sorry if already posted, but US Dec sales estimates.

Why are sony sales decreasing?

cos they suck

*dons flame retardant suite and prepares to repel boarders from the underneath of a bridge*

a more serious answer:

at the price point they really are a 'hardcore' gamers console. as, i imagine, most games console bought in December are Christmas presents to friends/family/children it'll be the cheaper ones that get picked (also possibly due to the current economic slump). as it isn't a new thing this year either it'll have less sales on last year, i imagine next year once the price has dropped some more/bluray becomes more popular and (fingers crossed) the economy has picked up.
 
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at the price point they really are a 'hardcore' gamers console. as, i imagine, most games console bought in December are Christmas presents to friends/family/children it'll be the cheaper ones that get picked (also possibly due to the current economic slump). as it isn't a new thing this year either it'll have less sales on last year, i imagine next year once the price has dropped some more/bluray becomes more popular and (fingers crossed) the economy has picked up.

The Ps2 was always the expensive console yet was the one that sold the most. At the end of the day people buy whats "in". I never touch my wii at all and my DS hasn't been used for at least 3 years. The xbox gets played pretty much constantly even though it has had red ring. Infact i used to take my DS into work for tea breaks but reading the sun became more interesting.
 
The Ps2 was always the expensive console yet was the one that sold the most. At the end of the day people buy whats "in". I never touch my wii at all and my DS hasn't been used for at least 3 years. The xbox gets played pretty much constantly even though it has had red ring. Infact i used to take my DS into work for tea breaks but reading the sun became more interesting.

The PS2 was a different story though. It was cheaper even on release day than the PS3 is now. It had the backing of how successful the Playstation brand had already been, Sega had struggled with the Saturn against the competition, so the Dreamcast wasn't the hot ticket and the Gamecube just didn't draw enough of a crowd. The Xbox came too late to the table, and initially struggled to pull people away from Sony.

Even Microsoft are asking why Sony hasn't yet dropped the price of it to compete, as the 360 can be had for peanuts now.
 
Why are sony sales decreasing?

Last year the PS3 had its first (and only) Price cut, think it started around october time in the US, this, the current economy, and the 360 being half the price have probably had an effect. These are only estimates NPD is out this week or next, even then they are still estimates, best to wait for the companies financials to get a better idea. On another note PS3 sales are up 40% on last year, and look to make the 10 million they forcasted to sell between april 08 and end of march 09. Perhpas its only the media that think PS3 needs to sell like the PS2, but Sony doesnt seem to be working with that same plan.
 
Even Microsoft are asking why Sony hasn't yet dropped the price of it to compete, as the 360 can be had for peanuts now.


doesn't need to compete, sales of the ps3 are not that far behind xbox360 considering the year advance the 360 had and the whole market it had to itself. You could say MS is getting desperate and virtually giving their console away, its the gamble that these companies make and at the moment the only real winner here is Nintendo and you really do have to give them credit for it.
 
Even Microsoft are asking why Sony hasn't yet dropped the price of it to compete, as the 360 can be had for peanuts now.

Well Microsoft have very little sense then. I was under the impression pretty much everyone knew that Sony were still selling the PS3 at a loss an hence are incapable of dropping the price.

It's all very well and good saying that Sony need to drop the price, they do, but that doesn't make it possible.

Lets not forget this is the US sales figures btw, Microsofts strongest market and Sonys weakest.

[EDIT] To be fair, MS are probably just poo stirring for the lulz
 
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Lets not forget this is the US sales figures btw, Microsofts strongest market and Sonys weakest.

thats the biggest point without question - Sony have always been awful in North America, unless there is no-one else in the market

There is a rumoured price reduction for the PS3 in March - April time, and due to the cost of BR decks coming down drastically I would be surprised if the loss Sony are making now on each PS3 is actually the lowest its ever been
 
Lets wait until the final figures come out, and also see how things do in the first quarter of 09..

If the 360's momentum continues, and the PS3's stays halted as it seems to have done over Christmas, then Sony have some thinking to do IMO if they really want to get a larger market share over the 360.

I think the PS3's future may rest on a few factors (All IMO)
1. The price of standalone blu-ray players is dropping, so the PS3 isn't the only cost effective blu-ray option.
2. The financial climate is not going to do it many favours if they don't drop the price, the question is, can they afford to?
3.Exclusives for this year (Actually looking quite good).



You could say MS is getting desperate and virtually giving their console away

The last thing I would say is they are desperate, I'd just say that luckily for them, a simpler design with cheaper components (notable Blu-ray and the CELL processor being the 2 cost issues in a PS3 I'd guess?) mean their engineering costs downs have been quite straight forward. The price cut came just as the Jasper re-spin was filtering through to supply, which seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Of course, if there is evidence they are selling at more of a loss per console then the PS3, then you may well be right.
 
Of course, if there is evidence they are selling at more of a loss per console then the PS3, then you may well be right.

Just thought I would mention that the 360 has a 3 year warranty which costs Microsoft per unit. I suspect this wipes out the profit they make per console (not sure what the figure is).

