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for SWG/SOE vets that extend feelings to other SONY products
GrandAm
Member Posts: 404
Not exacly SWG, but for those that aren't happy with Sony in general it says a lot about the state of the PS3 and its business model.
http://cooltech.iafrica.com/technews/969088.htm
Sony weighs PS3 price cut
Fri, 15 Jun 2007
Sony is trying to decide by how much it will cut the price of its PlayStation 3 console as consumers want it reduced, its chief executive said in an interview published on Friday.
"That (price cuts) is what we are studying at the moment. That's what we are trying to refine," Howard Stringer told the London-based Financial Times.
He admitted that Sony faced tough competition from rival Nintendo's Wii videogame console, which is enjoying stronger sales than the PS3 and has a lower price.
"Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise, and a very good business model, compared with ours ... because it's cheaper," he said, adding there was "no question" consumers wanted a lower price.
Sony slashed the price of the PS3 by 20 percent in Japan ahead of its launch here last November as it prepared for a fierce fight against cheaper games consoles from rivals Microsoft and Nintendo.
Even after the price reduction, however, the PS3 is still by far the most expensive of the three main next-generation videogame consoles on the market and many analysts say Sony will need to lower the price further.
Rival Nintendo is enjoying strong sales of the Wii, known for its motion-sensitive controller, outselling the PS3 by more than five to one in Japan in May, according to research from publisher Enterbrain.
Sony's videogame division suffered a huge operating loss in the last fiscal year and is expected to remain in the red this year.
The success of the PS3 is considered vital to a revival at the Japanese giant, which is in the midst of major restructuring under Stringer, its first foreign boss.
AFP
I found it interesting, thought others might as well reguardless of how they feel about SOE or its parent company.
"Suddenly, thousands of Trekies whose heads are full of facts of things like the stardate when the Cardassians farted on Deep Space nine are irrlelevant." - hardcoremoviecritic
Comments
Also the same company that decided to start charging for EQ2 content patches - what were they called, dungeon packs? For "just $15!" or something as equally asinine.
"You're in our NEW world now... would you like to Super Size your game meal for just fifty cents more?"
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
"Hurray, finally a game where I can fulfill my lifelong dream of taking emotionally dead women and finding the most financially viable means to exploit their bodies with the ultimate goal of making them Hugh Hefner's personal furniture."
Seinfeld is one of my favorite TV shows. I refuse to buy the DVD's because Sony would get some money.
I know for a fact there are others that do the same thing. And it will add up. In 10 years who knows how much my actions and other peoples will effect Sony. A few hundred thousand dollars? A few million?
--------------------
SWG - Killed by $OE
WOW - Retired
Playing WAR
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
For those of you that don't know the Playstation came about due to a deal with Nintendo. If anyone remembers the mid 90's you had some CD-Rom systems starting to come out, and other's where add-ons for systems already out. I know some of you may remember the Sega CD, still for a good long time there was talk of an SNES CD-Rom unit. This was true and Sony where the ones making it. I won't go into all the behind closed doors stuff, but in the end Nintendo told Sony to take a hike and started working on the N64. Sony just took the CD-Rom unit they where making, did a few revamps and out came the PlayStation. And we all know the story, the N64 became a joke somewhat, Sony would get most of Nintendo's big third party games...
The PS3 in someways is somewhat like the N64, it does boil down to the following...
No big name 'Launch' Titles,
This is where Nintendo and Microsoft beat Sony. Nintendo had a new Zelda (with adult Link) out the door as the Wii came out. Microsoft had some PC to 360 games (Call of Duty 2, Quake 4) and well all they had to say was "Halo 3 will be out on the 360" to get gamers to go after that. Sony's big name titles are nowhere to be found, no Final Fantasy, no Metal Gear, GTA4 is coming out on everything. And I believe the new Final Fantasy is coming out on the 360 and I wouldn't put it past the next Metal Gear to come out on the 360 later on. So really no 'big' name titles. Besides when the PS3 came out, Microsoft had a few hot titles for the 360 (Gears of War) and the Wii had friggen Zelda...
