Sony Says Profits More Important than Beating Microsoft

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

Huh? Giving them away? Not from the prices I've noticed.

They gave away several thousand Kinects on Oprah's show a few weeks before launch.

 

[loremazd]

It's stuff like this which is why I think the people who run play station don't have souls. They're not passionate about the industry they're in. They just seem to want to turn profit.

Actually, you could argue that the company making money is the most empathetic role possible. In the end, the more money the company makes the more jobs they can fill, and the more people can make livings doing what the like to do.

Inversely, saying they aren't in it to make money is essentially saying they're ok with failing and putting people out of jobs.

 

[Calcium]

It would be great if the PS3 took the lead from the Xbox 360, says Sony, but it's not a priority this year.

"Lead" is such a strange, strange word for second place. Fourth if you count handhelds into the mix.

It's only second place if you consider something that many do not consider a console. My main complaint is not that part, it's the clear favoritism. Unless you're writing about people making shit up (like that Fox guy) you should keep your opinions out of the news. I hate it when the news inserts their own opinions.

People with a PS3 generelly don't need a 360, while people with a 360 arn't likely to spend more money on a PS3. They're both powerful gaming consoles with large multiplayers, graphics, titles, etc.

The Wii is something different from both consoles with it's own different selling points such as it's motion controls and it's first party titles. The wii isn't in competition with the 360 and PS3 because it's not marketed to the same kind of consumer/gamer.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

It's stuff like this which is why I think the people who run play station don't have souls. They're not passionate about the industry they're in. They just seem to want to turn profit.

What, are you saying that Microsoft or Nintendo is are any better?

 

[RagingNinja]

Sony has the proper attitude. As long as they make money, they will be happy, the console will be supported and that's that. There's no point in going all Captain Ahab since it usually leads to disaster.

 

[mikecoulter]

My friends and I predicted that Sony would eventually pass Microsoft. They always seemed to be playing the long game.

 

[Battenbergcake]

I still think Sony is sitting on a HD remake of Final Fantasy VII just waiting to unleash it and roll in all the money on the planet....but probably not.

I think Square putting their money towards better projects than remakes would be better suited to their interests rather than catering to a singular fan base, such as the new Deus Ex for exmaple.

Besides the only likeable character in that game was Zack and he was long dead before the damn thing started, even if he acted to everything like he was on some kind of permanent speed high.

 

[Fappy]

I guess they might as well take advantage of exclusives while they are still relevant. Anyone who has paid any attention to the industry in the last decade can tell you the concept of an exclusive is borderline obsolete (exceptions include Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo developing their own titles of course and genre niche consoles like platformers on the Wii and MMO/RTS's on the PC). Kind of wish I had a PS3... I really want to play the new Twisted Metal

 

[Squilookle]

It's funny because if they weren't so focused on making bank, they probably could edge ahead of Microsoft.

 

[stabnex]

Wouldnt they WANT to sell more PS3's or do they still make a loss on every console sold?

They have a "10 year life cycle (or was it 5?)" ...

Seems like Sony knows what its talking about

Judging by the sheer amount of dead fat PS3's that get sold to my store unable to turn on, yellow-lighted, lightning blasted, and blu-ray fried I'd say it's 5 years which is only a little more than the old 360's, but still massively shorter than the entire last console generation.

OT: So, what Sony? You don't want to improve your products, you just want to leech more money out of your already horribly alienated target consumer base? You've already taken away Other OS, are you going to remove Blu-Tooth soon? How about re-releasing all your games on CDR format and making everyone buy PSX's for your new games?

You can't fuck up any more than you already have, right?

 

[similar.squirrel]

Good. One-upmanship never ends well. Look what happened to Prototype.

 

[Yoh3333]

There does seem to be a lot of good exclusives this year for Sony. Although a few million units seperate them, I'm unconvinced new games will result in Sony overtaking on the console side though. Move and Kinect seemed to be the drivers of console sales late last year, and I havn't heard the PS3 Move got anywhere near the success from Kinect.

That's because MS spent half a billion telling everyone and their mothers that Kinect rules, and giving them away. And Sony simply launched theirs with a few commercials. From my experience however, Move's pretty fun and is definitely usable for FPS'...better than a controller imo. Though, controllers are just plain lame when it comes to FPS'.

Huh? Giving them away? Not from the prices I've noticed.

I've seen just as many advertisements for Move as for Kinect - both deciding to show the people playing the games rather than what's being played. Everyone I know myself included are cynical over these motion controls though. None of us have invested in Kinect and won't be willing to unless there's something more substantial than party games.

It may be different from country to country, but i have personally about as many TV adds for both. But where it realy changes (i think) is in the retailers stores. I've multiple times tried the Kinect in a store and felt like the game they showed was decent fun, but i have never ever EVER been able to try out the move in a retailer yet. (The stores i'm talking about are Gamestop in Denmark and 2 HMV's in the UK, they are both rather big stores)

 

[VanityGirl]

Huh? Giving them away? Not from the prices I've noticed.

They gave away several thousand Kinects on Oprah's show a few weeks before launch.

I would like to point out that Oprah does BUY the things she gives away (90% of the time). Remember when she gave everyone in the audience a car? Yeah, she bought those. Oprah's very wealthy and her publicly giving things away makes more people tune into her show so she makes more money.

But OT: I'd be surprised if Sony's profit doesn't take a downturn with all this recent craziness with the PS3. I, for one, hate having to update a console every two minutes. I'm sure this will get sorted out, but I know I'm not the only one who is upset with Sony right now for various turns in stupidity they've taken over the whole hacker issue. Maybe if Sony had started by banning consoles first this wouldn't have happened, but we'll never know.

Furthermore, wouldn't beating Microsoft mean that you're turning a good profit with your console? Shouldn't they strive for both?

 

[Calcium]

I've seen just as many advertisements for Move as for Kinect - both deciding to show the people playing the games rather than what's being played. Everyone I know myself included are cynical over these motion controls though. None of us have invested in Kinect and won't be willing to unless there's something more substantial than party games.

As I said, Sony did a few commercials and that's about it. However, you apparently weren't watching the Sony commercials because every single one of them (I've seen them all), show Move gameplay. How do I know this? Because I own Move, so I know what I'm looking at.

Perhaps the ads where better in the US, but the ones I saw I WAS watching. They were either about 20% gameplay to 80% people on sofas rolling around laughing at each other, or it was a variety of people of different ages and ethnic backgrounds talking with a controller in their hand in front of a green screen.

I've played Move, the games that are good, actually are pretty impressive. I'm not great at ping pong, by any means, but a friend of mine who's never touched Move before came over and tried out the Ping-Pong game for Sports Champions, and it was like watching tournament speed pong. His fastest serve on the first round was 65.2mph. And after he downed the first championship his longest volley was 47. Nuckin futs. My roommates exceptional at the archery game, and I pretty much do all the rest (volley ball, disc golf, gladiator, bocce). It's extremely responsive, and definitely reads even the slightest variation in position.

I don't doubt it's a well developed piece of hardware. In fact If I owned both consoles I'd be inclined to buy a Move now due to it's relatively low cost. At the same time, while I can see Kinect selling consoles if/when it has good titles, I can't see the same levels of interest generated from the Move. Just an opinion.

And all this editing of quote boxes is gonna' make me late for my lecture! *Sprints*

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

It's stuff like this which is why I think the people who run play station don't have souls. They're not passionate about the industry they're in. They just seem to want to turn profit.

This should answer fairly well, don't forget what SONY is first, a company

SONY is a company, the main goal of a company is creating a profit margain and having a competitive advantage. You don't NEED to outrun your competitor with millions of unit to have a competitive advantage. The exclusives do that for them, and the free to play PSN. So they don't care if they run the 360 nto the ground, long as they make money at the end of the year and don't have a net negative

 

[JEBWrench]

That assumes, however, that all those devices are in the same market, which they're not.

So, just pick and choose who your competitors are until you're the leader?
Or is it more of a case of "Yeah, we're not beating them."

Suppose someone were to make a killing on two-handled coffee mugs. To the point where they're the world leader in coffee mugs. Does the second place get to claim leadership, since they're in a different "market"? Coffee mugs is coffee mugs. Video game consoles is video game consoles.

 

[Little Duck]

It's stuff like this which is why I think the people who run play station don't have souls. They're not passionate about the industry they're in. They just seem to want to turn profit.

What, are you saying that Microsoft or Nintendo is are any better?

Nintendo's consoles was started out of trying to get the games they made into everyone's home. Xbox was more a conversation that went a little like: "DUDE! We can totally make the best games console out there if we do this that and the other!" toward which the reply was "We totally CAN!" Playstation was born out of deal with nintendo whereupon sony would have had full licensing power over the games released on the nintendo console (it was called something like the nintendo cd and was never released) which nintendo pulled out of after sony refused to let them have the licensing back. The machine they released (not the play station) went on to turn profit and they went on to make the Play station original. I always had the feeling they did this out of this is working, let us keep doing this, not, ZOMG GAMES!!!

Don't get me wrong I do enjoy playing on the playstation. I just don't feel like the people behind it are that enthused by it.

 

[Trent_Steel]

Pretty much neck and neck in worldwide sales (probably ahead in real sales due to the early 360 failure rate), despite PS3 being over a year late, having no games for it's first year and costing not far off double.

Looks like the brand value they built up during the late 90s / early 00s still counts for something.