Sony Still Losing Money on PS3
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
Do you know why the 360 costs less? It's because it comes with less as standard, everyone knows that when they buy it. It's not barebones, it's an initially cheaper investment that, for me at least, was far more financially viable than the PS3. And no, you don't have to spend another £150 on it. My 60gb HDD and wireless adapter set me back £70 total.BaldursBananaSoap said:
I also haven't played a super laggy exclusive game. If you're lagging, that's your problem buddy. And there isn't a single game I can think of on 360 that has a max of 12 players. 12v12, yes, but there's nothing wrong with that if the game is designed well.
Fucking hypocrite.
To be honest, this seems like a marketing ploy rather than marketing research.
If Sony actually lost $40 per PS3 sold, would they actually sell it? Would any sane member of the board of executives of Sony let any product go on sale if it meant that Sony would lose money?
The only possible upside of this is that share's may increase if Sony is seen to be doing something generous - but this would achieve the same results if Sony lied about it.
I'm not trying to say this is a bad thing, I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that any company these days - regardless of how rich and powerful they are - would allow anything they build to lose them such a high amount of money.
Think about that. It's $40 per Ps3 sold. That means they'd lose $40,000,000 if they sold a million units - which they've done. Many times over.
I do not believe it's possible for any company to lose this much money and continue to let it happen.
If Sony actually lost $40 per PS3 sold, would they actually sell it? Would any sane member of the board of executives of Sony let any product go on sale if it meant that Sony would lose money?
The only possible upside of this is that share's may increase if Sony is seen to be doing something generous - but this would achieve the same results if Sony lied about it.
I'm not trying to say this is a bad thing, I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that any company these days - regardless of how rich and powerful they are - would allow anything they build to lose them such a high amount of money.
Think about that. It's $40 per Ps3 sold. That means they'd lose $40,000,000 if they sold a million units - which they've done. Many times over.
I do not believe it's possible for any company to lose this much money and continue to let it happen.
This makes me sad greatly so, especialy given the great ammount of money that the WII is making, when you compare the quality of games, the WII making soo much and the ps3 going into debt. worries me a little too sony and microsoft might see the crap that nintendo is pumping out to be a great way to make a large profit with little costs :S hope not that could rly devastate the games industry more than it already has.
Between the Xbox and 360 and RODD the 360 has only made a profit in last 2 or 3 years and not much of one at that. This is the price paid for doing a console based on media and not based on gaming....
The vasy majority of you are missing the point here. The fact that Sony is still selling their console at a loss is indictive of how much faith they have in the PS3. And I'll tell you something else, nearly every console in any generation sells at a loss to start with. Nobody ever makes their money selling consoles, they make it selling games.
Ehm, nintendo always sold their consoles at a loss (don't know about the WII though)... they just made it up with software sales.
It's just a commercial tactic
It's just a commercial tactic
I believe Nintendo is the only company making a profit on consoles this time around, but don't quote me on that. You are correct that the commercial tactic (which was started by the Gilette corporation) has been in effect since even the Atari days.smell-of-man said:
The problem is if you don't sell enough razors you won't sell enough blades either.
Hm the intellectual dishonesty is abundant in this thread. You act as if they only sell the Arcade version, which they don't. I should really just stop right there because of how big a liar you are, but I'm going to keep going. I pay the rought equivalent of $3.50 a month for online service through Xbox Live, yes, but you know what? It works, I can mute the "12-year-olds", I'm not treated like an idiot by my content provider who tries to pass off a Second Life ripoff as an innovation, and since the pre-included avatar options are sufficient enough, I don't have to pay anything to customize said avatar which makes that a moot point as well. And ads? Really? you're going to complain about ads? Claim that the PSN doesn't have any? Going to be really hard to do that when it's on their flowchart.BaldursBananaSoap said:
Lastly, the players. If you had even bothered to spend 5 seconds on Wikipedia you would have found that a lot of 360 games support 16 players, and in some cases more. No it's not the 128 vs. 128 that MAG purports but that is an exception and not the rule when it comes to the PSN. I am not saying XBL is perfect, but it is quite functional and I get my money's worth.
So in conclusion, you fail fact-checking forever, you lose, good day sir.
Honestly. If the PS3 died, there'd only be the Wii and the X-box. I know a lot of you would love that, but the Wii is a niche and that would make the X-box the only "proper" console left.
Let me put this into perspective - with no competition, they could charge whatever they want.
Whatever. They. Want.
"You don't wanna pay $80? That's a shame. You aren't getting a game."
Let me put this into perspective - with no competition, they could charge whatever they want.
