PlayStation 3: Not About Quantity, About Profitability

The Xbox 360 price drop rumors flow like water and it’s all but officially been announced at this point. What about PlayStation 3 and their price? No.

Nobuyuki Oneda, the Sony’s chief financial officer said, “our plan is not to reduce the price. Our strategy is not to sell more quantity for PS3 but to concentrate on profitability.” (gamespot) This makes complete sense coming from their chief financial officer, as their motivation is to make money, not lose it.

The question remains, how will they actually make money if they’re no longer in the race for competitive market prices? Considering game licensing must Net them some amount of profit Sony’s idea seems to be the exact opposite of their original PlayStation method: saturate the market and sell them all games.

So far we’ve seen very few “need to have” games for the PlayStation 3 console while Xbox 360 continues to build a substantial library and Wii continues to break sales records for apparently no reason. When a game publisher has to decide on a platform to launch a new game, why would they choose the one that doesn’t care to be competitively priced in the market? The one that doesn’t care about quantity of sales?

Sony intends to reverse the entire razor blade philosophy where one sells a cheap razor and charges users for the blades over and over again. Their take on this concept is to sell really expensive razors and put out small half-quality blades. Is that a good market strategy at this point?

0 thoughts on “PlayStation 3: Not About Quantity, About Profitability”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Episode 536: Even More Audio IssuesEpisode 536: Even More Audio Issues

This podcast is plagued with audio issues, unfortunately, as it returns from a week’s hiatus to check out the new games and controversies, as well as Gaming Flashback for one of the greatest superhero games of all time, Batman: Arkham Asylum.

The news this week includes:

  • Microsoft unveils disc-less Xbox One S All-Digital Edition for $249
  • Western Final Fantasy X-2 requires the cart on Switch
  • Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order dev explains why it’s a single player game

Let us know what you think.

Episode 689: PlayStation PortableEpisode 689: PlayStation Portable

The guys discuss Apple and Epic going to the Supreme Court, Nic Cage being in Dead by Daylight, the death of Emile Morel, Mortal Kombat 1 fighters, Clockwork Revolution, Skullgirls, and Mojang complaining about Wiki adverts.

The news includes:

  • Jagged Alliance 3 details how it will support two-player online co-op
  • EA confirms single-player Black Panther game from new studio
  • Microsoft tells court Sony “expected to release” PlayStation 5 Slim and ‘handheld PS5’ this year
  • Hi-Fi Rush update includes a new ‘blistering 200 BPM’ challenge

Let us know what you think.

Episode 361: Dev StoriesEpisode 361: Dev Stories

This week is slow in terms of videogame industry news, but rich on developer stories told by Paul, so be prepared for a lot of advice for the kid who wants to make games instead of just play them.

The news includes:

  • Report: Microsoft to buy Mojang
  • Destiny day-one shipments top $500 million
  • Dan Adelman: “Good games are worth paying for”
  • Video game degrees in the US increase by 50% in five years
  • European Women in Games Hall of Fame adds new members

All this and Listener Feedback, with the Question of the Week: “Have you ever created your own content with a game’s editor?”