In this story, we read:
“My objective is financial – to make a profit in our territory by the end of March, and we will. Our priority has always been the PS3; the forecast was 10m at the beginning of the year and it’s still 10m. If we’d cut the price, lost another billion dollars, we might have had a huge Christmas but it would have been followed by a huge loss. The company could have thought: ‘Hmm, I’m not sure I want to be in this business at all.’ But we’ve shown Sony this is still a good business to have.“
This is chilling. Reeves is publicly admitting Sony is questioning about being in the console business altogether. Guys like Reeves would never ‘joke’ about such a thing. This could explain why Reeves seems so laid back lately compared to his other previous interviews.
Sony has given up and is focusing on just surviving.
In this other story, we read David Reeves say,
We had to demonstrate we could make a profit with the business model, and that’s what we’ve done.
Again, this is another public affirmation that the game division had to demonstrate profitability.
The game software business is very, very hard. The game console business is EXTREMELY hard. It takes an amazing talent just to be in it. Every company that enters the console market eventually burns up except for Nintendo. When Yamauchi brought in Iwata to tell him that he was selected to become Nintendo’s president, Yamauchi took the moment to describe how many game console companies had left this business. There is an amazing amount.
If one of the three current console companies leave, it will likely be Sony. After all, the PlayStation visionary was Kutaragi who is now gone. And where are they going to go with the PlayStation 4? Better graphics? No, they can’t do that.
We can now confirm that Sony will not pull the Next Generation trigger for PS4. This also seems like confirmation that Sony will not try to attack the Wii with its own motion controller. David Reeves is giving the message that PS3 is in survival mode.
No surprise, the PS3 will probably be supported as long as possible just to make profit on it. Unfortunately, I doubt prices for PSP or PS2 will ever come down anytime soon.
Eurogamer: Do you think what Kaz Hirai said was arrogant?
David Reeves: I don’t think so. He was probably misquoted, because I don’t think Kaz would say that.
Eurogamer: He also said Sony still has “official leadership” of the industry. Isn’t it really about who’s shifting the most boxes? Doesn’t that sound a bit arrogant?
David Reeves: I look at it differently. In the videogames industry, we’ve all been winners for the last two years. We’ve had more people coming in who have never played games before. The industry is not recession-proof, but it has done extremely well.
I love the last quote. ‘We’ve all been winners’ is usually the line from the loser. ‘We’ve had more people coming in who have never played games before’. I am amazed at how both Microsoft and Sony are sounding like Nintendo each and everyday.
Of course there are going to be some people who fold. But the videogames industry is inherently very healthy. It’s not a question of survival of the fittest, it’s the survival of people who are professional, and don’t just go around cutting their prices and destroying the market.
Haha, I love this. I’ve never heard one console company refer to another console company cutting prices as ‘unprofessional’ and ‘destroying the market’. What if Nintendo cut the price on the Wii? (they won’t, of course). It shows just how excellent a position Nintendo is in.
Anyway, with the economic news the way it is, it is no wonder why Sony is putting the PS3 in ‘survival mode’.
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