This year’s post Holiday numbers are not looking so great for Sony. The Wii console again dominated in the console and accessories market with the Xbox 360 trailing behind with marginal growth. But Sony’s attempt to pitch their gaming console as “the gaming console with BluRay benefits” is steadily losing ground.
According to this Wall Street Journal article, Sony’s PS3 console sales dipped by nearly 20% compared to last year.
The article also goes on to make a very valid point:
“If Sony doesn’t close the gap with its rivals, it could risk making the PS3 an afterthought to game publishers, who focus most of their resources on the machines with the most users.”
The trouble in this video game market in a slumping economy is not what features you have to offer. It isn’t what killer app you can develop to make people buy your machine and now it’s obvious it isn’t a game system coupled with a BluRay player.
It’s price.
If Sony intends to stay in the game, they need to do the same thing Xbox 360 is and that is lower the price of their low-end system and bundle it with games. They need to play hardball with Netflix and put the smack down on Sony content in video downloads to hurt the competition. They need to bring back the 5 free movies with purchase of a PS3 deal. And they need to pull their heads out of their arrogant asses and realize that your average gamer (not me or you) doesn’t really give a flyin’ fruitloop about da BluRay–especially when you can get them outside of a gaming console for cheaper than ever.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love my PS3 and thoroughly enjoy the BluRay player. Last weekend we watched Wall-E and National Treasure and they were both fantastic. I bought Force Unleashed over the holiday (Used; $35; Game Crazy) and enjoy the games that I’ve purchased thus far. What I’m a little befuzzled about is that Sony, once the dominating force in the console market, seems to have gotten too big for their britches.
Footnote: The Wii regained the thrown to the console kingdom in September 2007 when it surpassed Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in global sales. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 saw an 8% growth in sales over last year. The Wii sold 2.04 million units in November, up 981,000 from last year. That’s a 49% growth in a year.
