It’s baseball season, everybody! Finally!
MLB’s superambitious Web video plan.
New FriendFeed: Fast. Very fast.
Sony movies coming to YouTube?
New iPhones: The suspense builds!
Unfinished Wolverine movie’s Web premiere.
More Android devices from T-Mobile.
1Word? That was a gag!
Microsoft Office…for the iPhone?
SlideShare’s prank: funny, cruel, both?
Sorry, unauthorized iPhone app stores.
More on Android tethering apps.
Conficker could still be dangerous.
Responding to the unfavorable economic environment, Sony is slashing the price of its PlayStation 2 gaming console to under $100. The price cut is also aimed at luring new gamers to the venerable platform, extending the PS2’s life cycle for the foreseeable future.
Aside from competing on price, the PS2 has a solid library of games and thriving aftermarket of accessories and used games. If I were a parent choosing between a PS2 and PS3, I’d opt for the lower-cost alternative, because it’s good enough.
When my grandfather was a child during the Great Depression, he received hand-me-down clothes to wear from his older brothers. When his shoes did not fit, he wadded them full of paper. Kids today can wait a few years, or mow some lawns to buy themselves a PS3.
I’d also make a bet that PS2 owners that have upgraded to PS3 still play some of their old games, because there are some great titles. Simple platforms such as Nintendo’s DS and the iPhone sell games, because the games are good. The latest and greatest isn’t always what people want to buy.
It’s great the Sony is capitalizing on its asset rather than abandoning a still lucrative platform. It’s good business, and it’s a great value for customers. That, and an excuse for me to tell curmudgeonly tales.
The boy takes the longtime girlfriend out to a fancy dinner and says he’s got a surprise for her. Excitement builds. She’s waiting for the engagement ring. Instead, he pulls out season tickets to the Yankees. This is a scenario I’ve surely seen in a movie, TV show or commercial, but wouldn’t you know, I can’t recall a specific example.
Anyway, I’m reminded of this as the gaming world eagerly awaits Sony’s “global announcement,” reportedly set for tomorrow. Kotaku writes it this way: “Sony dropped Kotaku a line to let us know that something is going down on Tuesday, March 31st. Could it be the long-rumored price cut is finally upon us?”
The excitement, so palpable in those anticipatory words, had to be crushed later in the day. No, Sony tells Joystiq, a Playstation 3 price drop is not in the works. We’ve heard Sony deny the PS3 pricing rumors before, but there’s such finality in the way spokesman Al De Leon delivered the news this time. “SCEA remains focused on the long-term momentum of PS3,” he said. “With the industry’s best software lineup this year, combined with our most aggressive marketing campaign to date, we remain confident in our approach and the value we’re delivering with PS3.”
What’s the big surprise for tomorrow, then? Probably a price cut for the Playstation 2, from $129.99 to $99.99. Joystiq and Kotaku are both calling this one with help from a well-placed KMart source who has access to the store’s price database. Whoopie.
Business Insider also throws out a couple other possibilities, such as a streaming video service for the PS3 (Netflix or otherwise) and a successor to the Playstation Portable. Maybe a big game reveal is in the pipe as well. Whatever. It’s hard to get enthusiastic with all these price cut rumors floating around.
That’s why I’m done. No more writing about PS3 pricing on the word of analysts, retailers, game publishers or other blogs. The thrill is gone; my heart’s just not in it anymore.
[UPDATE: I credited Walt Mossberg with the column I mention below–wrong! The column’s called The Mossberg Solution, but it’s by Katherine Boehret. Corrected, and sorry about that.]
Walt Mossberg Katherine Boehret of the Wall Street Journal has reviewed Samsung’s LED TV 7000, the first set that supports the Yahoo Widget Engine platform for Internet-enabled applications that run right on the TV. Walt Katherine is impressed with Yahoo’s system, which is based on the cool Konfabulator, the application that started the whole widget craze a few years ago. I was impressed, too, when I visited Yahoo and got to try out the Widget Engine on a Samsung TV a few weeks ago. (Unfortunately, the Samsung set wasn’t ready for review in time for an article I recently wrote for PC World on ways to bring Internet TV into the living room, although I did squeeze in a mention.)
