Sony PS3 Sales Slip, Not Surprisingly

Today CNN Money reports that sales of Sony’s PS3 have plum­meted 19% from last year’s fig­ures and the con­sole is lit­er­ally “dying on the shelves.”  Mean­while, Xbox 360’s 2008 sales have improved over 2007 and Nintendo’s Wii con­tin­ues to be a sell­out since its launch.

So why am I not surprised?

Huge Pric­etag

When it launched in Novem­ber 2006, the PS3 cost $500 for a 40G model, and $600 for a 60G model.  And that price only included one con­troller and no games.  Who could afford to spend that kind of money on a bare-bones video game con­sole?  Cer­tainly not me, and I’m a sin­gle adult in the 18–35 demo with a great job who loves video games–their tar­get mar­ket.  So I can’t even imag­ine how par­ents strug­gled to afford this price-bloated piece of plas­tic plus a $60 game game or two, try­ing to give their kid a merry Christmas.

But even though the console’s price has dropped sev­eral times and there’s now a wider range of mod­els to choose from, the still-pricey PS3 con­tin­ues to strug­gle.  If Sony’s con­sole sales hadn’t been dis­ap­point­ing since launch, I might chalk it up to the reces­sion, but that’s not easy to do when nearly every other game com­pany seems to be thriv­ing despite the economy’s cur­rent hard knocks.

Con­sole Com­pe­ti­tion

When it comes to video games, Sony is a rel­a­tive new­comer to the scene com­pared to Nin­tendo who has main­tained a huge fol­low­ing since the orig­i­nal NES ignited a love for video games in many of our hearts as kids in the 80s.  And over the years, Nin­tendo has always put out qual­ity sys­tems (I like to pre­tend Vir­tu­al­Boy never existed) with great libraries of games that have been fun and inno­v­a­tive.  The Wii, despite its silly name, was des­tined to be just as suc­cess­ful.  So why did Sony think it was a good idea to choose a launch date for PS3 so close to the Wii’s?  This is where I think they really under­es­ti­mated the competition.

The PS3 also launched at a time when the Xbox 360 had been out for a year already.  But Microsoft had been qui­etly bid­ing its time improv­ing the 360’s hard­ware, build­ing up a solid library of games, and win­ning play­ers over with its Xbox Live expe­ri­ence.  If Sony was expect­ing 360 own­ers to buy a PS3 as well, they cer­tainly didn’t have much of any­thing new to offer.  I’m will­ing to bet that most peo­ple who already owned 360s went out and bought Wiis instead.

Noth­ing New to Offer

Sure the PS3 has “amaz­ing graph­ics”, which has been its main sell­ing point.  But is that all that really mat­ters to gamers?  Sony’s sales have indi­cated oth­er­wise.  Other than improved graph­ics and offer­ing a Blu-Ray player at a time when most peo­ple didn’t even know what Blue-Ray was, what else did the PS3 offer?  Cer­tainly not an impres­sive library of games or inno­v­a­tive design over its pre­de­ces­sors.  Even the PS3’s con­troller design was more of the same.

Dis­ap­point­ing Game Library

The PS3 launched with a pretty under­whelm­ing selction of games that either nobody heard of, or titles that had already been out a long time on the 360.  Com­pare that to Nin­tendo Wii, whose launch titles included mega hits like The Leg­end of Zelda: Twi­light Princess and Metroid Prime 3: Cor­rup­tion.  Sony should have off­set the console’s huge pric­etag by at least offer­ing more com­pelling titles, espe­cially at launch.  If a con­sole has great games, gamers tend to over­look the price, no mat­ter how ridicu­lous.  After all, what good is a tech­no­log­i­cally supe­rior video game sys­tem if it doesn’t have good games?   Like many, instead of buy­ing a PS3, I waited to see if any titles would launch later on that com­pelled me enough to pur­chase this sys­tem.  Two years later, I’m still wait­ing.

It will be inter­est­ing to see what Sony does to try to win over gamers and dig itself out of its hole.  CNN sug­gests deep price discounts–that would cer­tainly help.  I guess.  My advice to Sony: count your losses and just focus on Playsta­tion 4.

