I agree though about the early adopters, we were the ones to buy the first sets of HDTVs, paying 600$ for an OTA HDTV receiver and they wont cater to us. They think we are the ones to just continue to buy the newest things.
(Everyone, take notes, cause you always get it wrong)
Technically people buying a product like this at launch are actually called "innovators" and not "early adopters". They are the people companies like Sony or Apple count on when pricing and positioning new products into the market. By setting prices high, they skim the top of the market, try to make as much profit as they possibly can out of these people (especially in the console market where they actually sell these things at a loss initially, even though the prices are quite high), and then gradually lowering the price after a while. As opposed to penetrating the market with a very low price (usually only products we buy frequently such as a new deodorant or new drink), to maximise sales and try to gain market share.
"Early adopters" are people who buy the product, still early in its lifecycle, but not at launch. These are the people who want the product, but spend some time researching it before running to the shops (or queuing outside) to get the product at launch. Or just people who can wait a little bit.
There are other categories of "adopters", and i quote:
innovators (2.5%), early adopters (13.5%), early majority (34%), late majority (34%) and laggards (16%), based on a bell curve.
There are different stages, with the Laggards obviously being the people who will only buy the product when it's in the bargain bin, when it's 2 generations old.
So, my point was... er... oh yeah, in the end the
innovators are always the ones who inevitably are most at risk. They know it, the manufacturers know it, but they keep buying things at launch. And manufacturers are very thankful for them.
And now... back to PS3 scaling!
Under modern PS3 economy, the above should be revised to:
