Ben-DutkaPrice is always a big question for consumers, but Sony Computer Entertainment America president Jack Tretton says solid products will sell themselves.
In a recent Fast Company interview , Tretton said the success of a platform is determined by the "value of its features" rather than its cost. He believes the consumer "responds to value" and alludes to the amount of entertainment given by a $60 game, as compared to the total expense of seeing a movie at the theater (which may not come to much less than $60, when all is said and done). Said Tretton:
"When you're buying a platform, when you're buying technology, you're hopefully buying a device that you're going to enjoy for many years. If you look at an investment comparable to a game device be it a system or a portable – whether it's an iPod or cell phone – people are used to spending several hundred dollars to get a portable device.
Typically it comes down to; 'how good is the system and how bad do I want it?' And it's not to say that the price of the platform isn't a consideration, but I don't think price makes or kills a platform. Something that's lousy and very inexpensive is not going to be successful. Something that's pricey will ultimately find its audience if there's enough value there."
The price of the PlayStation 3 was called into question immediately – it has since been cut down to half its original launch cost – and now, everyone is wondering what the new PSP2 (or NGP) will cost. Well, as Tretton says, what really matters is how badly you want it, and whether or not you see enough value in it.
So is Mr. Tretton implying that the NGP will have a high launch price? Probably. I bought my PS3 back when it was still 600 (Motorstorm bundle, mind you). Back then, I wanted the PS3 out of desire for a new console (the 360 wasn't really appealing to me), and I had the means to do so. I can confidently say I've gotten some of the best value for my money over the past 4 years with everything Sony has offered.
But times are different now, and money's tighter than it used to be. I'll definitely get an NGP, but probably not at launch. Maybe when either the price goes down or they release an upgraded model. Having new hardware on day 1 is nice, but it's also true that good things come to those who wait.
He's sorta right, except that the price of a platform is still gonna determine a lot of early sales. It may not determine the overall success of said platform, but its definitely gonna be affected by a high price.
there is an article at cvg citing a wsj article that said jack was wrong about the tsunami impacting the ngp's release. maybe he got this wrong, too.
i actually think sony will be smart about pricing the ngp now. it's just a gut feeling based on the reaction to jack's quotes. i guess we will have to wait and see. new hardware is always exciting. can't wait to learn more.
And Most consumers judge the value of a thing on how much its going to cost them they don't look at features they have no idea what they are they look at the basic stuff it does and how much its gonna cost them.
Gamers care does it play games? are the games fun? how much is it gonna cost me to play those games.
If Price doesn't determine success then explain when the Ps3 at 599 us dollars outsold all competitors..etc?
I'm still waiting for my 1200 dollars tretton.
Why does everyone keep saying the PS3 was $600 at launch?? Then why is it that I paid $500 for my retail launch PS3?! Since when did people start comparing prices to the highest priced model of a piece of hardware/platform?? There was a perfectly full featured 20GB model of the PS3 at launch for $500, so stop saying it was $600, please!!
This price thing is a complicated issue, and it's more of a combination of everything like value, price, technology, hardware & software, marketing and not to mention press.
There was a very negative buzz all around about the PS3 at launch, for some reason I will never understand, both on the main gaming websites and gamers on forums and IMO that was probably the biggest factor for why the PS3 didn't sell well in the beginning. Maybe there was a payoff from Mickeysoft, maybe there were a lot of gamers who had just bought the 360 and were angry that they now coudln't afford the PS3, maybe there were a lot of Halo fanboys who didn't like Resistance, who knows but press and marketing is everything and Sony and the PS3 didn't have it at launch, that's for sure.
To me the PS3 had everything I wanted at launch, it had the value, technology, hardware & software and the rest I didn't care about, but unfortunately that's not the way it works.
It's a funny thing about price and value, personally I have no problems paying $500 for a console up front, but I would never pay $60 annually for some xbox live membership, but others thought paying $500 for a PS3 was WAY TOO EXPENSIVE but they had no problems whatsoever paying $60 for that network membership every year, easily passing the additional cost of the PS3 over the xbox in a year or two…
Value isn't much, sicne game systems do drop theiur rpices to get new buyers. I don't care what the value of Nintendo 3DS is, I'm not spending $250 on a handheld (and many others feel the same way. Biggets complaint for the system). Sadly, it seems video game companies want to price a lot of us out of playing video games. Which is their decision. They can get no sales with high prices, or some sales with lower prices. Oddly, they want no sales.
But I guess the way to look at it is, not that high prices will ruin the system, but that lower prices will give them a bigger success. A high value system at na affordable price will outsell a high value expensive system 3 times over.
And what is value? Game compnaies throw a ton of stuff in, that suers might not even want, then charge a price worthy of those extras. Might make sens eif you want it, but most people don't want half the included items. Blu-Ray support is ncie for PS3, but if you have no intentions of using it, why pay for the playe rportion? Sure, PS3 was cheaper than actual players, but if you don't have any intention of using the feature, it's too high a price for a video game system. $600 for a system you'r enever going to use to it's full capacity is just too much. And why I only recently got a PS3 when it was only $400. Meanwhhile, Sony doesn't make it backwards compatible with PS2 gamnes, which is lost money right there. if they ahd made it work with PS2 games, they'd have released the system for much less. And made even more money over time. Oddly, comoanies wnat little money now, and not a lot of money later. Is it any wodner we're in a recession? People just don't think long term, and make poor business decisions.
Well, I paid $100 more than you several years earlier, and I got PS2 compatibility along with more usb-ports and a better-looking system 🙂 I'd say that's a fairly good value.
Also, you do realize that every single PS3 game out there uses blu-ray discs too right? Including many PS3 exclusives like Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone 2 & 3 etc etc utilizing a lot of the additional space available on blu-ray compared to if the PS3 had only had a DVD drive, meaning those developers would otherwise had to do one of two things: remove things from the game to make it smaller, or 2: split the game up to 5+ DVDs or more… blu-ray is not just for movies.
Wow many of you are tripping …pricing is everything…of course a solid device is nice…but if just us early adopters bought a console…would sony really consider that a success …i'm a logical thinker i'm sorry…but if the ps3 was still 600 dollars and had , god of war 3,uncharted 2,and resistance 2 …as launch titles they still would have been in a big ass hole …lets be serious about this…most of you on this site didn't buy a ps3 until the price point hit 299