The Widget Engine is slick–the applets I tried reminded me of iPhone apps that happened to live on a TV rather than a phone. And the best thing about it is that it’s open: Anyone who wants to can build applications for it, and any application that anyone builds is available on any TV that supports the platform. That’s a far cry from most previous approaches to putting the Web and Web services such as Internet video onto TVs, most of which have been highly proprietary. (Panasonic’s Viera Cast is conceptually similar to what Yahoo is doing, but it’ll only deliver the services that Panasonic signs up–which means, so far, YouTube and a couple of others, with Amazon Video on Demand on the way.)
I’m not going to have a Widget-enabled TV in my living room any time soon, unfortunately–I don’t need a new TV, and Samsung’s set, at $3,000, isn’t an impulse item. But Yahoo has signed up not only Samsung but also Sony, LG, and Vizio to make Widget-ready sets. Those four companies are responsible for a sizable percentage of the TVs sold in this country, so chances are good that Yahoo’s software will be showing up on plenty of sets. If developers are as enthusiastic about the platform as electronics manufacturers are, the Widget Engine could end up being reason in itself to be tempted by a new TV.
The story, linked in Harry’s 5Words, is getting old. Sony’s attempts to hush the calls for a Playstation 3 price cut resemble a substitute teacher trying to calm the classroom — a momentary lull that slowly grows into even greater cacophony.
The latest round began earlier this month, when Electronic Arts Redwood Shores manager Glen Schofield said he hoped Sony could figure out how to reconcile the PS3’s high price tag with the current economic climate. Last week, Media Molecule founder Alex Evans — whose company developed LittleBigPlanet — expressed to Gamasutra that the console’s price should go down soon. Analysts have added to the chatter as well, and today, Bloomberg writes that Sony is facing pressure from publishers.
“Sony obviously still has a ways to go with their pricing,” said Peter Moore, the head of EA Sports. Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft Entertainment SA, said game makers stand to gain any time a console slashes its price.
But Sony is in a bind now, because its console is still too expensive to manufacture. In October, market researcher iSuppli cracked open the Playstation 3 and analyzed its innards. The total cost was down 30 percent from the first-generation, to $448.73, but that still means Sony is losing money on every $399 console it sells. A price drop doesn’t seem wise after the company posted its first annual loss in 14 years.
Appropriately, Sony’s senior marketing VP Peter Dille fired back at critics. “Everybody in the development community would love for the PS3 to be free, so they could just sell razor blades,” he said, adding that the company has to worry about profits as well as the console’s install base.
I’ve read elsewhere that if Sony announces a price cut, it’ll happen at the end of March, after the company closes its financial year. My first thought was “bad call,” as most of this season’s major releases — Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5 and the PS3-exclusive Killzone 2 — have come and gone. On the other hand, maybe a price cut is the right prescription as the industry braces for a momentary lull. That way, Sony will be good and ready for the summer and holiday season.
I just got finished reading two pieces on Blu-ray: one from David Carnoy from last week on why the format will succeed; and the other from Jeremy Toeman, who countered David’s argument that it actually may be closer to failure.
Blu-ray is in a lot of trouble at this moment. It’s kind of a one-two punch: with the sinking economy, people have less money to spend on expensive gadgets. Blu-ray is still one of them, with most players still well above $200 if not $300.
Add to this the fact that streaming media is really beginning to take flight (yesterday’s Inauguaral hiccups notwithstanding), and it isn’t looking good for Sony’s format.
Yeah, Sony may have finally won a format battle, but the protracted fight may have just taken too much time and ended up wounding Blu-ray just enough that it will never be able to replace DVD.
Like Jeremy says, there just is not a whole lot of value proposition to Blu-ray. People with HDTV’s are indeed finding their upscaling DVD player looks wonderful for a third of the price of the Blu-ray player.
The only way Blu-ray is going to stay afloat here is the PS3. And you all know my opinion on that subject.
I think somebody’s off their rocker. In comments to the company’s official rag PlayStation Magazine, Sony Computer Entertainment Chief Kaz Hirai made the unusual claim that install base numbers are worthless: the PS3 is still the official leader in the industry.
