NPD August 2007

[liolio]

NPD's Anita Frazier losing faith in PS3?

Quote:
"There is no doubt that the window that Sony has to turn this around and bolster their position in the marketplace is narrowing," she said. "With only 4 months left in this calendar year, November and December will be absolutely critical to them to gain more solid ground with the PS3. That said, the story is still not fully written, but it's coming much closer to being so."

It's not about losing faith, but more facing the truth.
In US Sony has to face an awful situation.

MS sold twice as much has SONY in august, average figures are horrid for sony, Halo III along with a lot of others nice games.

We will see son how it fares for Sony but the risk is high for them to be marginalized in North America.

 

[TheChefO]

as speculated 360 Madden outsold PS2 Madden...

yep

 

[TheChefO]

Kuturagi has now "officially" killed SCE

I'm not sure how much he was involved with some of the more "questionable" design moves in ps3 though.

HDMI and Bluray prevented it from being a repeat of ps2 IMO.


Could have been prevented by one humble and simple move though:

All initial games for ps3 mandated to be produced on dvd and playable without the HDD.

Such a move would allow Sony the flexability to drop the BR format in a reduced function "core" ps3 which could sell for a similar price as the xb360 core without financially sinking the ship.


Oh well ...

 

[Pozer]

I hate to see a good console fail but the ps3 is in danger of joining the NeoGeo and 3do. great technology that nobody could afford. Sony over engineered the thing. Now they can't afford to lower the price and they can't afford to not lower the price. Sad cause sony has been good to gamers up until now.

 

[TheChefO]

I hate to see a good console fail but the ps3 is in danger of joining the NeoGeo and 3do. great technology that nobody could afford. Sony over engineered the thing. Now they can't afford to lower the price and they can't afford to not lower the price. Sad cause sony has been good to gamers up until now.

I thought that was why they raised the 3 billion was to enable a price reduction...

 

[liolio]

I hate to see a good console fail but the ps3 is in danger of joining the NeoGeo and 3do. great technology that nobody could afford. Sony over engineered the thing. Now they can't afford to lower the price and they can't afford to not lower the price. Sad cause sony has been good to gamers up until now.

The ps3 doesn't outclass its competors (technically) the same the machines your speaking about did.

I'm not sad but IF things go wrong in the three big market for Sony, I'm more scared.

I'm not the sure that the Wii can compete against the 360 and MS/EDIT forgot "in the long run"/... and we all know MS behaviour when it comes to leadership....

 

[Pozer]

I'm not sure how much he was involved with some of the more "questionable" design moves in ps3 though.

HDMI and Bluray prevented it from being a repeat of ps2 IMO.


Could have been prevented by one humble and simple move though:

All initial games for ps3 mandated to be produced on dvd and playable without the HDD.

Such a move would allow Sony the flexability to drop the BR format in a reduced function "core" ps3 which could sell for a similar price as the xb360 core without financially sinking the ship.


Oh well ...

I agree completely. BluRay winning wasn't worth what they risked. By the time hd-dvd vs BR war is over digital distro will have won.

 

[liolio]

SCE isn't traction anywhere, the priced out of every region, they loosing the software battle in every region. There software is luckluster in every country currently and it's execlusive games it does have aren't drawing any interest.

I never thought I'd be saying this, but Gabe Newell was right

It's still not done, but yes at this rate I see coming the breaking point where casual market will shift toward MS.
Once it starts it happens very quickly (think N64 people waited and at some point shift quiet brutally).

 

[TheChefO]

I agree completely. BluRay winning wasn't worth what they risked. By the time hd-dvd vs BR war is over digital distro will have won.

Funny thing is, I called it a year ago.

Sony should pay more attention to my posting advice!

no seriously. they should.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

PS3 is not yet doomed, two things have to happen for that - lack of a substantial price cut ($500 might not be enough though) and lack of AAA titles for this holiday season. I seriously doubt that both Uncharted and Ratchet would fail, and there are a lot of other exclusives as well.
Even a good TGS showing can help the system a lot, if FFXIII and some other 1st party titles I'm sure SCE's working on are looking good enough in all aspects then it will keep the PS3 alive.

But there is a possibility that publishers get into panic mode and stop development of 3rd party exclusives, noone can deny that.
The first Xbox has sold better in the US in its first year then the PS3, as Sony needs to sell 1.3 million units in september and october to catch up to it and that will probably not happen. Japan and the EU can not compensate for such lackluster performance, if sales won't pick up then Sony is in deep trouble.

The more interesting question is actually this: just how many systems can Halo3 sell? 6.5 million people in the US have bought Halo2, and MS hasn't sold that many 360s yet, so it will certainly move hardware. But is it enough to sell 3-4 million consoles in the last two months of the year?

