Sony: "Absolutely have no regrets" about PS3

Sony: "Absolutely have no regrets" about PS3

Tue 12 Jun 2012 7:43am GMT / 3:43am EDT / 12:43am PDT
HardwarePublishing

But head of hardware marketing admits Microsoft got a head start

Sony Computer Entertainment

Sony Computer Entertainment is a Japanese videogame company specialising in a variety of areas in the...

playstation.com

Sony's head of hardware marketing, John Koller, has explained that while pricing might have put the PlayStation 3 in third place, Sony has no regrets about the decision.

"Why we're in third... you know, there's a lot of things that happen in the market that cause sales to occur," he told Kotaku.

" There's no secret that we opened behind a high price point. And certainly others got a relatively nice head start on us because of that. That's certainly been part of it."

The PlayStation 3 launched in November 2006, priced at $499 or £425. The Xbox 360 launched in November 2005, priced at $400 or £280.

"But we absolutely have no regrets. This has been a very good cycle for us, and I think if you ask any publisher they'd say the same thing. It's been good, and we think it does portend good things for the future for PlayStation."

Pushed on the fact that a lower launch price could have helped sales Koller stayed firm.

"You could also say if you launched a year or two earlier the experience may not be where we are today," he argued.

"You can't always do everything at the same time. Given what we've had-and to do what we've done-I don't think we have any regrets. That's maybe a better way to clarify that."

4 Comments

Rick Lopez
illustrator, designer, DJ

Ummm... hmmm... lets hope VITA sells like hotcakes soon, just like PS3 5 years later. I guess selling a product for less than what it costs to make is good business to them...

Wonder how much money could have been mad on a product that offered good technology at a price people were happy about and they could make a profit.

Posted:11 months ago

#1

Andrew Jakobs
Lead Programmer

And see how close they are to MS, so it's quite a feat since they where a year later (even 1.5 year later in europe and some other continents) with a much higher price, and yet they are almost at the same amount of units sold (Wonder if MS also counts their RROD consoles among the ones (which are much MUCH more than the Sony's YLOD)..

For me for instance I bought a PS3 instead of a xbox360 purely because the PS3 had a blurayplayer, and for me that counted more than being able to play games..

Posted:11 months ago

#2

Jason Sartor
Copy editor/Videographer

Americans are price-driven consumers and not value-driven consumers. Once the recession hit and Sony was more expensive than the 360, the 360 just kept selling even though the PS3 was/is a much, much better value.

The PS3 uses a standard 2.5 SATA hard drive, back in 2010 I upgraded mine to 500GB for less than $50 (US), but the max upgrade for the 360 is 320GB at 2.5 times the cost. The PS3 came with built-in WiFi, the 360 did not for the first four years of its life. BluRay in the PS3, but no built in HD-DVD or BluRay support for 360, HD-DVD player was another expensive stand-alone product. Free online play for PS3, $50 per year on 360. You also can use standard USB ports to save and transfer date on the PS3 and it has SD card slot too. the original PS3s also had backward compatibility.

Recently I heard some people and pundits claim they really hate the XMB, I am not sure why, as it is elegant and simple to use and navigate. Am I alone in liking the XMB as opposed the complete mess that is the 360 Dashboard?

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Jason Sartor on 12th June 2012 11:20pm

Posted:11 months ago

#3

Wrong and strong!

I do not think being so self-confident about the whole PS3 debacle is a good idea, unless you are puffing up your CV before the next position?

We now see some time later the PS3 performance reaching its limits, without the hoped achieved profitability. Also the vast expense (even with major slashing of structure) has never been recouped.

I wonder if the next 'PS4' system will be more of a make-over hoping to live off of greater Cloud usage and a new cost-effective GRU, or is this a problem that only has one outcome - and most of the current executive will not be around to see it employed?

Posted:11 months ago

#4

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