BlueRay,
Sony's stupid move once again is trying to have there 'own' format. They did this two other times, once with the 'new' Walkman that came out in 2004, rather then allow it to play Media from Apple/Windows and MP3's, Sony went with there own format and well the iPod is still around. Stupid move two was UMD format for the PSP, I'm telling ya it was funny to walk by the PSP rack and see more UMD movies rather then games. Not only that hell, most people have laptops with DvD Drives. BlueRay once again is Sony trying to 'one up' everyone, I think Sony should have looked how long it took for a format other then VHS to come along.
Price,
You have the Wii that's almost dirt cheap, you have the 360 for a few bucks more, you have both systems offering online games (Xbox Live Arcade/Market Place, and the Wii has a ton of old school titles.) Then you have the PS3 going for the same price as a Wii and some games, a 360 and some games, or hell getting a Wii and 360... Oh and Sony's tactic of "Oh there are few PS3's around" really did backfire on them.
Tell the truth I could careless about the PS3, Microsoft has just offered me 'more' with the 360. Dare I say I'm starting to enjoy playing FPS games more on my 360 and my PC is turning into an MMO/RTS only system.
Yep, I became a bit cross over all the releases for EQ but had jumped to EQ2.. was only able to stomach that for about 6 months and canceled. I had sent numberous emails telling them things need to change.. nothing did, so I changed who gets my money
EQ2 has changed now.. and getting better reviews, but I'm still not falling for it
I have personal boycott on Sony.. They had something to do w/ it, it stays on the shelf. Sony can 'bite me'
I can't even be bothered to go into detail, but all this rubbish about Sony pushing BluRay on us etc etc. Sony Co-Inveted DVDs it's not like they just decided to jump on the band wagon, if anything HD-DVD is being pushed on us just as much by companies that are just as bad as Sony, don't be fooled by the HD-DVD name like it's being pushed by some open source, save the world, tree hugging company. Don't act like anyone involved in HD-DVD/BluRay is some sort of saint, just not Sony.
Seriously the utter s*** that Microsoft gets away with EVERY single day, practically pushing the PC games market into the ground, giving us badly coded operating systems that literally open the door to Malware, breaking law after law and getting away with it, forcing small businesses to do what they say when they say it and all of you SOE haters go and buy a X360 and open the door to more MS monopoly who literally crush the life out of the computer world while you simultaneously cry spilt milk over SOE and SWG.
LA had just as much say in what went on with SWG, probably a whole lot more in fact. GET over it. To think that the billions of people all over the world give a crap about SWG when they buy a BluRay is comedy gold.
Yup, good ol' Microsoft, defenders of fair play, truth, justice and the American way. Seriously I use both MS and Sony products but frankly how ANYONE can bad mouth Sony and refuse to buy their products and then go on to buy anything made by Microsoft is laughable at best.
If someone thinks the X360 is a better deal, fine. But don't act like you're doing the world a favour by not buying Sony products and picking the Microsoft option.
www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php
I imagine that alone would make a 360 a little more attractive than a PS3. Not to mention Halo 3 and Ace Combat 6.
I have personally cost Sony from 50-100K in sales of video plasma screens, dvd players, and other electronics simply by writing them OFF the spec for "technical reasons".
Many MANY more have done that with me I am sure.
i have not (knowingly) purchased a sony product since Nov 15, 2005.
my stance will not budge until classic servers are realeased.
SWG ADDICT...clean since the NGE
Guys, while I respect the consumers right to fight back with their main weapon (their wallets), this projection of Sony as the devil is so off base it's getting stupid. The people to blame for SWG IS LUCASARTS, I have very strong connections with the games world and if you want something to be annoyed at Sony for then be annoyed about GTA, the reason it's on both platforms and why the 360 gets extra content is because when the Take2 guys wanted to sort something out with Sony and Sony alone, the Sony rep brushed them off with a "I'll get to you in a while" comment. Because of that arrogance they took their product to Microsoft.
But seriously you can't cry and cry here all day about Sony the devil and then go and buy a X360 when Microsoft get away with things a 10000 times worse than messing up SWG (which LA had a MASSIVE part in anyway).
Simple. I have to put up with badly educated post after post from people like you that have zero clue as to what they are talking about. I know first hand what goes on within the games world and I'm sick of opening a thread about something I was interested in reading about on a interesting site like MMORPG.com to find I have to wade though post after post of "$OE is teh devilz 'cus they brokeded the Starwarz and it made teh angels cry". SOE had very little say in what happened to SWG, get over it. Whining that people shouldn't buy Sony products because SOE won't give us pathetic little classic servers while at the same time buying Microsoft products while they screw you over daily and make moves to literally cripple the entire PC games world makes the whole "SOE is evil" argument even LESS potent. I can't even be bothered to list the things Microsoft get away with daily that personally effect all computer users.
