Sony And The No-Confidence Vote 245
Sony continues to spend the goodwill it has achieved over the last generation of consoles. As widely reported over the weekend, last Friday CEO for SCE Europe David Reeves spoke to the press. "We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games." This 'you'll buy it anyway' attitude has further annoyed gamers already rankling from the announced pricetag. Next Gen and IGN talk about the two sides of the coin, with IGN laying into the company for the lack of HDMI output in the cheaper model, and Next Generation saying that Sony is far from defeated.
Pride Goeth Before A Fall (Score:5, Insightful)
Tying to sell a console without games is like trying to sell a gun without ammunition. Reeves' blithe assertion that their 'brand equity' will induce gamers to shell out 600 clams for their console, despite the dearth of available games, is pure fantasy. There are other consoles out there, that are far cheaper, and have games now. I personally can't imagine how Sony's going to move any of these consoles before the games become available.
That said, perhaps Sony would have a better chance of moving said consoles if it didn't take its customer base for granted in such a shockingly flippant way. The $600 price tag is bad enough, but Reeves' interview with Computer and Video Games probably cost Sony a lot of business from spite alone.
Also, from the IGN article: Sony, if you've got so much frelling 'brand equity' that you can try to sell us a console for $600 without any games, why do you feel compelled to market a separate, 'tard-box'?
narcissism (Score:5, Insightful)
After Narcissus, the fictional Greek hero who became obsessed with his own reflection.
Pronunciation
- 'när-s&-"si-z&m
Nounnarcissism
1. Egoism; egocentrism.
2. Love of oneself.
3. Sexual desire for one's own body.
--
I grew up on a farm. If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's people who walk around with their noses in the air. Yuppies, politicians, etc. are prone to this behavior.
Sony's elitism sure is getting underneath my skin. I enjoyed their console but anymore of this "only-the-rich-are-worthy-of-experiencing-this" attitude and I'm going to take my ball (money) and play elsewhere.
They do realize that many of their customers also buy their competitor's products, right? By stomping all over Nintendo and Microsoft, they may be alienating a large selection of their consumer base.
Crown isn't hereditary, really (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't think for a moment, that it's something completely different with Sony. The attitude they present toward their customers is just ripe for detronisation. And it's a good thing...
Nothing to see, move along.
Robert
Goodwill equity does not exist in a market (Score:4, Insightful)
I see it every year -- some kid takes over pop's huge business because the old man had a heart attack. The kid (usually in his 30s or 40s) drives the business into the ground and below within 2 years. He believed that the business didn't need to constantly re-win back old customers solely because they'd been around for years. Sony is no different than the businesses I see failing every year, even ones who have been around for 100 years and are now gone.
Every time a customer makes a purchase, it is with an expectation. No law is needed to protect the customer, because the customer can destroy a business in no time -- if each and every customer who is "hurt" by a previous transaction refuses to make a future one. Does "goodwill equity" give a customer a reason to buy again? Certainly. Does it mean the customer will be willing to accept one grievance or one mistake? Absolutely NOT.
To think that previously happy customers will forgive a mistake is to think that life is all happy-happy puppy-love bubble-gum and kisses. It isn't. This is business. You give the customer what they're paying for, or you go away.
Sony, go away. Please go away. You made too many mistakes, and the only goodwill you should be seeing is the clothing charity.
They Had My Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they announced it would cost $600. And did I mention that there aren't really any games I really want to play? Just MGS4 and maybe Assassin's Creed.
Nice try Sony. You lost your brand equity. It was alredy eroeded with the PSP (how about some good games for once?). I was full-on Nintendo before all of this. I still like Nintendo best and will buy their console.
But I won't be buying a PS3 for over $400. I may even wait for $300. I won't be buying a 360 for over $300.
Three consoles, two shot themselves in the foot (as far as I'm concerned). Who will win? The expensive one, the MORE expensive one, or the reasonably priced one with about a dozen games that I want to play?
Hmmmmmm......
What does Grandpa Sony cry about every night? (Score:4, Insightful)
The way to understand Sony's otherwise inexplicable behaviour is this: games on PS3 are just a means to an end. For Sony (and for MS/Xbox), the prize is not to control gaming; the prize is to own every home's entertainment computer, and the format it uses to show movies.
As they say in the interview, Sony have clearly decided that they will still sell five million PS3s, even at this price. And let's face it, when you count the Japanese market, they're probably right.
Sell 5m PS3s and they establish a user base for Blu-Ray - and kill HD-DVD. Thus they hope to win this decade's version of the Betamax vs. VHS war. Thus Grandpa Sony can stop crying at last and young Mr. Sony feels heroic.
That may be the strategy - but of course that doesn't mean it'll work. Sony's repeated desire to corner the market with a new content formats (UMD etc) has led them to disaster before, and may do so again. Perhaps in years to come young Mr. Sony will be crying every night about destroying the PlayStation franchise...
Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall (Score:2, Insightful)
"No Confidence Vote"?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Lest our gentle readers forget, a few weeks ago an analyst pointed out that Microsoft could've sold XBox360's for nearly $700 last year and the market would've purchased them all.
The XBox360 doesn't have HDMI at all! (Of course that's coming this year)
The XBox360 was supposed to have HD-DVD and it doesn't. (Of course that's coming this year though who knows what port it'll hook up to. If I'm using the wireless adaptor and have two wired joysticks I have no spare USB ports for an HD-DVD player... oops, guess I'll have to get an XBox360 branded hub.)
Given what tech they were showing at E3 (very little), the truth of the matter looks like Sony can't build enough units to meet demand at an XBox360 competitive price point. So up the price which will cut down on the demand and also maximizes revenue generation. Then, in January, if sales are sluggish (and you've weeded out the production run kinks) drop the price to match the XBox360. If sales are still strong (and they could be) keep it at that price because the market will pay that much for it.
Am I ticked about that? Yeah. I have enough spare cash floating around that I could be an early adopter, but I won't. $500 for a video game system (plus $40 for one more controller, plus $60 for ONE game so you're really looking at $600) is just ludicrous.
But then some people pay $100/month for cable TV with all the frills (not including broadband support).
But I'll pre-order a Nintendo wee-wee at $200 (maybe $250)...
But "No confidence" vote? Sony could be making the *perfect* video game system here and I still wouldn't buy it at that price point. On the other hand, if they make some really cool games for it and don't drop the price, maybe I will...
But that's what capitalism is all about Charlie Brown...
Re:narcissism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray? (Score:3, Insightful)
They should be ditching it on at least the $499 'tard box' version, since it will not be able to play the movies in 1080p High-Def when ICP starts being implemented on Blu-Ray disks.
But of course, this isn't about marketing a useful product...this is about pushing a standard.
Reminds me of President Bush in 2004... (Score:2, Insightful)
"I have political capital, and I intend to spend it."
And his approval rating just keeps going down. This post is not meant to be political or anything, just it sounds rather similar. From my personal experience in the world, it seems that whenever someone is bragging about things they did *before* it's usually because they don't have anything to brag about now. maybe i'm wrong.
Sadly, Sony may be right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ironically, he said that gamestop as of this time has no plans to allow preorders for PS3 due to the limited numbers they expect to receive (he said they estimate 1-2 per store on release day).
If he wasn't lying, there's apparently a strong calling for it, at least in my neighborhood.
I thought Sony's price point was ridiculous, and I have no plans to buy the PS3 when it's anywhere near $600, but perhaps Sony is right in believing their fans will buy anything with the "Playstation" name, no matter what the cost.
Xbox 360 price cut (Score:5, Insightful)
With that happening to the XBox 360, Sony is going to have real trouble at a higher price point.
On the developer front, the general reaction to the Cell processor is "groan". (Except for audio guys, who finally get their very own CPU.) The Xbox 360 is a 3-CPU shared memory multiprocessor driving a conventional graphics chip, something well-understood by developers. Porting from an x86 PC (or an original XBox, which is an x86 PC) to an XBox 360 is straightforward. The Cell is a new, wierd architecture, little limited-memory CPUs with bulk DMA access to main memory. (Architecture people will remember unsuccessful supercomputers of the past organized like this.) In fact, Sony already has had a huge architectural disaster. Originally, the Cell was supposed to do the rendering. That was a dud, and Sony had to put a conventional graphics chip on the back end, running up the cost.
It's certainly possible to develop good games for the thing, but the extra work required means the games willl be out later. It took about two years before the PS2 hardware was really being used effectively. The PS3 is completely different from the PS2 and will require new techniques. So Sony is launching late on a machine you can't just port to. Not good.
What's really going to happen is that the early PS3 games will be doing most of the game work in the main CPU and the graphics engine, mostly ignoring the Cell processors. If the game talks to the network, one of the Cell processors will be handling that. Audio work will be in a Cell processor. PS3 games will probably have really good sound, because there's plenty of extra Cell CPU capacity to devote to audio. As Lucasfilm people like to point out, good audio will compensate for lousy graphics, but the reverse isn't true.
Blu-ray: its raison d'etre. Standards and Sony. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sony's M.O. with the PS3 is awfully simple: they desperately want to "leverage" their existing PS/PS2 market dominance to win the next-generation DVD standard war. Sure, they needed to come out with another console, because the market expected one -- but if there's anything on Sony's corporate mind other than a win for Blu-Ray, I don't see it. Everything else about the PS3 is more of the same.
They clearly won't ditch the Blu-Ray side of things without a major, catastrophic event to teach them why they need to do it.
Even then I wouldn't expect a timely decision. We should expect Sony to have learned this lesson about standard formats why? Many decades after Betamax, this company is still trying to sell us memory sticks, different camcorder compression, and so on; they're making the same mistake over and over and over again. They always try to coerce the market using their market share, and it bites them more often than not. They just keep coming back.
Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure. (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Hindsight is from the present perspective where we are all very familiar with the big benefits of DVDs over VHS.
But in 2000, most people had not seen DVD in action, players were ridiculously expensive, and more importantly, so were DVD movies. It had barely entered into the equation in PCs.
The "common sense" of choosing DVD over VHS was not a definitive indicator of DVD's success - mainly because of price.
One could even suggest the PS2 was to some degree a significant factor in DVD's success. Sure it was more important that people bought DVD players in a big way, but the PS2 was the first publicity for DVD movies for many people.
Blu-ray is very much DVD battle rerun. And this time, HD TV uptake is a far bigger driving factor than any reason people had to ditch VHS. People with HD TVs will want HD movies, whether HD-DVD or Blu-ray. Of course, this latter item is a change from the last battle - this time there are two wannabes. But it's a major point that the PS3 will have Blu-ray and be relatively cheap *as a player*.
There is no fore-gone conclusion in this battle anymoreso than the battle for DVD uptake.
Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nintendo were full of themselves, sublimely arrogant and they snubbed everyone around them, released very expensive games, and were convinced they could do as they like. Sega was the same, pushing out cookie cutter games and walking around like nothing could hurt them.
Sounds familiar?
Within one generation their empires collapsed. Sega went bust (effectively) and Nintendo fell to 3rd place in the home console market.
There is no reason this cant happen to Sony, and as you say it based purely on popular opinion. Sony became cool and shot to number one, and now - they seem anything but.
The real question is, not whether they will fall, but if they will survive it. I doubt they will go bust (but financially they are no where near the shape the public thinks they are) but I do expect them to lose a large amount of market share.
This is the best thing that could happen to them, whilst sega dropping out of the hardware market has crippled them, Nintendo's 3rd place is the best thing that could happen to us the cosumers. The amount of innovation and free thinking thats come out of them, now they know they have to try, is outstanding.
I think Sony could do with its own wake up call.
Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, you'd think that being famous for "winning" E3 merely by uttering a price that undercut the competition by $100 would make them realize that price does matter.
Let's not forget the $70 games and small selection (Score:2, Insightful)
PS3 is already so late to market and so difficult to develop for, it is going to end up with a much smaller game library than the Wii or X360. PS3 will not enjoy the position of being the "target system" like PS2 did. Now X360 is the target system and PS3 will get the watered down ports. That's the advantage of being the first console to hit critical mass.
Wii of course has the advantage of low cost development, and true next-generation gameplay due to innovative interface. EA and other developers have already made special Wii teams (something not done for GameCube), and are more willing to take risks on innovative ideas since the costs are dramatically lower.
In the end, whatever exclusive support remains on PS3 will end up raising costs to $70+ to cover their extreme costs and low distribution.
Unlike M$ and nintendo, Sony does not have any other significantly profitable ventures to sustain them. And assholes like me will be ther every step of the way to remind people of the ROOTKIT, the stolen Walkman, crappy manufacturing defects, and ridiculous prices.
Damn it feels good to see Sony choke on their own shit.
Corporate Arrogance (Score:3, Insightful)
They must have training seminars for executives of all Sony divisions in how to show the proper level of contempt for customers. From DRM'd CDs installing rootkits to its failure to acknowledge it's a non-factor in portable music players to how it handles its online games (my personal pet peeve) to this?
What's good for Sony is good for the rest of the world. Just give them your money and don't ask any questions.
Re:Reminds me of President Bush in 2004... (Score:2, Insightful)
"I have political capital, and I intend to spend it."
And his approval rating just keeps going down. This post is not meant to be political or anything, just it sounds rather similar. From my personal experience in the world, it seems that whenever someone is bragging about things they did *before* it's usually because they don't have anything to brag about now. maybe i'm wrong.
Gosh, You think this will hurt his chances of getting re-elected?
Re:ps3 will be on top again (Score:5, Insightful)
The price point is the true killer... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bloody hell, I'm consdering just stretching my PS2 until it dies, and then giving up the console gaming entirely. Unless the Wii can blow it all away, then I might keep one of those around, but the Xbox 360, and the PS3 are just too damn expensive.
I really don't care about Bluray, or HD-DVD or this that or whatever. Just want to play some games.
Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a value in a brand, and there is a monetary value associated with it. How much is it though? No one knows for sure. The simplest way really is to check the stock market: tally all assets and revenue, subtract from capitalization, and you get some left over stuff that can be qualified as the value that people associate with the company itself.
Another point you have patently wrong (and I'm sure you can actually vouch for this if you'd actually stop to look) is that people are never "willing accept one grievance or mistake." They actually do that every day. It's a question of how badly did they get shafted, and how much work is it to find a new supplier or partner. To give you an example: I have a choice between several online stores. One carries a good selection, has good prices and I haven't had any problems with them. Would I switch to another store just because I got a bad product once? No. Would I switch if I got a bad copy and plenty of grief to boot? Maybe. Why? Because I don't want to have to redo my homework on what stores are reputable, what the price/performance ratio is and how long it takes them to ship stuff. You're right, it doesn't mean I will stay with them inspite of continuous foul-ups. But my past experience does influence my reaction to problems with them.
Re:True up to a point (Score:3, Insightful)
Thankyouverymuch.
(To spell it out: please, all of you, stop identifying with consumer electronics as if it were some kind of important lifestyle choice. I'd very much like to retain some faith in humanity.)