Sony Can’t Get A Break!
Sony had high hopes for the launch of their sexy black behemoth in Europe, but as we all know by now Europe and Australia pretty much said NO to the PS3 on launch day. Lines were amazingly short and the demand was just not there. Sure Sony probably sold a good number of consoles, but when Sony sees such a lack of enthusiasm it has to be disturbing to them. The Xbox 360 launch had huge crowds and sold quite well, so why did Sony’s launch in Europe fail so miserably?
I am sure we can take into account the fact that many good games were pushed back from the European launch date, thus leaving a rather sub-par game line-up, and the price is also a huge factor when deciding on the purchase. That said I think there is a small turning of the tide for some Playstation fans. I doubt that any would admit it, but the Wii60 combo is looking better everyday. With so many good games coming this year for the 360 and Wii, some die hard Playstation fans will have to cave in and turn to the dark side.
It’s not all gloom and doom for Sony, they still have a nice lineup of games and if they can get their online act together and stop making dumb claims about how awesomely fantastically superbly wonderful their hardware is, then maybe those still on the fence about buying a PS3 will cave in. Unless that happens Sony will have to settle for third place.
What do you think Sony needed to do better for the European launch, let us know in our comments section.
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Games, commercials that make sense, a lower price point, equally capable hardware, better publicity, less arrogance, and overall less sucking. Ok, that last one reason dates back to the rootkit days. There just isn’t a reason to justify spending so much money when better alternatives are out there and one, the 360, is well established.
They need to understand that an established brand name won’t always get them through difficult times. Nintendo probably had that same ideology in the N64 era and Sony should look to the past to see what happens with that kind of thinking.
Also instead of hyping how incredible the system is by praising the multifunctions and making complex avatar programs, maybe they should focus on getting some great games to play so there is a reason to use HOME…
How could the european launch be better? lets see..
-Not push us back MONTHS for every product you make (psp&ps3)
-NOT make us your fallback cashcow when things go ugly in other countries (£400ish price tag?! thats a good $150+ more than america! Dont even make me look at japans pricing..)
-More games? Quite obvious, but damn, you could atleast grab a couple small games and port them, or remake old games. (How about starcraft for the ps3&psp? eh..eh?)
-More online functionality, 360′s got the upper hand, why not focus on online for a month and outdo them?
-More origional arcade games, again – again, 1up 360′s arcade games, DONT use this as a crappy escuse to crap out nes games weekly..
-voip? Duno if this is already been made – not got a ps3 – but whynot have skype or something make a deal with you and have skype on the ps3? have it work in the background of games too, even during online matches..
Probably got more, not enough time for them all..
lastly:
-Get a new ad company, seriously, the adverts in real life and on the tv are stupid, crap and overall crap..
thats all ^^
Sony…A fall from grace. Sony always thought of themselves as the ‘Goliath’ in the industry. When the Wii came along for the 2nd round…they had their ‘sling’…and POP! Down goes the mighty PS3. The Xbox 360 is enjoying their fan base, with their ‘walk the walk and talk the talk’ method of getting the masses of what they want. I must admit I was hyped @ the E3 presentation of the PS3 with all the HD stuff, and ‘the only entertainment system you will ever need’,I was hyped with what they had to offer, the games looked great…but the overall price…Wo! I want to play games, duh! It’s good to have this wide range of ideas for your system, but the bottom line is that people want to play games, no matter HD, 720p, or whatever…I don’t care if I can see the sweat rolling down a character’s cheeks, or a reflection in an eyeball, if you think about it ,Nintendo could have done the same thing,gone the same direction, but they didn’t. They kept it simple, and added a new control scheme, and Boy! did it payoff.At first I wasn’t too thrilled about the controls, but after playing/immersed in ‘REDSTEEL’ & ‘COD3′.WoW! Nintendo has something and the people wanted something different. The games are more immersive and enjoyable and overall fun as hell. Wii Sports,Wario:Smooth Moves,WiiPlay,Godfather, etc. These are fun games and I have a friend that actually plays games with me to the ‘Wii’ hours of the morning. Nintendo struck gold with this immersive system, they learned a lot from the GC age. Sony, needs to take note, they forgot the fun factor. That’s why the PS2 was so succesful, it was powerful, but simple. Now, the PS3 is this HUB of a machine that does everythting and honestly who’s going to actually do all those things besides playing a game. In the long run yeah, it might be worth it, but who knows that something down the road just might be a little better…..!
I don’t know how they could make it better, but the Australian launch was so bad that the official launch had maybe 40 people attending, the camera crews had to ask people to fake excitement and radio crews were joining in the fake cheering to make it sound like lots of people were there.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/games/crowds-go-mild-at-playstation-launch/2007/03/23/1174153291466.html
Says as much about the bullshit that is mainstream media as it does about the PS3 launch, really.
Apparently Sony’s going to have a much bigger launch at GO3 in Perth next weekend. There’s a lot of media coming to it and probably a lot of people will show up for the expo. Hopefully Sony can turn it around there.