The thing is, I'm not a Microsoft hater. I picked a PS3 because it did things that the X360 can't do that I wanted it to be able to do. I'm just sick to death of the SOE hate being projected on to things like the PS3 when Microsoft screw you all over daily and you let them get away with it.
Boycott all the Sony products that you want, I respect that, but you SOE haters really need to get a grip on your lives. IT WAS A GAME and to boycott them for that WHILE then backing Microsoft is a JOKE!
No sense trying to start something....if you're not I apologize, but it sure seems like it. Peace to you
Personally I boycott Sony and LA, just to cover both bases. Does it hurt them? Hell who knows, I doubt it, but I feel better about it.
My God man, if these guys want to rant about Sony let them. After all this is the unofficial Sony gripe forums after all.
A previous poster made a very valid point. The N64 and the PS3 are very similar systems in respect to the market. Both consoles had format issues. The cart had no load times, but was manufactured by Nintendo. The Blu Ray disc higher storage capacity, but excessive for game development. Further more it drives up the price of the hardware. Both consoles had poor launches lacking many strong titles. However Nintendo actually had a better launch, and first six months then Sony has had. Atleast Nintendo could manage to have one highly rated game every couple months, and those were exclusive first party games. Sony does not have those, and the console is moveing on name alone. Finally both consoles had technical hurdles. The PS3 has a complicated Cell which few developers seem to be fluent in, and Nintendo was working off of the limited cart format. Both do not allow for sloppy codeing. All told both consoles disuade third party development, and their reputations drive away a variety of products, The 64 had a kiddy image, and the PS3 has a mogul hardcore image. Chances are you would not find a ultra mature game on the first, and chances are you will not find a happy platformer on the other. Nothing like forming a niche that protects you from being liked by the market as a whole.
However the consoles have major differences. Nintendo did not really lose with their console. They sold the hardware at profit. Their games division had a nice sell through, and they got a cut from all the other games for the platform. Most companies do not consider something a loss when they make money off of it. Further more they cemented their reputation. The N64 cut new technological territory. From the analog stick to the rumble pack. Nintendo maintained a quality reputation for games, and hardware. Even if they came in last. They came in last with a good reputation in some areas. That remains to be seen for Sony.
Sony has a different situations. They are selling their hardware at a loss. Furthermore hardware that does not sell comes at a higher price to them. That is the difference between loseing $200-$800. That is ignoreing the development cost. Sony must sell a certain number of systems, and a certain number of licensed games just to break even. Their reputation further more is takeing a serious loss. Their system may have pushed hardware, but there was no innovation to be found. They have developed a bad reputation for their games division. Their online plans are a veritable joke. Sony could leave this generation with nothing. They might even have to vacate the industry. Their situation is that bad.
Overall the N64 has serious advantages compared to the PS3, and that is downright scarey when you think about it. Nintendo sold at a profit their model was open ended it was not contingent on a certain sell through. Nintendo had its own strong first party support. Sony just does not have that. Nobody makes games like Nintendo. The N64 cornered the market on some game types. The N64 started out at a reasonable price. People who bought the machine never had the fealing they were takeing a big risk. They had a guaranteed ROI. People look at the PS3, and with every day the risk seems worse then the previous.
Will Sony lower the price? I seriously doubt that they will any time this year. Yes the price is keeping players away, but it is only part of the problem. The other part is the machine itself. The system lacks even a single great game let alone the plethora that it should have. The online system is not only substandard, but remains to be finished. Furthermore its not like Nintendo or Microsoft do not have big plans for this holiday season. While most speculate that the better PS3 games will not arrive till next year. Even so two or three excluseive games do not a great system make. Now if trends continue Sony might not even see these games on their system. The other two have a great lineup already, and they are hideing bombshells for the E3 show for maximum effect.
Personally I think its a smoke screan to give current owners hope, and to keep the console in the public eye. There are three nails in this consoles price being fixed that most everyone will probabally ignore. Sony cannot win a price war with the other two. Microsoft would drop the price on the 360 perhaps entering impulse range. Nintendo could up the pack in value. Microsoft is not loseing as much as Sony finally looking towards a profitable year. Nintendo made money out of the gate. How much is Sony really willing to lose?
