Pricing and game library are marketing? Strictly speaking you're right, but when people here say marketing they're actually talking about promotion.
I think PARANOiA is right. The promotion hasn't been bad at all, and MS hasn't done anything better. It's everything else that is hurting the PS3, including hardware decisions. Maybe those decisions will help sales later on (I doubt it, but who knows), but this discussion is about past and present sales of PS3 vs. the competition, and for that hardware is big part of the problem.
Well pricing is a result of wrong marketing dcisions. You have to evaluate competitors, consumer preferences, customer loyalty etc then introduce the right product with the right pricing and other characteristics based on that evaluation. Then you have to promote it in a way that the consumer will understand the benefits/utilization and that the price reflects this. Pricing and promotion strategy should take into consideration what competitors have in store and how the consumer reacts in the environment of the specific market.
In general my opinion
The problem Sony did initially was to introduce the PS3 under a high price, with practically almost nothing that will put the features and capabilities of the console into use. At the same time 360 was filled with a huge games at lower price. Europe was also getting bundles with GEARS OF WAR IN NOVEMBER. And NOT ONLY. Many kinds of bundles were available to satisfy different kind of tastes! Then there were Sony's vague advertising campaigns that didnt make clear to the consumer what the PS3 does and what its games were or would be. They completely ignore that the first thing people will notice are games. The majority of people had no idea of the functions. They didnt know about firmware updates, they didnt know about Playstation Network, they didnt know the new but few games that came with it (they are familiar with PS2's succesful franshises. What is Motorstorm? Resistance? Gengi??????), they didnt know about the motion control, they had no idea what blu ray is, they had no idea of online gaming. They didnt know what made the price so high.
I still find PS3 owners that have no idea of the offerings PS3 has! And I am talking about important things such as Playstation Network too! There are people that dont read the manual. They want to plug in and play directly. Even the manual didnt explain things clearly.
Consumers saw people doing crazy things in the This is Living ads, they saw people doing tricks with cups and a woman speaking at the backround about Cell. Consumers arent geeks. Dont explain Cell as if you are showing a documentary God damn it. People dont understand tech terms.
There were some awesome efforts too but they should have been more frequent.
Sony did the opposite with the PS2. Before the console was even released they had tons of games to show, and ads were apparent everywhere, speaking clearly about
the experience with the console. A common thing marketing campaigns are aiming is to give emphasis on the experience. They didnt make the experience clear with the PS3.
And when the console was released all they saw was a black box with a high price tag and a 360 with lots of awesome games sold cheaper. Nobody wants a
black box that has no content or unnoticable features. They want a
console instead and 360 was it. Additionally even people who wanted to get the console, couldnt get it! That price was burning holes in people's wallets.
Sony now does things perfectly. The problem is, they did it kind of late. Hopefully people will begin to notice what the PS3 is.
It is more high profile anyway.
