Hilarious new Sony PS3 article, "shortages will be completely eased by May" Huh?

[Rob2600]

What did they do with the old one(s)?

Some people asked if they could trade in their broken PlayStations, some people asked if we fixed them, and some people asked if Sony replaced them for free. I'd tell them no, they'd buy new ones, and give the broken ones to me to throw away. They were like disposable consoles.

[jajaja]

Some people asked if they could trade in their broken PlayStations, some people asked if we fixed them, and some people asked if Sony replaced them for free. I'd tell them no, they'd buy new ones, and give the broken ones to me to throw away. They were like disposable consoles.

Bah.. people are stupid :) They should have gotten it covered by the warranty ;) If its within the limit of course (here its within 2 years) so Sony or the store would replace it. Also possible to fix it if the lazer is broken. Ah well, PS2 isnt exactly THAT expencive so i guess people can afford to buy multiply consoles if they want/need. Still got my PS2 from 2001 and it works like new.

[Rob2600]

Bah.. people are stupid :) They should have gotten it covered by the warranty ;)

As far as I knew, Sony's warranty was 90 days. We sold extended warranties, which were pointless in most cases, but were extremely valuable when it came to the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2. Of course, customers didn't want to spend the extra $20 on the extended warranty, but would end up coming back to my store months later and spending an extra $150 on a new PlayStation.

Could this be one of the reasons why 100 million PlayStation consoles were sold?

[Nature Boy]

Some people were buying their third and fourth PlayStation. Why?

Because it was likely cheaper and certainly less of a hassle to buy a new console rather than getting the original one fixed. A sad truth of most modern electronics.

[FantasiaWHT]

Could this be one of the reasons why 100 million PlayStation consoles were sold?

You know, that's a really good point, for both PS1 and PS2. I wonder what a statistical analysis would look like that took into account the failure rate of each system? Take a random sample of current PS2 owners and ask them how many PS2's they've owned (for any reason). If the average PS2 owner purchased 2 PS2's (pulling a number out of a hat), then the market share of Sony is not really evidenced by 100 million consoles, but by 50 million consoles.

[jajaja]

As far as I knew, Sony's warranty was 90 days. We sold extended warranties, which were pointless in most cases, but were extremely valuable when it came to the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2. Of course, customers didn't want to spend the extra $20 on the extended warranty, but would end up coming back to my store months later and spending an extra $150 on a new PlayStation.

Ye, i guess warranty variates from countries to countries. Here its in the law that you have 2 years when it comes to things like this, no matter what the producer of the product says. Hehe true, its like that, u dont want to spend like $5 on insurance because you want to save money. Might not be too bad to buy insurance after all :)


Could this be one of the reasons why 100 million PlayStation consoles were sold?

Some of these are multiply buys indeed, but its not the main reason. If you look at software sales for PS2 its a huge amount of money, indicating that alot of different people own a PS2 (unless alot of people buy multiply copies of the same game hehe ;)). If people want to buy many consoles, a sale is a sale :)

[Rob2600]

Some of these are multiple buys indeed, but its not the main reason. ... If people want to buy many consoles, a sale is a sale :)

True, most PlayStation owners probably only bought one console, but a decent amount of the fan base bought two or three. That must have had an impact on total hardware sales.

I forgot to mention all of the fanatics who came into the store and bought the small PSone when it came out so they could install it in their cars...in addition to the original PlayStation consoles they already owned.

[Nature Boy]

True, most PlayStation owners probably only bought one console, but a decent amount of the fan base bought two or three. That must have had an impact on total hardware sales.

It has an impact but not a *large* one I'd guess.

Sure I own four PlayStations, but I also own four NESes. How much of an impact does that have? Of those 8 consoles, one was bought brand new by me.

(Funnily enough it was a PSone, with a screen, so that I could play in my car or whatever :) ).

[chrisbid]

First, not a single soul can say what the future brings, ergo, no one can know if PS3 will fail big time or not. They can predict yes, but they cannot tell for sure. Its been like 5 months, its nothing. What happends if PS3 suddently cost $300 in 1 year and all the good games are out? Many talk like the PS3 will cost $599 throughout its entire lifetime, but that will never happend :) What Sony will do in 1-2 years we dont know, i'm sure they dont even know hehe. We can only guess, but we can never know for sure.

So.. yes, its too early to say if its a flop or not.

if the market maintains it current trend, market position will stay the same for all three systems. as i said in my post, it will take drastic action for sony to buck the current trend, and cutting the price of the PS3 in half would qualify as drastic. a ticky-tack price drop wont help very much, as it would be easy for MS to match it.

[FantasiaWHT]

Totally anecdotal, but when the slim PS2 came out, about 80% of the ones my store sold in the first few months were bought by people trading in their fat versions.

[jajaja]

if the market maintains it current trend, market position will stay the same for all three systems. as i said in my post, it will take drastic action for sony to buck the current trend, and cutting the price of the PS3 in half would qualify as drastic. a ticky-tack price drop wont help very much, as it would be easy for MS to match it.

