Way back in October, we ventured that the Sony Playstation 3 would prove to be a dud in the marketplace, because it was too expensive and tried to be too many things at once.We were right.
Today's WSJ reports that: "Sales [of the PS3] have paled compared with Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360 consoles. Sony's videogame unit is expected to produce about $2 billion in losses for the year that ended March 31."
This confirms the results of our own informal market research at Best Buy a month ago. While shopping for new games for the Curmudgeonly kids' new Wii--which they lobbied hard for--we noticed boxes of unsold PS3's sitting on the shelf. Nearby, a lady desperate to get a Wii--which wasn't in stock--begged a salesman to let her know when the next shipment would arrive. The Curmudgeon kids have disdained any interest in the PS3.
The problem with the PS3 is that Sony used it to try to get consumers to buy its high definition blu-ray DVD player, a bauble many consumers don't need, or might prefer to deal with separately. At the same time, that raised the game console price well above that of the competition, a serious miscalculation. (Sony could more effectively have brought out a less expensive upgraded PS3 for the average gamer while offering an upscale version with all the blu-ray bells and whistles.)
So much for market savvy.