Sony is still falling short of their manufactureing goals. Even if they were selling out Nintendo would still be winning the race. Nintendo will put out more units by the holiday season then Sony. Microsoft has not been suffering from shortages. Simple terms Sony cannot take full advantage of a price reduction. While others could take advantage and move more units at the expense of Sony. That could put Sony in a seriously deep hole. Nothing like pushing Microsoft to over thirty million units sold.
The final nail will be the reputation. Sony must first have a stong lineup on their console to move units. They need to change the public perception first for the price drop to be considered a increase in value. Right now gamers have a negative impression of the console. Rightly so there is nothing in the PS3 that is not available elsewhere, and elsewhere has more to offer at the moment. Reduceing the price when you have nothing to sell accomplishes nothing.
By the way for those who have the idea that one of the next gen consoles will be unified it would not be Sony and Nintendo. Chances are it would be Nintendo and Microsoft. The business sense is pretty simple. Nintendo works in one field games. Microsoft works in many, and so does Sony. That makes those two serious rivals. While Microsoft could come to terms with Nintendo. They build the machine, and keep their first party lineup that strongly suits one demographic. While Microsoft runs the online operations, and keep their first party lineup which attracts a different demographic. Both would win in this scenario. While either working with Sony would give confort to the enemy.
You might boycott a company for what it did to you in the past, and in the end that will work. A company can only burn so many bridges. There is not a infinite sea of suckers. Sony has done alot of heinous stuff over the past few years so it is not hard to see that they are burning bridges all over the place. Their reputation has suffered, and I am sure it has hurt the sales of their console to a degree. However this is a case where common sense would hold up any boycott you are makeing. The console is overpriced, and offers very little. The competition however has alot to offer. So you can feal good that you will not buy, but it really is a case of not fealing any motivation in the first place. Had there been no Sony name on it chances are you still would have not bought the product. The fact that the name is on it is just iceing.
Nope, used to work for them in fact. One of the best companies I ever worked for in terms of how they treated us.
I'm still sick of having to wade though constant SOE hate in every single post I open and I doubt I'm the only one.
The point is a simple one, people that are spraying the SOE hate all over the boards NEED to get a grip. SWG was a GAME, and yes I understand they screwed up, I was a LONG time SWG player. But to spend all this energy bashing them daily (in posts that a lot of the times have nothing to do with it, so you can't get away from it) and then boycott them while they carry on spending massive amounts of money with companies that do things 10000x of times worse is ridiculous.I would never take away some ones right to speak with their wallets, but the simple fact is. WE don't need to hear about it from the same people over and over again whenever there is a thread that has something to do with SOE.
SOE's part in SWG is just one piece of Sony's recent (i.e. last decade) move towards becoming a very consumer-unfriendly company.
As they've lost their stranglehold on the high-end electronics market they've become increasingly aggressive in the tactics they'll use to "protect" the intellectual property that's become their meal ticket. Yes, they're not the only record label / studio owner throwing lawsuits at college kids, but they're typically on the bleeding edge. Rootkits, anyone?
Even the one area where they had control on consumer electronics became mildly anti-consumer, to the point of ignoring their core market and pushing a niche product in its place (a $599 barebones console). I'm sorry, but when you've got SCEA assclowns telling you that the PS3 and it's high price tag will teach your family discipline and that the first five million will sell at any price even if they ship the equivalent of a box of bricks, you're just begging for people to celebrate your demise.
I don't buy Sony products any more, but what made me turn in my Sony fanboy card was the sum of all of their actions over the past five or so years, not one thing alone (SWG bedamend).
This SOE thing is such a tiring argument. MMORPGs are expensive to make. We're not gonna have many mom-and-pop grassroots companies with the capital to finance production of MMORPGs with any breadth or depth to them at this point in time. Sigil certainly proved this. If Curt Schilling can run a company as well as he pitches, maybe he'll pull it off.
But until that day, we're largely stuck with huge companies like Sony, Vivendi (who own Blizzard), and Microsoft who, while they're not exactly napalming rainforests or shooting baby panda bears in the back of the head, ARE huge multinational corporations who want to create products that appeal to the widest range of consumers they possibly can. SOE is no more or less evil than any other huge company.