Pay no attention to the fact that the console is in third in overall console sales, that it was outsold by the Xbox by a 2-to-1 margin over the holiday, or that it still cannot attract decent exclusives. Because Mr. Hirai says it, we shall all bow to the PS3’s power.
Of course, Hirai’s comments are peppered with jabs at its competitors: that the Xbox is aimed at short term success while the PS3 is on a ten-year plan, and that Nintendo operates “in a different world.”
Nevermind that the console is difficult to program for because Sony did that on purpose, Hirai claims. His argument is this: if the console was easy to develop for, then developers would not take full advantage of the consoles power.
Okay, that makes sense. Make life difficult for the people who sell your equipment. That should work! I bet any game developer wants to spend twice the amount of time just to develop for a console that in the end has a smaller install base than its competitors.
I think its time for Sony to start realizing that the PS3’s business model did NOT work. I sure hope when it comes around to the fourth generation the company applies what it learns, but as stubborn as Sony is, I’m betting that won’t happen.
Here’s a statistic that’s bandied about by game industry cheerleaders: roughly 40 percent of U.S. homes own a video game console.
It’s also a figure that will likely be loathed by cable providers if more streaming video Web sites follow YouTube’s lead. Yesterday, Google’s video juggernaut launched a sleek interface for the PlayStation 3 and Wii. It was as good a reason as any to dust off Nintendo’s waggle box, so I checked it out. The service is basically what you would expect and hope for–a browsing and viewing experience that’s tailored to the size of your television screen. A similar channel is already available for TiVo owners.
Of course, YouTube is best for short bursts of random entertainment, and it only makes me yearn for support of a full-featured TV Web site, like Hulu or TV.com. See, I recently gave up cable to find out how much content I could replace with the Internet (and I’m not alone). As a cost-cutting measure, it’s great, but running an RGB cable between my computer and laptop isn’t ideal when I just want to lounge on the couch.
Solutions are on the way, like media streamers and possibly HDTVs that can support Hulu, but that requires an extra purchase. If you’re among the 40 percent that already has a gaming console, chances are you’d want it to be the hub for streaming Internet television instead of something extra. There is a utility called PlayOn that lets you watch Hulu and other sites on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, but it requires a computer as the middleman. This can get clumsy if your wireless Internet is on the spotty side.
There’s been some hinting at integration with streaming TV Web sites, at least for the Xbox 360. Here’s hoping it actually happens.
I can be sarcastic in a headline, right? No matter, retail research firm NPD released last year’s video game sales data today, revealing–of course–that Nintendo’s Wii console and DS handheld were the big winners.
Perhaps there’s some surprise in knowing the DS was the most popular last-minute holiday item, selling 3.04 million units to the Wii’s 2.15 million units in December. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 came in second place, selling 1.44 million consoles last month. Sony’s PSP handheld sold 1.02 million units in December, besting the Playstation 3’s 726,000 units.
Overall, sales of video games, consoles and related products in 2008 rose 19 percent from the year before. I was going to break out the calculator, do some research, and compile a list of total 2008 console sales, but realized the kind folks at Video Game Sales Wiki already took care of that, so here are the numbers:
Wii: 10,151,000
Nintendo DS: 9,951,100
Xbox 360: 4,735,400
PSP: 3,829,600
Playstation 3: 3,544,900
With everything laid out like this, the 1.2 million unit difference between the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 isn’t so bad, especially when you consider how handily the Wii stomped both of them.
As for games, Wii Play and its bundled Wii Remote was the top seller of 2008 — you’d know this by standing in a GameStop and seeing the employees pitch it to everyone buying a console — with Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit taking silver and bronze respectively. Careful, though, because NPD’s counts the same game separately when released for more than one console. Add Grand Theft Auto IV’s PS3 and Xbox 360 sales together, and it’s actually in second place overall.
NPD Analyst Anita Frazier noted that most of the best-sellers were released long before the holiday season. “Get some high profile releases out in the first and second quarters,” she suggested. Some publishers are taking this advice to heart, with big name titles like Lord of the Rings: Conquest and Halo Wars being saved for the first quarter of 2009.
Frazier also noted that as the economy melted in the fourth quarter, people kept buying games. Add that to the list of unsurprising revelations of 2008.
