Wired: Gloom and Doom for Sony

[Oninotsume]

My apologies if this has been posted already.

A wired article forcasting the downfall of Sony. Even going so far as to hint at Sony becoming like Sega with the Dreamcast, failing this round and bowing completely out of the game...

That would suck

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/sony.html

Edit [Crap it's already been posted, my bad]

 

[MasaC]

Personally, I think the xbox 360 has more similarities with the dreamcast on the market. Coming out first, less power/features than the next coming playstation and coming from a underdog position in regards to the previous generation of consoles.

Granted, MS is not Sega so I don't think MS will be more or less forced to withdraw from the hardware market due to bad finances like Sega.

 

[nintenho]

Personally, I think the xbox 360 has more similarities with the dreamcast on the market. Coming out first, less power/features than the next coming playstation and coming from a underdog position in regards to the previous generation of consoles.
Granted, MS is not Sega so I don't think MS will be more or less forced to withdraw from the hardware market due to bad finances like Sega.

It's not really about a checklist about the hardware but the desperation of the company behind it.

 

[Zaphod]

Edit [Crap it's already been posted, my bad]

You forgot the link to the previous thread: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32996

 

[dskneo]

It's not really about a checklist about the hardware but the desperation of the company behind it.

desperation? you guys talk like sony only sold ONE million playstation consoles in 10 years....

what can be the desperation of a company who sold 226million consoles and many Billions of games to this day? including 3 successful console releases.... she ain't no n00b.

it was doom and gloom back in 1994, it was doom and gloom back in 1999, and its doom and gloom again in 2006.
Gosh, what can i say? i must be the only one who see's the patern here

 

[Powderkeg]

desperation? you guys talk like sony only sold ONE million playstation consoles in 10 years....

what can be the desperation of a company who sold 226million consoles and many Billions of games to this day? including 3 successful console releases.... she ain't no n00b.

it was doom and gloom back in 1994, it was doom and gloom back in 1999, and its doom and gloom again in 2006.
Gosh, what can i say? i must be the only one who see's the patern here

The desperation comes from them virtually betting the entire company on the success of the PS3. It comes from them feeling the PS3 is so necessary to promote other products such as Bluray that the inclusion of those other products has forced them to price the PS3 in a range that historically speaking the market has never accepted.

If you want to go looking for patterns, look at the success rate of consoles that have launched at a base price over $300.

 

[Sankari]

If you want to go looking for patterns, look at the success rate of consoles that have launched at a base price over $300.

PS2?

I know it launched at 300 in North America if I'm correct but North America isn't the whole world een if some people might think so, not to say you thought so but there are some people out there who don't even know where Europe is.

 

[Guden Oden]

The desperation comes from them virtually betting the entire company on the success of the PS3.

I don't believe they're doing that. Even if they did, some might call it 'desperation'. Others might call it 'balls'.

If you want to go looking for patterns, look at the success rate of consoles that have launched at a base price over $300.

Almost none of those consoles were any damn good anyway, and those that were truly good for their time (Neo*Geo, FM Towns are probably the only ones that I can think of) were released by relatively small players on the market. You can't draw such general conclusions from such a limited dataset; playstation is a very well-established brand. That might well go a long way, despite the very high price.

 

[Qroach]

I don't believe they're doing that. Even if they did, some might call it 'desperation'. Others might call it 'balls'.

I don't think faceless corporations can have "balls".

 

[patsu]

You can argue it either way. The companies are just trying to leverage on their inherent strength.

e.g. 1, SCE, Sony Pictures, Sony Electronics attempting to vertically integrate content, hardware and software.

e.g., 2, XBox division attempting to link back to Microsoft Windows (via Live Anywhere and XNA) to leverage on existing PC user base and monopoly

In a nutshell, it's just "smart" business. Whether it's an "act of desparation" or not, it depends on your own interpretation (i.e., Without facts to justify the conclusion, it may say more about the poster's bias than anything else). You can always paint a dark side to everything.

As for whether corporations have balls, I am sure Guden is refering to the management.

 

[zed]

If you want to go looking for patterns, look at the success rate of consoles that have launched at a base price over $300.

well the one and only ( and hugly sucessful console i might add ) console ive brought, the atari was way more than that considering inflation.
ppl talk about where u were when kennedy was shot ( i wasnt born ), but i remember the shuttle lanch + landing in `81 i was at a mates house playing on the 2600 at 7am or so, his dad was in papau new guinea gold mining, a homer j simpson moment, homer what were u doing when they landed on the moon, (recling on beanbag singing 'love,love.... i forget what the song was but hey............)
price aint important (only when u talk about the wallmark customers ,aka brainless ...s )its desire + esp the desire vs need ratio

 

[dskneo]

The desperation comes from them virtually betting the entire company on the success of the PS3. It comes from them feeling the PS3 is so necessary to promote other products such as Bluray that the inclusion of those other products has forced them to price the PS3 in a range that historically speaking the market has never accepted.

in all seriousness, is sony hurting gaming industry? is playstation a device that steals population from gaming into something else?
so why the hate and lack of confidence for a brand that helped gaming? do you guys play games or brands?

get this, outside america playstation was always expensive, alot! and it remains expensive for the following 1.5years. In europe it costed the equivalent of 600$, with some stores aiming at 700$.
But here's the deal, The "market" is won in the following 4 years. This is the routine. (not xbox routine, since it only lasted 4 costly years)
If its the first time you'r in the playstation "loop", learn and dont spread doom based on your favorite "brand" young standards.
we've been here for 11 years kid, every competitor is welcome, BUT sony ain't the n00b on this biz. If this scares you, you dont care for gaming at all.