Whether we like it or not, as gamers, we are a niche market in the eyes of corporations that reap most of their profits through other mediums, whether it be film, electronics, hardware, software, console gaming, etc. Old guard SWG fans often times sound like that obsessive ex who prefers to live in the past rather than accepting the terms of how life works, letting go, and moving on to more productive endeavors. More sandboxy games just aren't the mainstream flavor of the day, especially a sandbox game attached to a license like Star Wars that has found all of its videogame success since the Atari 2600 in console shooters and action titles. Yes, it sucks but I'm sure this is how the suits look at it.
The point is a simple one, people that are spraying the SOE hate all over the boards NEED to get a grip. SWG was a GAME, and yes I understand they screwed up, I was a LONG time SWG player. But to spend all this energy bashing them daily (in posts that a lot of the times have nothing to do with it, so you can't get away from it) and then boycott them while they carry on spending massive amounts of money with companies that do things 10000x of times worse is ridiculous. I would never take away some ones right to speak with their wallets, but the simple fact is. WE don't need to hear about it from the same people over and over again whenever there is a thread that has something to do with SOE.You clicked the post, bubba. Just look at the title of this one. Why even click on it?
Sony has had MANY dubious businesses pointed out in the last year... the rootkit debacle, the exploding laptops, the PS3 mess and especially SWG.
Don't paint the company as the second coming. They're guilty of every criticism. The only way a company could be "10000x of times worse" as you put it would be to invade Poland as the 4th reich.
And as long as I breathe, I will boycott them and tell others to. It's my right as a consumer.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
The point is a simple one, people that are spraying the SOE hate all over the boards NEED to get a grip. SWG was a GAME, and yes I understand they screwed up, I was a LONG time SWG player. But to spend all this energy bashing them daily (in posts that a lot of the times have nothing to do with it, so you can't get away from it) and then boycott them while they carry on spending massive amounts of money with companies that do things 10000x of times worse is ridiculous. I would never take away some ones right to speak with their wallets, but the simple fact is. WE don't need to hear about it from the same people over and over again whenever there is a thread that has something to do with SOE.I completely agree, It's been nearly 2 years now, It's already passed Obsession borderline psychiatric help needed.
The point is a simple one, people that are spraying the SOE hate all over the boards NEED to get a grip. SWG was a GAME, and yes I understand they screwed up, I was a LONG time SWG player. But to spend all this energy bashing them daily (in posts that a lot of the times have nothing to do with it, so you can't get away from it) and then boycott them while they carry on spending massive amounts of money with companies that do things 10000x of times worse is ridiculous. I would never take away some ones right to speak with their wallets, but the simple fact is. WE don't need to hear about it from the same people over and over again whenever there is a thread that has something to do with SOE.You clicked the post, bubba. Just look at the title of this one. Why even click on it?
Sony has had MANY dubious businesses pointed out in the last year... the rootkit debacle, the exploding laptops, the PS3 mess and especially SWG.
Don't paint the company as the second coming. They're guilty of every criticism. The only way a company could be "10000x of times worse" as you put it would be to invade Poland as the 4th reich.
And as long as I breathe, I will boycott them and tell others to. It's my right as a consumer.
If you can't be bothered to read the posts then there really isn't much I can do. 4 times this week I've opened a thread I was interested in reading that started as one thing and ended up as a SOE bash because there are a number of you that can't let it go. The more I see stuff like this, the more I'm inclined to agree with some of the psychological reports I've read on MMO players. So, no I didn't click the posts bud.
I'm not an SOE fan, in fact I was burnt a lot worse than some with SWG and around a LOT longer than a lot of the so called "veterans" that moan day in and day out here. Sony isn't the 2nd coming and I've not once said that in any of my posts, but while you all cry split milk over a GAME (A GAME, you know, a pass time? A little fun? Nothing that really matters in the world) companies such as Microsoft get away with practical business murder and that's ignored.
My point again, it's comedy gold that people practically wet themselves over SOE and yet continue to pump money into companies that screw you all over 1000x worse. They just do a better job of hiding it from you.
These boards have slowly become home to the worst informed posters on the internet and that's saying something, I'll say it again. 90% of the SOE haters have zero clue as to what they are talking about. Posters like that utterly destroy any valid point that people have to make on SOE and how they do business.