Of course, if the trend stays exactly like it is now for the next years to come it might not look to bright for Sony, but the market is constantly changing. Next year it can be totaly different, no one knows for sure. Therefor its impossible to say now how each console will turn out in the end. As said, we can guess and predict, but not say for sure. Only time knows and we'll have to wait and see :)

[77punk]

i wont complain of price of the ps3 considering the complexity of the system. I just dont think Sony thought enough about how this will be the revolutionary system. I wont think about buying one until either price drops on games or RE5 comes out and rocks the socks off.

[veronica_marsfan]

Blasphemy! The Saturn was never a waste of money.

It had a lifespan of just-over two years long.
I invested in two Sega consoles (32X and Saturn),
and both were terminated early by Sega.

I wasn't going anywhere near the Dreamcast, for fear it too would be terminated after only two years on market. I waited to see what Sony & Nintendo had in 2000.

The earlier poster was correct:
Distrust of Sega is what killed the DC.

[Nature Boy]

if the market maintains it current trend, market position will stay the same for all three systems. as i said in my post, it will take drastic action for sony to buck the current trend, and cutting the price of the PS3 in half would qualify as drastic. a ticky-tack price drop wont help very much, as it would be easy for MS to match it.

Two things. (a) Current trends don't dictate future market positions. Look at the SNES vs the Genesis - it took a long time, but they were even by the end of that generation. (b) They can't cut the price in half or they piss off all their hardcore, early adoptor customers. Piss them off and who is going to buy your stuff at full price next time?

I don't disagree they'll need to do something (drastic might be a little melodramatic), but there are plenty of ways to increase market share. Pricing is just one of them.

[veronica_marsfan]

Two things. (a) Current trends don't dictate future market positions. Look at the SNES vs the Genesis

Or Betamax vs VHS.
Betamax owned 80% of the market in 1980.
But VHS won the war by 1990.

Betamax "won" the early adopters between 1975 and 1980, but the masses (the majority of consumers) flocked to the VHS format. VHS decks were cheaper & offered twice the recording time, which appealed to people with limited budgets that couldn't afford the pricey Betamax decks/tapes.

[Rob2600]

Sony outsold Nintendo in the last two generations. In both of those generations, Sony had a one year head start. This time around, Sony didn't have a head start and the Wii is outselling the PlayStation 3 by 2-to-1.

It's the same situation with the portables, too. The Nintendo DS and Sony PSP were released within a month from each other...no head start...and the DS is outselling PSP by 1.5-to-1.

It seems as though when Sony doesn't get a big head start, they don't come out on top.

[jajaja]

Afaik PSP did outsell DS the first couple of months, but then the good games came out for DS and i guess you know the rest of the story :) Shows how big importance games actually are when it comes to selling a console.

[Rob2600]

Afaik PSP did outsell DS the first couple of months

There's a huge difference between "units shipped" and "units sold." Sony loves bragging about how many units its shipped because it sounds impressive, but in reality, it's an almost useless statistic compared to actual sales figures.


Shows how big importance games actually are when it comes to selling a console.

You're right, to an extent. Marketing is probably even more important, which is unfortunate because a great catalog of games can go unplayed due to ineffective ad campaigns and branding. It seems like this time around, Nintendo was able to do what Apple did with the iPod and create a high "coolness" factor for the Wii, whereas Sony hasn't been able to do that with the PlayStation 3.

Price is also very important. I'm guessing the PlayStation 3's high 3DO-style price tag doesn't appeal to mainstream consumers. In my area of the U.S., a $500 PlayStation 3 plus a game and tax comes out to $596. A $600 PlayStation 3 plus a game and tax comes out to $715. That is a considerable purchase for many people. On the other hand, a $250 Wii plus a game and tax comes out to $325, which is cheap by comparison...half the price!

[jajaja]

PSP did sell more, not just shipped. Check the stats i posted earlier (those are US only tho). Here are some other stats from Media Create (Japan). These are units sold. Shows that PSP did sell more in the begining.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=82975133&size=o

[Nature Boy]

Sony outsold Nintendo in the last two generations. In both of those generations, Sony had a one year head start. This time around, Sony didn't have a head start and the Wii is outselling the PlayStation 3 by 2-to-1.

Sega had a head start on both of them and look where the Dreamcast ended up!

[veronica_marsfan]

Wii is outselling the PlayStation 3 by 2-to-1..

Source?

[joedick]

Source?

I don't know about overall numbers, but wii outsold PS3 2 to 1 in March in the US and overall in Japan:

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5298&Itemid=2
http://wii.ign.com/articles/777/777967p1.html

[jajaja]

The 2 last week in Japan, PS3 was outsold like 7 to 1 compared to Wii. No suprise tho. Super Paper Mario was out last week and in general Wii is cheaper and have much more games

[Rob2600]

Source?

Page 21 of Nintendo's Consolidated Financial Statements document lists total Wii sales at 5.84 million as of March 31, 2007:

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2007/070426e.pdf

I also used data from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_wii

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation_3

At the very least, Wii is outselling PlayStation 3 by 1.83-to-1 (5.84 million vs. 3.2 million). At best, Wii is outselling PlayStation 3 by 2.04-to-1 (6.52 million vs. 3.2 million).

[veronica_marsfan]

Hmm.

My next-generation console might end-up being a Nintendo. (surprise)