did are bloody idiots. You'd have had 2 consoles launching at the exact same time, with practically the exact same hardware. Except, PS3 would have still been ?300 or more, and would have still lost money. So, where's the upside to this? Yes, they'd be making a bit of money now, but with people thinking "Okay, exact same hardware, except XBOX is around ?40 cheaper and better online features, I think I'll go with this one". Aaaaaaand we'd still be in the same position, except now developers would be complaining that the hardware is the same but it's not got as much marketshare as the 360, so they don't want to develop for it for that reason instead.

To be honest, I'm glad Stringer spoke up and put these whining CEOs in their place. It's like these CEOs just don't ****ing get it, THEY WILL LOSE TOO MUCH MONEY IF THEY DROP THE PRICE MORE. Instead of lower adoption rate of a third console, how abouno console at alli>, huh? Would publishers like this instead? So they have even less people to deliver their games too, force a great loss of revenue for the industry, and put Sony in a position to make a Wii-esque console next generation, stunting performance growth for the next generation? Because, that's what these CEOs are doing if they force a price drop on the current model.

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In this topic we all pretend that we haven't heard companies months before a potential cut say "we don't have a cut planned", "we'll run our own business", "we'll look at the cost at a later date". How many times has this happened yet everyone acts surprised each time a journalist interviews a CEO, or someone speaks up? Howard Stringer has a business to protect, it's his head on the line.

Gotta get rid of that 80GB stock, hence this. Announcing you have a cut coming in a few months as well as a PS3 slim isn't exactly the way to get rid of your old stock. They're suffering enough as it is with price cuts being rumoured for months, and a slim now in the picture. Anyone with internet access would be silly, unless they can afford to blow money, to go drop $400 right now on a PS3 with the chance of a $299 slim in a few months, that hurts a business, hence why everyone's beloved Apple manages to keep new products nailed down to almost the last minute sometimes.

"He likes to make a lot of noise. He's putting pressure on me and I'm putting pressure on him. That's the nature of business."

This pretty much and

Sony are working on making it cheaper and it will eventually drop and if you can't afford/justify the cost then wait, it's not like the PS3 is the only console, you can pick up a 360 or a Wii or just game on a PC.

this.

and

"It's expensive because it has Blu-Ray!!" Ok, hypothetically speaking, lets put a DVD drive in there.

"It's expensive because of the Cell, should have put in multiple PPC cores in there!!" Ok, hypothetically speaking, lets also put a Tri-Core PPC architecture in there.

Wait, now what's the difference between a PS3 and a 360? Virtually none. I'm not 100% justifying the PS3 hardware, but people saying it should have done what the XBOX did are bloody idiots. You'd have had 2 consoles launching at the exact same time, with practically the exact same hardware. Except, PS3 would have still been ?300 or more, and would have still lost money. So, where's the upside to this? Yes, they'd be making a bit of money now, but with people thinking "Okay, exact same hardware, except XBOX is around ?40 cheaper and better online features, I think I'll go with this one". Aaaaaaand we'd still be in the same position, except now developers would be complaining that the hardware is the same but it's not got as much marketshare as the 360, so they don't want to develop for it for that reason instead.

Some of this. I guarantee you if the PS3 was an exact replica of the 360 even less people would have bought it. Even I would of found it hard if it was doing the exact same thing. The only reason I own 3 consoles is each offers me enough differences between them, and I'm happy with that. There's some underlying components I'd like the same, like a robust online network, but talking about the different hardware approaches, I'm glad it's different.

Look at it this way, the PS3 launched a year later than the 360, cost $600, now with an average after 2.5 years of roughly $500 because it's now sitting at $400 and it's sold 23/24m units worldwide. The 360 is at 30/31m. Why would people buy a PS3 when a 360 has had a years head start of software and has always been cheaper? Because there's enough of a difference to justify wanting one over the other, or both. Even if the PS3 launched at the same time as the 360 and tracked it at the same price, people would still have bought 360's. They offer enough unique hardware features, and unique software, to justify owning both, or in some peoples case spending more on one due to taste. If both were replicas however, you'd see a lomoreb> people leaning to priconlyi> rather than a multitude of things.

However carry on the carnival of stupid arguments that always kick off in these pricing threads.

Edited by Audioboxer
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We all know that Sony's had a kick up the [rear] this generation. They're going to spend the next few years in damage control mode as like we all know - they are chasing this time round.

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Everything goes in cycles:

Company A dominates, B chasing and C far behind

Company C brings out new console and heads to the top. A and B now chase C.

A releases a new console, quickly followed by B and that puts C behind.

This isn't a direct parrallel with the current situation, but look at Sega's initial dominance, followed by Nintendo. Sony came into the game and pretty much kicked Sega out.

MS is what Sony was 10 years ago. In my opinion I think MS will be the last 'newcomer' for at least a decade to come. Lastly, I don't think any of the major players will bow out like Sega did as the market is too big and varied to be happy with one console.

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Everything goes in cycles:

Company A dominates, B chasing and C far behind

IMO Nintendo will be Company C next gen and Sony will be Company A. I'm quite sure PS4 will be very cost effective now that Blu-ray price and Cell have dropped. They will be able to afford to make a console for $300 at launch and still upgrade the power in their next console. Count on it. ;)

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I hope they won't repeat the same mistakes with the PlayStation 4... Microsoft was wayyyyy back with the Xbox and with the 360 I couldn't say that anymore.

Still love my PS3 :)

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IMO Nintendo will be Company C next gen and Sony will be Company A. I'm quite sure PS4 will be very cost effective now that Blu-ray price and Cell have dropped. They will be able to afford to make a console for $300 at launch and still upgrade the power in their next console. Count on it. ;)

Don't worry Sony would have found another new format to push by that time. ;)

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Don't worry Sony would have found another new format to push by that time. ;)

And some new processor to annoy the hell out of developers.

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When they announced it everyone said the price was crazy. Now they're beginning to realise that they should have listened. Only Apple have the patented "Reality Distortion Field".

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?299 is a fair price for a bluray player and games console....

To be honest why do you think so may companies are in trouble, financially? Its cause they sell products under the cost of manufacturing price, with the hopes that add-ons (in this case games and royalties) give them revenue.

Look at printers, 99% of the hardware selling price is under the manufacturing cost, but ink/toner is marked up to hell to recoup the loss.

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