Yet again, another premature prediction. You don't even know when that'll happen.
Japan Sales Thread *renamed
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Yet again, another premature prediction. You don't even know when that'll happen.
You and what magic crystal ball?
How about common sense. The BOM will reduce significantly over time with 65nm and BR diodes being mass produced. But these things take time. Not to mention Sony does not want to be eating $200+ in losses forever with ps3 so this will limit their ability to reduce price.
$100/yr price drops are aggressive and will maintain their losses through the cycle but may be necessary to compete this gen. If not, then it will hit <$200 after 2009.
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I think it is definately early to make a call on how this gen will turn out. I think in the US the 360 is looking particularly strong, though. Europe is still wide open, IMO. Japan is looking to be a completely different market than what I, at least, was expecting. PS3 is truly not competing with the 360 there but instead the Wii, the handhelds and the PS2 (still alive and kicking).
At the risk of oversimplification, Sony need to make the PS3 into a product that a lot more people want and do it at a price that a lot more people want to pay. And, in fact, need to make them want it enough to pay more, because they will never be able to win a straight price war. This is the target that Nintendo have nailed repeatedly product after product lately and is why they have been so successful.
At the risk of oversimplification, Sony need to make the PS3 into a product that a lot more people want and do it at a price that a lot more people want to pay. And, in fact, need to make them want it enough to pay more, because they will never be able to win a straight price war. This is the target that Nintendo have nailed repeatedly product after product lately and is why they have been so successful.
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Mintmaster
Veteran
Since when is a console war compared with a world war???
Consoles are fixed. Their abilities do not change. Their manufacturing costs change slowly. All you can do is change marketing, and honestly I don't think PS3 is lacking there, especially compared to XB360.
While we don't know what the final numbers will be, there's no question that PS3 is way, way off the pace set by PS2, and it needs to chop into the huge lead of MS also. By all accounts Europe is more price sensitive than US and Japan, too, so I have a hard time believing there's a home run there.
The Wii... well, that was just pure genius, and they'll own the non-HD market.
Considering a large amount of them now resort to arguments like "First party SW will save PS3", "Wait until (insert name of next big show), after that sales will really pick up." and "PSP is profitable and that makes it a success, being first is not that important", I don't think they quite grasp the immense irony.
That's neither here nor there. The whole point is looking at first 3 month sales and extrapolating 5 years of sales after that.
No they can't, but 1) Price could drop considerably. 2) Sales of PS3 might start to invigorate the BRD market, and Sony decide to take a hit on PS3's to help push that format, recouperating from long-term BRD sales. 3) A set of features and software applications might appear in the next year that greatly increase PS3's value so that people are more willing to invest in it. 4) Wii may lose its appeal of the novelty has worn and sales of Wii drop dramatically, leaving XB360 and PS3 as tortoises to Nintendo's hare.
I'm sure there's other potential outcomes too.
To be clear, if we're talking probabities, the probability that Sony will manage a 5:1 trouncing of the opposition is vanishingly small. Yet that's how it was before hand. If by 'fail' and 'fall' people mean 'not get a vastly superior install base than the rivals' then I'd concur, though not on the weight of 3 months sales, but the info we had before even the consoles launches. No-one was expecting a 5:1:1 ratio tis time around. It's the 'Sony will sell hardly any consoles, they'll give up consoles altogether, they'll be forever playing catch-up' comments, based solely on 3 months of sales, that I can't agree with. No (competant) scientist or statistician on the planet would look at the evidence people are presenting and draw conclusions from it. There's way too many unknown factors that can come into effect, and not just million-to-one chances either (like you becoming an astronaut!).
I (and others) are basing the prediction on a few factors:
1) Current BOM/retail price
2) Current games available/in development/sales
3) Current hardware sales
4) Future (likely) BOM/retail price reductions
5) Time
By 2010/2011 this gen is over and the next will start. They have 3-4 years to establish ps3 before attention is turned to WiiHD/XB720. All of these factors to me add up to 2nd/3rd place depending on how well Nintendo can keep the flame going.
Like you said anything is possible and Microsoft HQ might get hit with a meteor tonight. But based on the data we have currently, PS3 will not end up in 1st place.
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Mintmaster
Veteran
Same here.
I didn't think Sony would have any trouble. This is the Playstation 3! The successor to the most successful console in history! I knew price would be an issue, and I knew 360 would give you a comparable experience, but damn. Demand limited already? Wow.
