Saturday, July 7, 2007

Playstation prices to reduce

Sony's Playstation 3 has got walloped by the Wii in its major markets, and the fact that the PS3 is much more expensive than the Wii. One thing that is expected to happen is that the price of the PS3 would be dropped, not only to compete better with the Wii and the Xbox 360, but also to promote Blu-Ray movies more effectively. This is a particularly critical time to promote the new standard, since a lot of the decision making by other stakeholders such as major studios, etc is being done. Their decision will have a big impact on which of the 2 rival formats (Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD) eventually gets selected as the default format.
Currently, the President of Sony (Ryoji Chubachi) sticks to the no-price-drop-for-PS3 stand, but things may change before the Christmas season:


The fact is that Sony, bereft of PS3 games at present, has flushed out most of the hard core gamers who would buy Sony's latest latest console at any price. The Wii is in a different class and the real competition for the high end of gaming is Xbox 360.
Sony will cut the price of PS3 for two reasons. One is to bridge the gap with Xbox 360 and the other is to drive the nail deeper into the coffin of the HD DVD high definition format.
Given the fact that there are hardly any PS3 games worth buying yet, Sony's nextgen console has done remarkably well to have sold nearly 4 million units worldwide so far. Despite the naysayers, I believe much of this has to do with the PS3's capability as a Blu-ray player. After all, until PS3 games hit the market en masse why would you buy the most expensive console on the planet?
Sony has promised 380 PS3 games will hit the market by next March. If that promise is kept, it will provide a huge filip to PS3 sales. Meanwhile, Blu-ray movie titles continue to grow, HD flat panel TVs continue to sell and PS3 continues to be the best selling HD video player on the planet.


Sony would be constantly trying to evolve its strategy. Both the Blu-Ray and PS3 are high-stake strategies for Sony, and if a price cut is required for sales to increase, a price cut it will be.

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