Sonys Strategy

mystik

Outlining its strategy for success, Sony announced that it plans to offer consumers a wave of innovative games, evolve the PS2 hardware, foster an online gaming community and make its first foray into the handheld market.


When you see "innovative" and "PS2" in the same sentance you know something weird is going on.:p


(Now, don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against the PS2, I don't like it very much)

Spock

No matter what plans sony have Microsoft will destroy them

DiscoStu

Originally posted by Spock
No matter what plans sony have Microsoft will destroy them

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2134633,00.html

Ahh yes, the perfect strategy, lose over $190 million dollars and half your income. thats really gonna blow Sony away.

meglome

I think Sony and Microsoft have the same plans... take over the world

Their Mission wav

Kevok

The videogame industry is a fickle one.

If the mistake of using ROMs instead of CD's was never made by Nintendo, then the industry would be alot different now. (yes, i know, licensing costs and ease of design played a part too).

There is NOTHING to suggest that sony is an infallible beast that will be king forever.

Noone in 1992 would have predicted such a mighty fall for nintendo. I'm not saying i want microsoft to be the leader, but they have the cash to back it up, don't presume it won't happen.

Ping Chow Chi

and on news of them massives losses (and other losses) microsofts share price plumeted about 0.5 % or something real small

where as nintendos dropped 10% on news that sony will release a handheld.

I wish it had been the other way around though

DiscoStu

Originally posted by Kevok
The videogame industry is a fickle one.

As are the stock markets, especially when it come to video games.

Usually with little or no relevence to the actual situation.

50Cent

Until a new console comes out which has the same type of games the ps2 has...but is a million times better, then ill dump Sony for it(unless it is Sony) but until then, im keeping the PS2 cos i know its going to be around regardless and the games are class and i prefer it to any other console.

weemcd

microsoft have almost a monopoly on pc how many of yes use windows and word, excel etc. so i wouldn't cry a river for bill gates he makes thousands every second. Secondly sony make top quality electronics which are easy to use and reliable think about windows, what a ****ty os crashing and wot not. And how much does a copy of windows cost loads linux or mac are way cheaper but ms is the industry standard. **** microsoft

Thorbar

Erm its not as if sony are particularly a light weight company either. There's a lot of cash in the auld coffers to back up and action by Sony. I really hope none of the companies crash out because the more consoles there are out there battling to be the best the more great games and price drops we're going to see.

Spock

Microsoft are aware of the money they lose on the Xbox and they have no problem with it, thats how they will defeat Sony, a superiour console selling at below cost price with better games and online services.

You say that this is already happening and they arent beating Sony, thats because Microsoft aren't trying yet"

Bill Gates "The Xbox is for name regonision only, come 2005 when are consoles are released together, thats when we really start to play."

Goodshape

Originally posted by Thorbar
I really hope none of the companies crash out because the more consoles there are out there battling to be the best the more great games and price drops we're going to see.

I'd agree with that actually. I've never seen as much focus on the gaming industry as I have in the past while.

Everyone seems to think that one of the three is just going to implode on itself and fade away, and as a result where seeing some really great games getting made as each company trys to assure us that it wont be them.

As for sony and microsoft... I've hated those companys long before they got into consoles. money hungry fcuknubbins.

Dont be at yourself

Microsoft are aware of the money they lose on the Xbox and they have no problem with it, thats how they will defeat Sony, a superiour console selling at below cost price with better games and online services

Of course they're aware of it, how could you not be aware of such huge numbers appearing on the aul accounts

And to be honest, Microsoft aren't going to defeat anybody by selling a console that is quite expensive to manufacture at a huge loss. A loss that will require a very, very high level of support from 3rd parties to recoup. That support, to a significant extent, hasn't materialised. The XBox's biggest games are coming from in-house, and the ones that aren't are having shedloads of money chucked at them for exclusivity.

Online services, then. Would these be the ones that are severely lacking on quality games? The ones that the biggest publisher in the world, EA, amongst others, are not supporting? The ones that aren't even available over here yet?

You say that this is already happening and they arent beating Sony, thats because Microsoft aren't trying yet"

Not trying? Not trying? They're heavily discounting the machine, bundling it with the two biggest games, sponsoring huge events, buying up acres of shelf space... honestly, they're probably promoting the XBox on a scale never seen before in the industry.

