Sony: 100K PS3s Selling Out Every Week in US; Wii is Just an "Impulse Purchase"

The market for casual gamers is way larger than the market for committed gamers. So I don't see why Sony is so happy about that.

 

Wow. It's actually easy to see through the statement though. Sony is attempting to downplay Nintendo's resounding success. Sour grapes, if you will.

Sony sounds as if they are in a corner really. They MUST have the PS3 sell well because they have so much invested in the PS3. They are scratching and clawing through the media to divert attention to the PS3. It just comes off as odd to us gamers watching Sony talk like girls in High School.

 

Nintendo of America used to be one of my customers and I actually sold them the infrastruture they are using for their online system for the Wii. I learned a little bit about their business model while working with them. They make money on their consoles and hand helds unlike Microsoft and Sony and they have the highest margins on their games since almost all their popular games are house brands.

Zelda
Pokemon
Mario

They concentrate on making money from their brand and not their technology. Gaming experience is most important to them.

 

I think they're definitely using spin (selling everything shipped = retailers, not consumers) and are in denial. That impulse statement is just plain dumb. Sony banked on a higher end system, Nintendo banked on an innovative controller, Nintendo won big time.

Evan

 

I don't believe it's selling out everyweek. If you go to Best Buy you always see PS3's on the shelves, but Wii's are still pretty hard to come by.

 

That is exactly what I'm thinking.. True there stocks are being shipped all over the place but that doesnt mean @ home.

 

How stupid are these people? There are zillions more casual gamers than there are "committed" gamers. Lack of appeal to the casual gamer is a huge problem with the PS3 (which is what the Sony spokesperson is admitting). The "committed" buy consols when they first come out. It's the multitude of casual gamers who sit on the fence that will continue buying consols in the years ahead.

The statement on impulse buying is also dumb. The PS3 is way too expensive to be an impulse buy, so he slams the Wii over it. This again is an admission of weakness.

When one competitor slams another because the other is better in one or two ways, they are admitting weakness. This reminds me of how the early cell phone companies used to make a mint on roaming charges. Then Sprint built out their network and had no roaming charges. The incumbents slammed Sprint PCS over their "One price fits all" pricing as if no roaming charges was a negative for the consumer. Now, everyone has eliminated roaming. I still resent Cingular (Houston Cellular) to this day because they didn't eliminate roaming until the very day Sprint PCS opened for business in Houston.

Every time I walk into our neighborhood Gamestop there are PS3s sitting around. According to them, the Wiis still sell out 5 minutes after UPS drops them off. Someone may want to tell the Sony guy that you can't make an impulse purchase when something isn't in supply. That forces you to wait and plan.

Sony needs to fire their spokespeople and hire new ones. Insulting consumers' intelligence doesn't help their cause.

 

I think the statement regarding the PS3 being for diehards and the Wii for casual gamers is common knowledge. Take a game like Madden. A title with a both casual and hardcore fan base. On the Wii throwing the football via are motion is fun. But defensively the remote is restricting. The diehard Madden freak is going to want the maximum control and comfort the PS and Xbox provide. Wii seems fun, I would love to own one. But in the end swinging a bat via remote control is bound to become gimmicky. Why get Madden 07 on Wii and then get 08 when graphically the system doesnt have much room to improve. Im not knocking the Wii. Just sayin...

 

My friend recently got a Wii. [We was at EBGames, and he randomly asked if they had a one. They did, and he bought it...impulsively.] We got Trauma Center, Red Steel, Zelda, and been playing Wii Sports too.

After playing quite a bit of the new system for pretty much this entire past week, I can objectively say the Wii is insanely overrated. If they could somehow make it like, 1:1 movement the thing would be awesome, but the controls in every game I've played has been frustrating at best, [besides Wii Baseball]. It just seems like everybody is buying into the hype.

For a medium that I honestly believe has the most potential of becoming a true art form, just like film, music, etc. it saddens me that we're kinda regressing to this kinda casual gamer age. With the Wii remote, its a tip-toe forward, as I'd like to see future consoles with the immersion capability this kind of control scheme could provide, but everything else about the Wii--the blah graphics, terrible controls, boring games--is a step back. More money for Big N I guess, and huge props to their marketing team.

 

I guess it's all those casual gamers that camped out overnight to pick them up? Or wait around Gamestop until UPS shipment arrives? Actually, that is the truth though. While I camped out at a lot of those stores the people I met were first time gamers or buying for their kids. The truth of it is that Nintendo was enable to inspire these people to exhibit hard core gamer tendencies. Isn't that what Sony is afraid of?

 

Nintendo brought back the hardcore fun. That is hardcore gaming, not what Sony tries to define it to be.

 

Nintendo had a very small marketing campaign. The reason why the Wii got so popular was through word of mouth and positive press by independent reviewers.

 

Sounds like you just suck to me.

 

I never game & have no idea which one is better BUT I am looking to purchase a system to play in my spaire time.

Which one should i get?

PS3 or the Wii?

I was for sure getting the PS3 but I stopped becuase everyone was ravving about the Wii!

I guess I'd like some input from you guys..

 

I think Wii will be better for casual gamers but look at the games they offer before you make your decision.

 

yea everyone i know wants a wii. and most already have a 360, meaning they probably wont bother to buy a ps3.

 

Agreed...I will end up with both by year end, the Wii for the kids, and the PS3 for me...It's not a matter of price for me, but I may be in the minority...Not that I'm rich, its just that I don't have to go into debt to get one...I also have an orig. xbox that I rarely use now...

Having said that, I am pro PS3 not only b/c I have one, but because it is far more superior in terms of technology...But, for the casual gamer who doesn't care about graphics or Next Gen DVD, go for the wii...

The Sony statements are dumb and come off defensive...I seriously doubt they sell 100K units/week...By x-mas, maybe, when more people have HDTV's...

 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/J/JAPAN_SONY?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Price Cuts Weighed in PS3 Game Console

By YURI KAGEYAMA
AP Business Writer


TOKYO (AP) -- Although Sony is blaming its faltering profits partly on PlayStation 3 price cuts in Japan, a senior executive said Wednesday that further slashing prices may be in store for the just-launched video game machine.

Pricing is among the factors Sony Corp. is studying as it expects to break even in its money-losing gaming business next fiscal year, said Senior Vice President Takao Yuhara, stressing that no additional price cut has been decided.

"We may look at the price as part of our strategy to expand the market when the timing is right," Yuhara told reporters at Sony's Tokyo headquarters.

The PS3 launched in the United States and Japan in November, plagued with production problems that resulted in shortages and will keep the machines out of Europe entirely until March. The next-generation game player also faces immense competition with Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.

Sony's announcement Tuesday that October-December profit slipped 5 percent to 160 billion yen ($1.3 billion), largely because of PS3 startup costs, sent Sony shares down 1.4 percent in Tokyo on Wednesday. Shares also dropped 32 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $45.98 in midday trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Yuhara said red ink in the gaming division for the fiscal year through March could turn out to be worse than the 200 billion yen ($1.6 billion) operating loss that Sony is forecasting for now.

Startup expenses such as advertising and shipping were higher than the company had anticipated. Production delays forced Sony to ship machines by air rather than ships to meet launch targets in the United States.

But Sony hopes to break even in gaming during the following fiscal year, which ends March 2008, Yuhara said. "Such factors, including price cuts to some extent, are factored in" the company's break-even plans, he said.

Game machines generally come down in price over time. But faced with competition, Sony made an unusual move in lowering the PS3 price in Japan by about 20 percent even before sales started.

Even before the cut, analysts say, Sony was already taking a loss on each machine sold; manufacturers typically sell machines for less than their true costs, hoping to recoup the investment by selling games.

Analysts and game fans are watching to see when PS3 prices may drop again, which would depend on its proliferation in the market and cuts in production costs. Sometimes a price cut is timed with the introduction of blockbuster game software, expected to boost machine sales.

Sony has a lot riding on PS3's success, but consumers seem to be snatching up its rival Wii, which costs about half as much as the cheaper, $500 version of the PS3 and comes with a wand that players swing around like a bat, fishing pole or conductor baton, depending on the game.

Nintendo, which makes Pokemon and Super Mario games, saw profits for the first nine months of the fiscal year soar 43 percent and has shipped 3.19 million Wii machines globally.

Sony shipped 1.84 million PS3 machines worldwide through Dec. 31, the company said. The machine has already gone on sale in the United States, Japan and some other countries, but its sale has been delayed to March 23 in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Australia.

The company stuck to its earlier target of shipping 6 million PS3 consoles by March 31. Earlier, it said it shipped 2 million PS3 machines worldwide by mid-January, falling about two weeks behind its initial shipment targets in Japan.

Yuhara said Sony's earlier price cut in Japan was an effort to respond to the expectations of hard-core game fans and helped get the machine off to a smooth rollout.

"In the PS3 business, production was very tight, but we knew the market wouldn't wait," he said.

But price cuts can be risky for sophisticated machinery like PS3, which comes loaded with next-generation DVD called Blu-ray disk and is powered by a super-chip called "cell."

The challenge Sony faces is to sell the machine in numbers to bring down costs and make money in software sales to make the operation more profitable.