 

[zed]

I don't think faceless corporations can have "balls".

true but certainlyy with sony u do nt expect the 'standard easy way' they do seem to innovate, sometimes crap results like the exploding batteries saga / the robots etc true, but this is is corperation that has pinoored(sp) heaps of techs over the years, what other corperation has innovated so much? i believe this is why sony is the top brand voted in the US for the last 5+ years

 

[thatdude90210]

Another take on why Blu-ray had to be included in the PS3 (never mind the inflammatory title, the bold text in the quote is the interesting part):
http://www.sundayherald.com/57661

Underpinning everything Sony does at the moment is the sound of a clock ticking. Since 1982, the company has lived large on the proceeds of its ownership of compact disc licences. But with the 25-year life of those patents about to expire, it desperately needs to come up with something to replace the revenues generated by the sale of around 30 billion discs a year.

 

[Mythos]

QFT:

If its the first time you'r in the playstation "loop", learn and dont spread doom based on your favorite "brand" young standards. we've been here for 11 years kid, every competitor is welcome, BUT sony ain't the n00b on this biz. If this scares you, you dont care for gaming at all.

 

[cthellis42]

"You know who's also done? Apple. They should just give up now as there's no WAY they'll be around in five years, let alone 10!"

--any random pundit from 1990 on



Heh. The one thing I would REALLY like is if tech pundits had to post their "prediction accuracy" total next to their columns at all time, so it'd be less "post outlandish stuff in hopes of causing a row and getting linkthroughs" and more "holy shit we might actually have to think about things!"

Which this generation promises to be a weird one, and Sony has made some very strange and unproven decisions, that column is basically just filled with the requisite number of groaners and eye-rollers to be "tech news" at this point.

Sux...

The only good thing about it is it's basically meaningless for anyone but US. But then that's the reason I don't want to be treated so shabbily.

 

[patsu]

Another take on why Blu-ray had to be included in the PS3 (never mind the inflammatory title, the bold text in the quote is the interesting part):
http://www.sundayherald.com/57661

The loss in revenue is certainly a cause for concerns. My condolences to Sony shareholders. If Sony truly only lives on its CD royalties and stop innovating, then it'd be dead meat soon and no one would care.

The way it's going... Bundling Blu-ray into PS3 will likely still happen even if the CD royalties do not run out. It's just "hunger" to dominate the nextgen optical media (Toshiba has the same desire), and a move to innovate and integrate vertically.

EDIT: spelling

 

[Squeak]

I don't think faceless corporations can have "balls".

While I'm very much against the American legal practice of treating corporations as persons, I believe it indisputable that corporations do have personalities, sometimes split, schizophrenic ones, but nevertheless.
Apple definitely has an overall way of acting, Sony has another and Nintendo a third. And they all show degrees of willingness to take risks, aka "balls".

 

[Powderkeg]

I don't believe they're doing that. Even if they did, some might call it 'desperation'. Others might call it 'balls'.

Either way it's a substantial risk. One they didn't have to take, and one that really isn't likely to make much difference to the average gamer.

Almost none of those consoles were any damn good anyway, and those that were truly good for their time (Neo*Geo, FM Towns are probably the only ones that I can think of) were released by relatively small players on the market. You can't draw such general conclusions from such a limited dataset; playstation is a very well-established brand. That might well go a long way, despite the very high price.

But the point stands. The PS3 is at a price point that a LOT of people have problems with. Sure the name will halp out a bit, but historically speaking the majority of consoles, regardless of who made it, are sold once the price point hits $200, and with the PS3's starting price that could take a very long time before Sony reaches that.

 

[cthellis42]

While I'm very much against the American legal practice of treating corporations as persons, I believe it indisputable that corporations do have personalities, sometimes split, schizophrenic ones, but nevertheless.
Apple definitely has an overall way of acting, Sony has another and Nintendo a third. And they all show degrees of willingness to take risks, aka "balls".

If you people don't cut out this line of talk, you're going to force me to post a lot of pics of Stephen Colbert!



Also, IMHO it wasn't the high initial price of the Neo-Geo that secured its' place in extreme marginalization on the homefront, but the prospect of $150-200 games. The games looked farkin' STAGGERING for the time (and were a source for some of the most fun people were having in arcades, and well preceeded the expectation that you could "get the SAME as the arcade at home!" If they were able to deliver the games at "$10-20 more than the competitors' level or less", they may well have become a force despite the high entry fee (especially since SOME success would have made them able to reduce the cost and lower prices). But you CAN'T succeed when buying three games is the equivalent of buying the console all over again. (When the games are far more than current levels, of course, not when a console has gone down to $99. )