Whatever. They. Want.
"You don't wanna pay $80? That's a shame. You aren't getting a game."
I don't care and neither should anyone here. As long as it continues to be well supported and great games keep coming out for it then all the better. And a $37 loss is insignificant as the licensing fee from just Two 3rd party games or just the sale of one 1st party game would cancel that loss out.
As gamers we should actually be happy that Sony is still making a loss on each PS3, it gives them extra incentive to make their money on GAMES and SERVICES like more Downloadable games, movies and so on.
Wii hardware is selling at a profit and look at what has happened to their software line-up... you can tell where Nintendo's priorities are.
With a loss-leading console Sony has SO MUCH incentive to get the owner to love the platform and do everything in their power to keep it well supplied with games and services since that is where they make their money and ultimately that is what we want.
And you know what, I really believe Sony when they say they have a 10 year plan for this console and hell it has only been out since late 2006 (spring 2007 outside USA/Japan) so that is 3 years/2.5 years out of 10! Sony is also popularising their blu-ray player which is good for them too.
As gamers we should actually be happy that Sony is still making a loss on each PS3, it gives them extra incentive to make their money on GAMES and SERVICES like more Downloadable games, movies and so on.
Wii hardware is selling at a profit and look at what has happened to their software line-up... you can tell where Nintendo's priorities are.
With a loss-leading console Sony has SO MUCH incentive to get the owner to love the platform and do everything in their power to keep it well supplied with games and services since that is where they make their money and ultimately that is what we want.
And you know what, I really believe Sony when they say they have a 10 year plan for this console and hell it has only been out since late 2006 (spring 2007 outside USA/Japan) so that is 3 years/2.5 years out of 10! Sony is also popularising their blu-ray player which is good for them too.
couple things to point out:
a) ps3 fanboys state that this is like a flame for xbox fanboy "moths." when in fact there are far more rants about the xbox 360 in this thread than the ps3.
b) this doesn't mean the ps3 is bad. I like the ps3. a lot of people do. I don't have one, however, because the price is too high for the benefits the system will give me. This is what the article hits upon.
c) in the nature of profits: this is hardly surprising, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.
companies frequently have products that initially don't turn profits. a company like sony or microsoft can easily afford the initial costs of these consoles, as long as they have a plan to make it pay off in the long run.
which leads me, of course, to the example of the dreamcast. is the ps3 falling into the same niche? yes and no. there is a similarity in the situation, but there are huge differences. Sony is not Sega. While the reality of the ps3 is certainly not as rosy as what Sony initially foresaw, the ps3 is not falling out like the dreamcast did, and Sony is not in danger.
so, in conclusion. The PS3 isn't collapsing, Sony can easily shrug off any losses it is still gaining, and the PS3 still has time to turn things around. but I do not think the PS3 is in a great place right now, and I hope PS3 has some ideas for games, because honestly I don't see the appeal, and neither do many other people.
a) ps3 fanboys state that this is like a flame for xbox fanboy "moths." when in fact there are far more rants about the xbox 360 in this thread than the ps3.
b) this doesn't mean the ps3 is bad. I like the ps3. a lot of people do. I don't have one, however, because the price is too high for the benefits the system will give me. This is what the article hits upon.
c) in the nature of profits: this is hardly surprising, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.
companies frequently have products that initially don't turn profits. a company like sony or microsoft can easily afford the initial costs of these consoles, as long as they have a plan to make it pay off in the long run.
which leads me, of course, to the example of the dreamcast. is the ps3 falling into the same niche? yes and no. there is a similarity in the situation, but there are huge differences. Sony is not Sega. While the reality of the ps3 is certainly not as rosy as what Sony initially foresaw, the ps3 is not falling out like the dreamcast did, and Sony is not in danger.
so, in conclusion. The PS3 isn't collapsing, Sony can easily shrug off any losses it is still gaining, and the PS3 still has time to turn things around. but I do not think the PS3 is in a great place right now, and I hope PS3 has some ideas for games, because honestly I don't see the appeal, and neither do many other people.