Also I am not sure the price drop had anything to do with Jasper chipsets. As far as I know all the 360s dropped in price yet the only ones with Jasper available are the Arcade units, filtering into supply chains. Surely they would still lose money on the non jaspers that dropped in price at the same time, which, presumably, cost more to manufacture?


rp2000
 
I love the PS3 but I don't beleive it can ever beat the 360's market share, why ?, the 'Arcade SKU', you just can't compete against it, it's just so cheap, the PS3 will never reach anywhere near that price point and it doesn't matter that the 'Arcade SKU' is missing all the extra peripherals because mum/dad and majority of young kids either don't realize this or don't care, I know quite a few parents that got their kids Arcade SKU's this xmas even after I told them that they won't have a HHD etc, and the response was "but it can still play all the game right ?", and basically that's where the 'Arcade SKU' wins.

It's a cheap as chips console that can play all the latest next gen games, for many people this is enough, the number one reason you buy a games console is to play games, and the 'Arcade SKU' offers that for pence.

All Sony can do now is make sure they finish in a healthy 3rd place and come out of this gen making a good profit.
 
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I'm starting to think now that Blu-Ray was a bad idea for the PS3, it's actually held the console back more than anything, if the PS3 has used DVD media instead, they would have A) managed to get the console into the market place allot quicker, and B) they would have been at a competitive price point right from the beginning.

Thing is, while i agree that bluray was a mistake in terms of making a affordable games console, there's a lot more to it. The PS3 was the flagship for blu-ray, something i would argue is one of the main reasons why it won over HDDVD; the fact that people would buy the console regardless and then happen to have a blu-ray player in their house as opposed to endavoring to buy a player for one of the two formats. The same happened with DVD, i got a PS2 and then just started buying DVDs because i happened to now have a DVD player, i wouldn't have bothered for a couple of years otherwise.

Sony has the potential to make more money out of blu-ray (being a part-owner of the format) than they could out of the PS3, but they needed to get in there first and beat HDDVD, the PS3 was their tool for this.

Also, next generation they'll all be using blu-ray, bit of extra money in the pocket for Sony and a more affordable PS4 for all. They've gambled and i think it's paid off overall.

[EDIT] I'd also like to add, i wonder if the 360 would be so cheap if IBM hadn't cheekily used research Sony had paid for to aid substantially in the R&D of the 360 CPU. The R&D costs of the 360 overall were quite a bit smaller than that of the PS3, most of this was due to the development costs of the cell. Maybe if Sony had used their brains and protected their research the 360 wouldn't have been such a quick and easy creation as it was.
 
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Dam you caught my edit :-P, I was still not sure on that point, it kind of just spewed out of me then decided to edited it out :o, but anyway, yes I agree with what you've said, in-fact I've said similar on these boards, but I was mainly talking about the success of the PS3 platform in it's own right, not Sony, I realize as a business decision in the long term Blu-Ray will no doubt be a very profitable media for them, but the PS3 as a gaming platform will have suffered becuase of it.
 
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I love the PS3 but I don't beleive it can ever beat the 360's market share, why ?, the 'Arcade SKU', you just can't compete against it, it's just so cheap, the PS3 will never reach anywhere near that price point and it doesn't matter that the 'Arcade SKU' is missing all the extra peripherals because mum/dad and majority of young kids either don't realize this or don't care, I know quite a few parents that got their kids Arcade SKU's this xmas even after I told them that they won't have a HHD etc, and the response was "but it can still play all the game right ?", and basically that's where the 'Arcade SKU' wins.

It's a cheap as chips console that can play all the latest next gen games, for many people this is enough, the number one reason you buy a games console is to play games, and the 'Arcade SKU' offers that for pence.

All Sony can do now is make sure they finish in a healthy 3rd place and come out of this gen making a good profit.

Sorry, far too much reasonable logic. Get out. :p
 
[EDIT] I'd also like to add, i wonder if the 360 would be so cheap if IBM hadn't cheekily used research Sony had paid for to aid substantially in the R&D of the 360 CPU. The R&D costs of the 360 overall were quite a bit smaller than that of the PS3, most of this was due to the development costs of the cell. Maybe if Sony had used their brains and protected their research the 360 wouldn't have been such a quick and easy creation as it was.

Wasn't the 360 out before the ps3 though ?

Even so all is fair in love and war I'm afraid. If Sony was silly enough not to protect their research thats the fault end of the day.

I don't know the in's and out's of this. I'm not going to pretend to look like I do either.

If as you said Sony used the PS3 purely as a tool to win the HD DVD / Blu-ray war imo they was stupid to do so. I know plenty of people that really dont give a damm about if a movie is in blu-ray or normal def. Heck I bet that most of the Joe Bloggs out there doesnt even have a clue what the diffence is except the name.

The same happened with DVD, i got a PS2 and then just started buying DVDs because i happened to now have a DVD player, i wouldn't have bothered for a couple of years otherwise.
I agree with that to some degree. There was a massive difference between VHS and DVD though. Not just on quality of picture but just pure size and weight of DVD's I think was the main selling point. espec when they got cheaper to buy.

PS3 may suceed but I think as mentioned time and time and time again. That price tag needs to come down to encourage people to buy it.
 
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