6 Geeky Things I’m Thankful For

Thanks­giv­ing is just two days away. Come Thurs­day I hope to be in a full-fledged turkey and wine-induced coma, sur­rounded by fam­ily and friends, kick­ing off a bliss­ful four days of gam­ing, couch­ing, Net­flix­ing, and left­overs. Gear­ing up for the long week­end has got me think­ing about all the geeky things I’m thank­ful for.

Here’s a look back at 2008 from a grate­ful geek girl:

The Tales of Bee­dle the Bard

I’m thank­ful for The Tales of Bee­dle the Bard , the new children’s fairy tale book and Harry Pot­ter com­pan­ion piece from one of my favorite authors, J. K. Rowl­ing . Since 1997, I along with most of the world have adven­tured along­side Harry in his seven-year bat­tle against You-Know-Who, and like so many other fans, was depressed when the series came to its heart-wrenching con­clu­sion last sum­mer. Look­ing for­ward to the book’s release this Decem­ber 4th, when I and legions of Pot­ter fans can delve once again into a small piece of the wiz­ard­ing world.

The Dark Knight

I’m thank­ful that The Dark Knight was a piv­otal box office phe­nom­e­non, and arguably one of the best super hero movies ever made. I’m thank­ful that Heath Ledger will be remem­bered for one of the most riv­et­ing and bril­liant per­for­mances ever known to big screen vil­lainy. I’m thank­ful that this movie has defined the new stan­dard against which all future super hero movies should be judged, and I’m opti­mistic that Hol­ly­wood will start pay­ing attention.

The New Xbox Expe­ri­ence

I’m thank­ful for the New Xbox Expe­ri­ence , and Microsoft’s part­ner­ship with Net­flix to bring the “Watch It Now” movie ser­vice to the Xbox 360 con­sole free of charge. Net­flix sub­scribers that own an Xbox 360 no longer have to face the inevitable deci­sion to shell out $100 for a Roku Net­flix player, yet another periph­eral that would clut­ter up our home enter­tain­ment sys­tems. I’ve found the high-quality stream­ing ser­vice to work absolutely per­fectly. It’s just too bad about Sony’s sour grapes .

Wii Fit

I’m thank­ful for Nin­tendo and their seem­ingly end­less inno­va­tion when it comes to pro­duc­ing fun and easy to learn yet chal­leng­ing games for the Wii , most notably 2008’s sim­ple but sur­pris­ingly effec­tive title Wii Fit . While Wii Fit cer­tainly doesn’t score any points for breath­tak­ing graph­ics or intense game­play, there is some­thing to be said for any game (or non-game) that moti­vates us lazy gamers to get off the couch and get physical—and have fun doing it.

The Twi­light Saga

I’m thank­ful for Stephe­nie Meyer’s ridicu­lously cheesy Twi­light Saga , whose sopho­moric books man­aged to com­pletely suck me in for a good two weeks of unadul­ter­ated guilty plea­sure read­ing, the per­fect anti­dote to a stress­ful month . I’m also thank­ful that the equally cheesy and unin­ten­tion­ally hilar­i­ous Twi­light movie —which grossed $70 mil­lion on its open­ing week­end, thanks to dreamy Rob Pat­tin­son —made for one of the most enter­tain­ing and mem­o­rable girls’ night outs I’ve had in a long time.

Wrath of the Lich King

I’m thank­ful for Wrath of the Lich King , the lat­est and great­est expan­sion to the sec­ond life I know as World of War­craft, which gave me the excuse to get back in touch with old guildies and good friends (some vir­tual, some real) and fall in love all over again with the sheer awe­some­ness of this game. Bliz­zard has really out­done them­selves with this release. The stun­ning visu­als and beau­ti­ful music score alone were worth the wait. Indeed, things were get­ting pretty bor­ing around Aze­roth until you showed up, Arthas .

Look­ing for­ward to all the geeky things 2009 will bring!