If I were a Sony shareholder, I'd be mighty angry about the company "subsidizing" anything. They teach you this in Business 101---any division of a company that is losing money should be sold off or disbanded before the shareholders revolt.SikOseph said:
Well I think the point he was trying to get at is what are you actually paying for with Xbox Live's Gold Membership when there are no dedicated servers and it is almost exclusively P2P matchmaking? You don't have to pay for PSN, Wii nor is it needed for PC online gaming.AceDiamond said:
You may like to know that many PS3 games support dedicated servers and don't require the player to pay any online fee. A shortlist of PS3 games that use Dedicated Servers for online games:
Warhawk = 32 player online
Resistance FOM = 40 player online
Resistance 2 = 64 player online
SOCOM Confrontation = 32 players
Metal Gear Online = 16 players (but very low lag)
Killzone 2 = 32 players online
It should be noted that those game I have listed that use dedicated servers are the main games I play online multiplayer with PS3. In fact, I have found it very similar to the PC model of online Gaming which I have been raised on... I wish I could say the same for XBL. Free online gaming also makes so much sense for games that have a rather minimal yet significant online component like LittleBigPlanet or Demon's Soul.
I have gotten a 360 recently and though I am loving it overall I'm sorry but I find it hard to accept that Xbox Live is the only online gaming service that I have to pay for yet P2P is the cheapest and the worst way of handling online multiplayer. I mean Halo 3 is CRYING OUT for dedicated servers.
Now I understand Microsoft lost A LOT of money on the Original Xbox (I think a net loss of $4 Billion, was it?) and they have a lot of debts to clear but I am seriously considering if I will even bother buying into XBL Gold after my first 3 Months Free expires. I have PC and PS3 and I have better ways to spend £40 every year.
Ah, what the hell, I probably will end up paying it just for those few games that have co-op but that DOESN'T mean I'm happy about it!
But don't be so dismissive of PS3, you could be missing out on a lot of really great games and it's a great Blu-ray player too. Playstation Home sucks but just like you can mute 12-year-olds on XBL, you don't have to use Home.
D-pad is great for classic games re-released, there are a few game that HUGELY benefit from the the Six-Axis (MOH: Airborne), and if you live in Europe you can get that PlayTV digital TV tuner and install a cheap and large 500GB Hard-drive to turn the PS3 into a PVR (like TiVo or Sky-Plus) which is great as it will record a scheduled program even if the PS3 is turned off when it starts or if you're playing a game... can't do that with a PC.
I'm not a fan of the PS3. Not to say I like any console on this generation, but the PS3 just falls on my personal bottom rung. I haven't enjoyed many of their new titles, and haven't found a game that captured the feel of a good PS2 game.
Oh, the PS2, how I love thee.
Oh, the PS2, how I love thee.
Why does everyone always bring up Dreamcast when we talk about the Console Wars and try to say "is this the next Dreamcast"? Try to define everything by how it is compared to the Dreamcast?Haro said:
I'm telling you, Dreamcast is the Vietnam of video gaming.
Just like in politics people say "is conflict X another Vietnam?" every-time things aren't going perfectly, people seem so tempted to define things by huge and unusual failures. It left a lasting impression but is this representative of all scenarios or was it a freak aberration?
The bottom line is Vietnam was Vietnam (the war that is) and Dreamcast was Dreamcast, they are not categories or "niches", they ended up their respective disasters (the former being arguably far more serious) due to very unique circumstances and are not defined by the superficial features.
plastic_window said:
Hmm, you make such a big deal over $40 million, how do I put this in perspective...
"A Million Dollars just isn't all that much these days"
Not a big deal for for 40x times that even considering the kind of money we are talking with a company like Sony Computer Entertainment.
Sony gets a $16 cut for EVERY SINGLE Playstation 3 game sold, they get about $25 per every 1st party game sold (retailers, middle men and tax take a HUGE cut before it reaches $60 store price). Sony can easily earn BILLIONS in global games sale revenue per year and are pretty much guaranteed to earn back any loss per console and the console will keep on earning for Sony.
The more Playstation 3 consoles there are out there the more potential customers there are for games to be sold to, not to mention PSN products like video and DLG and the PS3 itself also popularises their blu-ray format which they profit more off the more it is used.
Just to let people know, Sony can't exactly subsidize this arm much longer. The company on a whole lost $2.9 billion dollars last year. Sony as a whole is failing. This isn't a PS3 issue. This is a Sony issue. They better get their act together or they will be in the tank shortly. While Microsoft lost a much smaller sum, $400 million. Sony can't afford to keep paying the losses of a failing arm when they are failing as a whole. Sooner or later if a limb starts to stink you have to realize it and simply cut your losses. I am ok with this. I want one console. I'm tired of fanboys, I'm tired of arguments, I'm tired of "exclusives".SimuLord said:
Do you have any info to prove it, im nto going to say that im old (24) but i have NEVER heard of nintendo losing money on console sold, they always make profit with their consoles, all the way to the nes, super nes, 64, even the gamecube, that's why they could keep their last 2 systems alive with no third party support (outside capcom on the cube).smell-of-man said:
