With the high price ticket that’s attached to the Sony PS3, it’s hard to imagine that Sony is actually selling the game system at a loss. But, the company has already accumulated losses of over 3 billion dollars due to their strategic pricing.
The idea is that you sell the game system below manufacturing cost and re-coop the investment through games and long term sales. A marketing strategy that has backfired on the major electronics company with record low sales!
While many consumers had to wait for the price of the PS2 to decrease before purchasing one, the higher priced PS3 is totally beyond their budgets. And, competition from the Xbox and WII’s are giving Sony a run for their investment.
Both the Xbox and WII’s have proven to be very popular with consumers. And, both are cheaper to manufacturer than the PS3, resulting in higher profits for both companies.
With the losses incurred during the release of the PS3, even if the game system picks up speed now, it will still take years to see a large profit. Sony has stated that it will be another ten years before they release another next-gen system.
So, how does Sony plan to generate quicker profits from the PS3? They are going to make extra features available for the game system and at least one should be available sometime later this summer.
One feature will be called Life with PlayStation. The service will feature a spinning globe menu that users can spin and pick a location to check the weather and read current news events from around the globe.
It’s been reported that the globe will also allow the user to view satellite images of weather and cloud patterns. A feature to store movies and photos is suppose to be included in Life with Playstation, although exact details haven’t been released yet.
Launching a PS3 movie download service is the second plan Sony has to re-coop some of it’s investment. The service scheduled for a summer release will be in competition with both the Xbox Video Marketplace and Apple’s iTunes Store.
Sony hasn’t released much information on the services it plans to add to the PS3 as of yet. But, an official statement, more information and a proposed release date is expected to be made public at the big E3 trade show in July.
For now not even rumors of agreements with any of the major movie studios have surfaced. Of course, it’s almost a sure bet that the company will use their own Sony Pictures to provide the majority of the movies made available for download.
Sony’s movie service is also expected to be made available for other devices such as mobile phones, computers, portable video players and Bravia LCD televisions. And, the consumer might even be given the option of moving the content between different electronic devices.
Sony along with other gaming console manufacturers have talked for quite sometime about turning their advanced systems into entertainment hubs. The release of PS3 movie downloads is just the beginning of the game consoles evolution into something more than just a gaming system.
Many PS3 owners use their console to watch DVDs, which is why a movie download service may work. But, not many people are going to run to the PS3 to check the weather and not many people will even need, or want to know the weather on the other side of the world.
However, it’s quite possible that these won’t be the last of the features that we see added to the PS3. After all, an entertainment hub is more than just movies and weather, Sony could probably do very well in adding music to the PS3 lineup.
