After leaving us all surprised with the reduction of its previous console, Sony has publicly stated the reason that has led them to reduce the price of PS2:
“We both look at the same consumers. So yeah, we’ve cut the price of the PS2 to $ 99 to steal market share from the Wii.
From a technical point of view Wii is closer to PS2 than to the new generations of consoles. Obviously it is not an HD box and its development software is on par with that of the PS2, so targeting that audience is a more realistic and consistent decision. “
“Nintendo has done a great job capturing young people and female audiences, two of the areas that PS2 began to harvest as well.
It is an interesting battle and we will see who wins it, but we feel very confident that the price reduction will allow us to achieve that margin “
Sorry guys but either I have missed something, or this strategy really goes nowhere. As Isaac Clarke said in ‘Dead Space’, let’s go by parts.
When we think of Wii , despite the fact that many of us have it at home, the target that comes to mind is the one correctly mentioned by Sony: people who were not previously interested in video games such as certain sectors of women, children and the elderly .
The problem with Sony’s strategy is that it limps across multiple bands. In the first place they are forgetting that the greatest asset of the Nintendo console is not its graphics, nor its games, but the way to enjoy them.
Despite the fact that from Sony all the gold in the world was invested in buying a license such as ‘Wii Sports’ or ‘Wii Play’, that target would not respond until they saw that it can be controlled exactly the same.
At that time someone who has no experience in the movements of the sector would say: “this one is worth 99 and this one is worth 250, they do the same so I buy the cheapest one.”
Despite this, if that hypothetical result turns out to be true, we will find another bump. If in the two previous generations consoles were not bought but “pleis”, now the new “plei” is Wii.
Everyone knows what a Wii is and how to play it. They know that it is accessible and fun if you have never played a video game, but above all, they know that it is different from that “plei” that their son, grandson or nephew had, in which there were only kill-kill games.
The fame harvested over the years that made that brand famous is exactly now the one that turns against it. Something that Nintendo has also taken care to highlight in each ad with mothers and grandmothers playing. The advertising campaign tells them “this is the console that you can play.”
And finally point number three arrives. What person not belonging to or interested in this sector knows today that PS2, the one that existed before the one that exists now and is called PS3, has lowered its price to $ 99?
No one. The only ones who have been interested in the movement of this news have been those who weeks ago, like fools, we expected a drop in the price of PS3. Both those of us who do not have it and are eager for that reduction to arrive, as well as those who already have it and know that the more public their same console has, the more games and of higher quality they will reach it.
Neither mothers, nor children, nor the elderly know or will know, at least for the moment and things are going on for a long time, that in addition to Wii they can also enjoy with other consoles.
The battle of Microsoft and Sony against Nintendo of the current generation is already lost. Either they put the batteries to increase their market share with a view to the more or less near future or the battle for the next will meet the same fate.
Microsoft has chosen the easy way, distribute consoles at the lowest price on the market. I think that Sony, from what the data points out, no matter how many great games and masterpieces that arrive, there is no other alternative either.
