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"Sony's accountants messed up real bad!"

They are retailing the PS2 for £300. I know it sounds like a lot but get this. For every unit they sell, they still make a deficit of £65. There seems to be a high demand for the thing so it's in really high production rate and seeing as they're relying on games for profit, well the game sales are pretty poor at the moment and worse still, evidence shows that the PS2 will go the same way as the Saturn. For those of you who haven't followed me, this means that Sony are going to lose a fortune!

You might think that Nintendo and Sega were hit bad by losing the market but they survived because they make great games and they have other areas to get money from (Sega's Arcades and Nintendo's Gameboy).
PS2 could be (might not be but could be) a worse flop than the Sega Saturn and seeing as Sony's finances are relying on long term games sales, well, Sony are going to lose so much, a lot of employee's will be rendered jobless and Sony may even disappear from the games market.
I hardly think that Sony will be missed although it HAS done LOTS of great things for the games industry. It brought games to people who used to think that they were "sad". It taught Nintendo and Sega not to be too greedy and to give the best quality and prices around and finally it made the games industry bigger meaning that more and more profits will be made by future games developers (like me).

Sony put yabasic on the disc just to avoid the console tax.

Sly devils :-)

Sony's original figure for losses per machine would undoubtedly include a healthy slab of development costs being written down. The odd £billion split across the first five million units sold makes circa £200 per machine difference in cost. (figures are pure guesswork)

My inclination is to believe that these development costs are now mostly absorbed and that the cost of production has been falling.

Of course there is nothing much we can do about the tax!

Strafex wrote:
> This was just before/after the PS2 came out.

All the games bar one or two
> were a load of tosh and many people were using it mainly for DVD's and not
> buying many games as a result.

Still, it looks like this risk might well pay
> off.



Eh? Sony weere completely honest about losing money on the hardware. As were Sega. As were Ninty with the N64. As are Microsoft about Xbox. (Although I have yet to hear from the Ninty camp about GC).

It's not a risk. More of a risk would be to sell the console for its actual price... like the £400 Saturn. The fact is that gamers would just wait for prices to go down!

Far better is to release a console cheaply. Lots of people buy it. Lots of people buy games, which should make up for the console loss.

BUT more importantly, the bigger the demand for the console, the more of them you can make. As soon as this starts, production prices decrease, and consoles become cheaper to produce.

However, as you have pointed out, things went a bit wrong for Sony at the start. The console cost far, far more than it should have- first they had to shift chip production TWICE, and then they had to freight loads into Europe last minute! In addition, in Japan sales figures showed that console sales were higher than game sales... ie lots of people bought the console for the DVD playback, and NOT the gaming. However, since games like GT3 and ZOE, Sony are well and truly back on track.

All they need now is that Final Fantasy game...

Logan

This was just before/after the PS2 came out.

All the games bar one or two were a load of tosh and many people were using it mainly for DVD's and not buying many games as a result.

Still, it looks like this risk might well pay off.

EVERY sucessful console is sold at a loss... the console maker gets money from publishing games.

To give an analogy, take printers. Epson/HP sell a printer that costs £300 to make at £150. They make money from selling the printer ink carts.

Likewise, any mobile phone is sold at a loss (if it is pay as you go or on contract). Money is made from the call prices. The reason pay as you go phones do cost more though, is that there is some chance that people while buy the phone and never buy credit.

Logan

Ant wrote:
> Dan_uk wrote:
> I see that many people don't like my PS2 = Saturn
> comparisons (if I was
> investing £300 on a machine I wouldn't like to
> think it wouldn't be worth
> it either) so I'll settle this once and for
> all:

I know the evidence isn't
> decisive and may mean nothing after all
> but it truly does LOOK like the PS2
> COULD (not WILL but COULD) go down the
> same road as the Saturn.

Until then
> stop arguing and if the PS2 doesn't
> then you can say "HA HA! TOLD YOU
> SO!"
And if it does go the
> same way as the Saturn then I can say it to
> you.

HA HA! TOLD YOU
> SO!

:D



Bah!

How was I to know that the gaming public was so stupid...

Dan_uk wrote:
> I see that many people don't like my PS2 = Saturn comparisons (if I was
> investing £300 on a machine I wouldn't like to think it wouldn't be worth
> it either) so I'll settle this once and for all:

I know the evidence isn't
> decisive and may mean nothing after all but it truly does LOOK like the PS2
> COULD (not WILL but COULD) go down the same road as the Saturn.

Until then
> stop arguing and if the PS2 doesn't then you can say "HA HA! TOLD YOU
> SO!"
And if it does go the same way as the Saturn then I can say it to
> you.

HA HA! TOLD YOU SO!

:D

bloody hell, this is going a long way back!

Aahh!

My very first win.


Still as unbiased as ever...

I see that many people don't like my PS2 = Saturn comparisons (if I was investing £300 on a machine I wouldn't like to think it wouldn't be worth it either) so I'll settle this once and for all:

I know the evidence isn't decisive and may mean nothing after all but it truly does LOOK like the PS2 COULD (not WILL but COULD) go down the same road as the Saturn.

Until then stop arguing and if the PS2 doesn't then you can say "HA HA! TOLD YOU SO!"
And if it does go the same way as the Saturn then I can say it to you.