Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst, Michael Pachter, recently talked about the Playstation 3 and what Sony needs to do to get the PS3 out of last place in sales.
Try telling that to Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer who tells us why he doesn't consider the Wii a competitot, why PS3's price will remain unchanged, and why he believes the Wii is just an "expensive niche console" in comparison to the PS3...
Microsoft will keep the price of the new machines unchanged at $349 and drop its 20-gigabyte consoles to $299 while supplies last. That compares with a $399.99 price tag for a 40-gigabyte PS3 and $249 for Nintendo Co.'s top-selling Wii.
"This battle for second place is quite relevant," said Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter in Los Angeles. "They lose revenue stream for years ahead based on what people buy."
Wii isn't a rival to the PlayStation 3 because it doesn't offer the broader features of the Sony console, including the ability to watch movies and access the Internet, Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer said in an interview.
"I've played a Nintendo Wii," Stringer said last week at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. "I don't see it as a competitor. It's more of an expensive niche game device. We're selling a lot of PlayStation 3s now and it's still the best way to buy a Blu-ray player."
Sales also were harmed by the console's initial price of $599 and the quality of games available. Developers needed about a year to learn how to create for the PS3, which uses nine processors to create high-definition graphics. Sony introduced its $399 model in November. There are no plans to lower the price again in response to a Microsoft action on the Xbox, Dille said before Microsoft's announcement yesterday.
"The price has been addressed," Dille said. "We are at $399 and I think that's right in the wheelhouse for a lot of people, especially those who have high-def in their homes."
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What does that make the PS3?
Why do you think people pay big prices for quality food in restaurants? Because they know it has good quality ingredients and it takes skill to prepare and make it.
Besides read the article itself, it's talking about the boom of so called 'casual gamers' due to the Wii and the DS not the number of 'hardcore gamers' or whatever it is that you want to call them.
Sony is almost as big as Nintendo in Japan and it's not only for hardcore gamers. Which is where the argument comes from in the first place. He's claiming Sony is really a games console where Wii is just in a niche, and it's expensive at that, if you're only going to play Wii sports or Wii fit.
The figures for Europe will be quite different depending on where you ask. Besides take the whole world into consideration like I asked you to and you will see that 'gamers' are pretty niche.
Of course if you take the whole world into consideration. You have third world countries, with tons of people, but if you count them lot's of things are niche. Hell, food is a niche product in some countries.