David Reeves, Sony Europe’s President said, “we simply have to suffer a little” when talking about the PS3, Europe and the competition. He was talking specifically about Sony’s loss of market share, mind-share and overall performance in the latest competitive console arena. While Sony’s president dismisses Nintendo as in a separate market, David Reeves said, “we’ve learned from Nintendo how to grow the market and move from hand-held device to device – they’ve done it brilliantly.”
What Sony may be dealing with is the fact that they’re not top dog in the latest battle for consoles. Europe has taken to the PlayStation 3 better than the United States and they’ve got plenty of fans in the region. There has been a recent upside to it all, some light at the end of the tunnel:
“PS3 games sales are up 53% and there’s a healthy 1.1m pre-order book for Killzone 2, the first of a new batch of IPs that Sony will be counting on.” (guardian.co.uk)
Although it’s reported the PSP says are down 15% and PS2 software sales are down 51%, at least the PlayStation 3 is filling in the gap for some of those losses. At some point you’d expect the PlayStation 2 to decline, gamers are probably migrating over to the new hardware.
They’ve got some things to be proud of:
- PlayStation Network increases revenues by 200% in 2008
- 55% of all PlayStation owners are on PSN
- 17.5 million PSN subscribers
- 53% rise in software sales on PS3
- Won HD format war
Unfortunately PS3 sales were down last quarter by about 9%, perhaps a response to the harsh economic times. And, of course, the fact that Sony’s VP’s are constantly defending their position in the market is a bit disconcerting. As David Reeves said:
“It’s like Ali v Foreman – go eight or nine rounds and let him punch himself out. We’re still standing, we’re still profitable and there’s a lot of fight in us. I don’t say we will land a knockout blow, but we’re there and we’re fighting.” (guardian.co.uk)
Sony is playing the defensive, guarding themselves against the punches of the competition. Nintendo making headlines for sales, Microsoft coming out of nowhere to try to build market share, while Sony holds out for the tenth round to win it in the end? We’re not yet sure if it’s Ali vs. Foreman or if Microsoft is the next Buster Douglas.
(Thanks, Guardian)
@ Black Friday 2012
I was pretty disappointed in how “Black Friday” was handled in Romania. Plenty of retailers increased the price a week before, so that they could do a 40% slash to get the price back to the old value.
@Nintendo Power’s last issue released
It also depends how many people want it. Here’s an example: our major cable provider decided to not renew the contract it had with Discovery Channel. Why? Because just 0.9% of the people watched it.
How many people read “Nintendo Power”?
@Blizzard acquired ‘Project Blackstone‘ domain
It could be a preventive buy, I guess. Still, not really hyped about it, Blizzard lost me since always-online DRM; last game I played from them was Warcraft III and Frozen Throne.
@Dead Island: Riptide banned in Germany
Funny though, there are plenty of games (not just Gears of War) where players blow other human-like character to bits, and those are still available in Germany.
But hey, what do I know, perhaps the baddies in those games bleed green goo …
@QOTW: No.
Not interested to comment on any of the news articles, I just came to ask: “Guess who has two thumbs and got the Wii U before Paul did?”. I did.
@QOTW: Never
Just found out about this podcast and was amused that there was a topic discussed, I just held a speech on in school. Censoring, banning etc. in Germany.
The USK is all right, they just rate the games like any other institue that rates games. The problem is the BPjM (the young protection thing you translated). They decide what gets banned and lands on the index etc. They’re not only after games, but after media in general. They just recently banned Steel Panther’s 1 year old album “Balls Out” for no reason given. Wrote them a mail (respectful, of course) and got no answer whatsoever. So did the German Metal Hammer-magazine. Same answer.
They ban whatever they want to. Sometimes there’s no system behind it. Dishonored came out here completely uncensored, this means I, as Corvo, can decapitate enemies and throw their heads around. Kinda humiliating to the corpse, isn’t it?
If anyone is interested in how cuts on games look like, I recommend http://www.schnittberichte.com
especially the Bulletstorm one.
QOTW: Never.
@QOTW:
Yeah… Nintendo World yes, Nintendo Power NO.
Nintendo World had the “Approved By Nintendo” seal, so, i bought them for a couple of years…