DiscoStu

Well tbh i prefer Sony to Microsoft. sony got where they are today through an awful lot of innovation and damn good quality products that do what they do very well. just look at sonys tvs, dvds, stereos etc. top of the line gear.
Then microsoft. who ripped the idea of their flagship product from apple and entered into unfair trading partnership with ibm to install their stripped donw and inferior unix alternitive on every pc made in the 80's. then abused their monoply position to keep themselves there while stiffilng development and drip feeding people increasinly bloated versions of the same flawed system which was forced(illegaly) onto computer maufacturers in the 90's.

[rant mode disengaging]

Anyway, the xbox is not the only part of Microsofts portfolio that is haemorrhaging money. MSN like its new iLoo is flushing a hell of a lot of cash down the drain. Microsoft are already tightening their belts. a few days ago it was announced that employee share options were to be reduced in the states as the cost would have eaten a quarter of their profits this year. they are also expecting slower sales of the next office suite(the companies cash cow). Each one of their attempts to move away from the desktop has proven to be a little less than succesful.

If Sony and Nintendo can strech the lifetime of this generation of hardware as long as possible and microsoft's "realtive"(keep in mind this company is larger than most small african states) bad fortune continues a radical shakeup will have to occur with regards to the xbox as its current business model in unsustainable in the medium term.

That said it may also be the case that the first out the door with the next generation of hardware may as our favourite spin doctor would put it "build and insurmountable advantage and burn the americans in their tanks" just like the ps2 did this time around.

wheres shinji when you need industry expertise?

Kevok

Spock. Microsoft not trying?

Xbox + SegaGT + JSRF. Sega was given money for each of those games sold while bundled with the xbox.

At E3, this E3, Ed Fries was quoted as suggesting that there would be much fewer exclusive 3rd party games for the Xbox as they needed to invest the limited budget they have into first party titles and studios.

Lets not forget Rare, the golden boy of the N64, the saviour of nintendo to some. Microsoft paid $300 million for it, and what did they get? The Conkers Bad Fur Day team. Not Goldeneye, not Perfect dark, not even diddy racing and banjo. The core team of the biggest selling rare games left to form Free Radical Design (makers of the timesplitter games) and Zoonami (a Nintendo second party). Has it paid off?

In my opinion, as an N64 owner, Gamecube owner, and Xbox owner, no. Kameo looks uninspired, Conkers is a GRAPHICAL UPDATE of the N64 version with Live! multiplayer tacked on and Grabbed by the Ghoulies... i'm sorry but Luigi's mansion anyone?

Sony on the other hand, has always relied on it's third party support. Is that a bad thing? No. But it does leave it at the mercy of the industry, should the third parties, for whatever reason, leave to the Xbox or Gamecube, Sony will not be able to churn out the content needed to hold on to a sufficiently large userbase.

All in my opinion of course.

BLITZ_Molloy

People don't give Sony the credit they deserve. Their inhouse dev teams have been responsible for truly innovative and critically acclaimed titles like Frequency and Ico. They try their best to expand the audience to cater for different tastes; it's not all about how many copies of Vice City have shipped.

The way they designed PS2 is really facinating also. It's the antithesis of a PC in that it hasn't a very fast processor or lots of memory but has very high bandwidth connections. The result is a very high initial design cost that's offset by large scale production. This gives it the highest performance/cost ratio of any of the games machines.

Nintendo continues to produce games that are astonishingly polished but they aren't all that innovative anymore. I can't think of many of their games that didn't feel pretty familiar other than Pikmin and Animal Crossing (which they decided not to publish here).

bk

Originally posted by Kevok

Sony on the other hand, has always relied on it's third party support. Is that a bad thing? No. But it does leave it at the mercy of the industry, should the third parties, for whatever reason, leave to the Xbox or Gamecube, Sony will not be able to churn out the content needed to hold on to a sufficiently large userbase.

All in my opinion of course.

Sony relying on third party support is actually a strength. Third party developers don't fell threatened by Sony and see it more like a partenership.

For instance Microsoft currently has a big push on developing its own sports games, this is sure to piss off EA and push them towards Sony.

Really most third party developers are afraid of MS becoming too powerfull as they have seen how MS monopolise the PC market and they don't want to see the same happening to the games market (similar to mobile phone market crushing Stinger with Symbian). Also the Japanesse developers (in other words most of the games industry) don't like US companies.

For these reasons, plus Sony's deep pockets and consumer market expertise will ensure that Xbox (or Xbox 2) will never come close to challenging Sony.

BKtje

never is a very long time and spouted way too often.
For the forseeable future id have to agree