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I hate to see a good console fail but the ps3 is in danger of joining the NeoGeo and 3do. great technology that nobody could afford.

The main problem with the 3do was that a year later the PS1 launched, which was comparable in power and half the price.

Kinda similiar to this generation, only that the first console out was the cheapest one...

Anyways, im very suprised by the way the PS3 is going (althought, unlike you i don't believe all is lost, if they can get the PS3 down to $400 by Q1 2008, i think the brand regocnition combined with price alone could result in very nice sales).

Then again, i'm very suprised by the X360 aswell. Its outselling the Playstation , which is\was\whatever the biggest name in gaming for the last decade. And this is a machine that everybody knows is super unreliable

 

[TheChefO]

The main problem with the 3do was that a year later the PS1 launched, which was comparable in power and half the price.

Actually, it was more powerful and slightly cheaper (3do droped the price).

Shortly after, the ps games library steamrolled 3do and most devs jumped ship when they found out about ps' ability and Sony's intentions/plan.

 

[TheChefO]

But there is a possibility that publishers get into panic mode and stop development of 3rd party exclusives, noone can deny that.

A bit late for that IMO.

I think most that aren't being financially supported by Sony, have already started porting work for the wares.

Even Konami already dropped quite a few hints that they aren't exactly commited.
SE has enough money to compensate if they screwup with FF.

I can't think of anyone else still exclusive on ps3.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Poliphony, Ninja Theory, Insomniac and Naughty Dog all count as first party then? Though it really is unlikely for them to leave Sony's platform...

 

[TheChefO]

Poliphony, Ninja Theory, Insomniac and Naughty Dog all count as first party then? Though it really is unlikely for them to leave Sony's platform...

I thought they were.

1st or 2nd.

Either way, I don't expect them to go anywhere unless Sony sells some of these studios off. (they are Sony owned aren't they?)

 

[liolio]

The main problem with the 3do was that a year later the PS1 launched, which was comparable in power and half the price.

Kinda similar to this generation, only that the first console out was the cheapest one...

Anyways, I'm very surprised by the way the PS3 is going (although, unlike you i don't believe all is lost, if they can get the PS3 down to $400 by Q1 2008, i think the brand recognition combined with price alone could result in very nice sales).

Then again, I'm very surprised by the X360 as well. Its outselling the Playstation , which is\was\whatever the biggest name in gaming for the last decade. And this is a machine that everybody knows is super unreliable

The problem remain even @400$ byQ1 2008, MS can hit 299$ nintendo whatever they want.

And brand recognition has limit... nintendo learned it .
Market will shift soon at this rate.

Thing looks bad... Sony would be crazy to start a price war they have no chance to win.

If this trend is proved by christmass sales figures, Sony would better try to follow Nintendo tactic with old gen ie make money with their market share instead of bleed money.

 

[zed]

wii sold 100k less than i guessed

 

[RobertR1]

Sony's in a rough spot. The price war could mean that other 2 end up looking even more appealing to the masses with Sony takes bigger hits and the sales still might not be there to justify the subsidizing.

 

[Rangers]

Yes these sales figures make it tough for Western developers. PS3's only sales edge on 360 is in Japan. But Western devs aren't going to sell games in Japan. They're only looking at USA+ Western Europe, and 360 is threatening to become a snowball there.

I dont even know if a drop to 399 would help Sony that much. The problem is the games. There are almost no games I want on PS3 and "8" level titles like HS and Uncharted aren't going to change that. PS3 has it's most value as a Blu ray player. And heck, even Blu ray is not guaranteed to beat HDDVD these days. The thing 360 has going for it over PS3 is simple: Halo 3. Okay, not exactly Halo 3, but incredibly complex and fun games like Halo 3. I dont see a lot of software of that complexity that is PS3 exclusive. Instead you see things like HS, a glossy but shallow title.

I took MS to task for it's multi-sku strategy (which I still think is crap) and lackluster price cut (which in retrospect was likely forced on them by a billion dollars in RROD write-offs), but it's worked out pretty well in August.

BTW, Blue Dragon was reported at 53,000 by Sony Cowboy. Very weak.

 

[Rangers]

The main problem with the 3do was that a year later the PS1 launched, which was comparable in power and half the price.

Actually PS1 was about 2X in power over 3D0. 3D0 had a 32 bit CPU at 12.5 mhz or so IIRC. PS1's 32 bit CPU was ~30mhz. Not even to mention the massively better software support to go along with the half price relative to 3D0.

Heck, even the Saturn in the absence of PS1, would have absolutely crushed the 3d0..again in power, price, and games.

PS1 was just even a significant step better than Saturn in a couple of those categories.