And Right Back to Paper Cuts Again
Surely they wouldn't be this stupid. From Kotaku:Kutaragi also pretty much confirmed that we won't be seeing a comparative price drop in other territories. According to Ken, the Japanese pricing changes were merely an adjustment to keep the price inline with the market. He argued that the misconception that 1 dollar equals 1 euro equals 100 yen is not a fair comparison.
Uh-oh, the stupid wagon just pulled out of the depot--and Sony was driving.
Okay, it's the last time I'm going to say this, although I'm not promising. At $499 and $599, the PS3 is a doorstop. It's not in competition with the 360--at $200 more, it's a separate product category. It's a boutique product. This is totally in conflict with Sony's primary goal, which is to win the high-definition DVD war with Blu-Ray. And analysts can talk until their heads explode about what a "relative" value it is because it has a Blu-Ray drive, and Sony can claim it will replace supercomputers, and it will still get kicked in the teeth by the 360. The 360 is $200 cheaper and it has an outstanding lineup of games this fall. The PS3 has supply problems (although they're trying to "fix" that by killing demand with their pricing), and their launch line-up is average at best.
I'm not sure why people don't understand this, but a product that costs 50% more than its primary competitor and has a far poorer selection of software for its primary use is not going to be successful. It's math. And the software gap is not going to close, because developers can do math, too.
Two months before launch. Two months. Buzz? ZERO. That pricing announcement was the first spasm of interest in weeks. When you spend 90% of your interaction with the press defending your pricing strategy, it is highly likely that your pricing strategy is wrong.
<< Home