Do you guys not realize how stupid this price argument is?
Of course the PS3 will drop in price, but so will its competition. The $200+ difference will not go away soon, and in fact it could appear larger in the future. If the 360 core is $199 and the 20GB PS3 is $399, we're talking about fully double the cost for a similar gaming experience. Granted, the PS3 offers much more than gaming, but how much demand is there for that?
The reason I thought PS3 would still win despite its price was that I figured people were dying for the PS3, and pent up demand along with brand loyalty would give it very strong early momentum. Now that this basic assumption is proved wrong after only 2 months, there's no reason to believe PS3 will get anywhere near the PS2's success.
Readykilowatt
Regular
As you can all see, Sony is in full "self-destruct" mode. They also seem to be in denial about it all as well.
The reason that anything is possible is that you're making prediction on 2 months worth of data and this is not indicative how the game market will react to 3 fully competing console makers on the scene...
1) Current BOM ----this is only speculation the real costs are insider info.
2) Current games available/in development/sales------So far we have info. on PS3 games up to summer release and don't have Sony's full hand. Games will be announced.
3) Current hardware sales----We only have info. on two months worth of data and that is with limmited release numbers.
4) Future (likely) BOM reductions---That is going to require physic ability.
5) Time---Will tell
All these factors to me telling that any predictions are premature and irrelavant. Anything is possible give it some time and then we can start see how the horses will play out...
They might well not. That can still be along way from failing though. What if Wii sells 150 million and PS3 sells 130 million? Have Sony fallen? Are they a bunch of losers? Perhaps some people are measuring everything solely on the trainer commercial mentality of 'one winner and everyone else are losers', and to this definition, they count Sony as failing if they aren't number one? Without clear definitions, it's hard to see what conclusions people are trying to come to from this intial data, so we may just be arguing at cross purposes.
Regardless though, 3 months of data doesn't mean much. EyeToy sold 1 million units in it's first 4 months just in Europe. From that data, you'd extrapolate something like 15+ million EyeToys sold by now. But it didn't happen, because the 'rush' disappeared after a while. DQ 8 sold 2.2 million in two days. Would you extrapolate 20 million sales by the 20th day? The first 3 months of sales doesn't count for much in statistical predictions. Months 12-15, along with a year's worth of back-data, will be a better reference point.
1) true - but we do have a ballpark idea.
2) true they will have games in the future - nobody is saying different.
3) the two months data isn't supply limited but demand limited. This gives us a good feel for how ps3 is trending. Obviously things will become clearer the more data we get but as it is, not so good.
4) 65nm this year - 45nm in 2009-2010. BR diodes will get cheaper over time but Hdd will stay expensive. They could replace it with flash but this is years away.
5) Time is up: 2010-2011 is all they have til.
I'm not extrapolating linear data based on 3 months data only. Nor am I saying ps3 has "failed".
I'll dig out my old extrapolated numbers ...
It's this idea of 'trending' that's down-right preposterous!
You don't 'trend' the London Marathon 3 minutes into the race. You don't 'trend' the Premiership after the first two matches. You don't 'trend' Wii's sales over the last two months. Hell, they're getting half the sales now as a month ago. That's a trend of half the demand every month! By the end of the year they'll be lucky to sell Wii's in the thousand if that trend continues! Trends means looking for patterns, which needs a relevant amount of source material. eg. If I show you a pattern of black white black white squares in a row, you may 'trend' that the pattern will continue like that indefinitely, whereas it might be anything far more complex.
You're opinions on Sony's loss of market share, low sales, etc, may well be right...BUT...you can't use the first few months of sales as evidence of that. Those numbers don't fit into any logical argument as they're statistically incomplete, given that the current 'trend' can be changed by a whole host of options by Sony (and not just cutting the price, which some seem to think is all you can do to sell more of a product).
Readykilowatt
Regular
That's a very interesting question. I believe that if this scenario became true, many people will still consider the PS3 to be a "failure". It's all about expectations and it was "expected" that Sony would again obliterate the competition. Look at the N64. It outsold the Xbox but yet the Xbox is considered a success and the N64 is considered a failure.
True, but dont for one second assume that this generation will end up just like the previous one.
I hope you are not implicitly comparing the Wii to the EyeToy (which is an add-on).