Stringer: Consumers purchasing PS3s faster than we can produce them

by Alan Tsang { Aug 28th 2008 at 2:30PM }

In an interview with Die Welt, Sony CEO Howard Stringer tells the German newspaper he believes Sony captured the casual audience before Nintendo did. "We held the same target group with the Singstar karaoke game. But perhaps we neglected to pursue that avenue." He admits that PlayStation titles target hardcore gamers. "Playstation games are rather designed for those who play a lot. Although it's a different strategy, it pays off. We currently have a production bottleneck with the PlayStation 3 ... Consumers are purchasing our PlayStation 3 video game consoles faster than we can produce them." Stringer also doesn't see Nintendo as a rival. "The Wii is not succeeding at our expense – it is not hurting us. We decided years ago to build a game console that offers much greater functionality."

Stringer confesses that the $3,000,000,000 spent on the PS3, discounting R&D, will take a long while to recuperate. Though Sony is still losing money on hardware, the CEO informs us that the amount they are making with software is greater than the lost they suffer with hardware. Finally, he doesn't think they will be a price cut for the PS3 before Christmas.

With games like the recently announced Eyepet, it seems like Sony at least wants in on some of that casual gamer action that Nintendo has been getting. Another point to ponder is, should Sony reconsider their strategy of selling a system with such huge losses the next time around? Or will the PS3 make back all the money it lost in the beginning, just like the PS2?

[Via Maxconsole]

Tags: howard-stringer, playstation-3, ps3

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Devin @ Aug 28th 2008 2:40PM

Why would Sony say "Oh, by the way, there may be a price cut by the end of this year, [so feel free to wait at our expense]."

So, of course, they are going to say there won't be, but with MS pushing $50 price-cuts early September, I would be very surprised if Sony isn't forced to do something price-wise/feature-wise by this Xmas in order to compensate.

I couldn't wait that long, which is why I went ahead and got the MGS4 bundle before it sold out at my local Gamestop.

Danny F. @ Aug 28th 2008 3:46PM

I agree, Sony wouldn't openly admit any kind of price cut even if they are planning to. I'm sure we can see some kind of price cut before Christmas to help against the low cost of the Xbox.

But what Sony has to figure out is what will make the consumers actually buy one, which is the gaming and movie department of the system. With killer movies like Iron Man, and the Dark Knight coming later this year I'm sure the system will sell lke hot cakes. But the 360 has Fable 2 and Gears of War 2 coming out in one season will cause a really huge jump in sales for MS.

The PS3 needs another killer title before the holidays come if they wanna have a holding on this year before it ends.

Metal_Gear @ Aug 28th 2008 4:08PM

LBP in October, and that game will be everywhere, M$ will be throwing loads of money behind Gears 2 but as it is just another gorefest shooter, it limits the places it can advertise. Fable 2... well I have never seen anything about Fable 1 so... meh, at least I have heard of Gears and Halo.

Binaryfiend @ Aug 28th 2008 4:20PM

@ dannyf

What about LBP, Socom, Resistance 2 or even
Motorstorm: Pacific Rift?

doc j @ Aug 28th 2008 11:51PM

@danny f

Are you serious? Fable 2? Microsoft owes a great deal of debt to Nintendo, because if it weren't for the Wii's Absolutely terrible line-up this holiday season we'd be forced to look at Microsoft's similarly dismal line up.

I refuse on principle to start a list war, but if you can honestly look at the PS3s upcoming releases and say that there are no killer aps on the horizon, then why are you even involved in gaming?

CJLopez @ Aug 28th 2008 2:45PM

Really, they must be prodducing at the speed of a turtle running, because I can always sight several PS3's each time I go to the states

koehler83 @ Aug 28th 2008 2:54PM

Well.. the US is as poor a sample as you can get for PS3 sales. According to NPD, PS3 has outsold 360 5 of 7 months so far this year globally, but I dont think even one month in the US.

I have no idea if this is true or not but it really doesnt matter to me unless Sony starts playing the BS 'Wii Shortage' card. Fuck that pisses me off!

Nick @ Aug 28th 2008 3:09PM

NPD is American sales.

Nick @ Aug 28th 2008 3:11PM

Whoops, sorry. I haven't seen any data for sales exclusive to the US.

Again, disregard my previous comment.

Draco @ Aug 28th 2008 3:34PM

I don't know, it took my cousin and I 3 weeks to find a 80GB MGS4 PS3. there are 40GB floating around everywhere, but you can't get a 80GB to save your life. Ended up at the 24HR wal-mart at 4AM to get one.

WPG, MB, CA

luckily I have a 60GB :) payed more but its worth it.

rastasaystfu @ Aug 28th 2008 4:05PM

Koehler, dude... NPD, global sales...? If I recall correctly, NPD numbers are for North America only... And are you saying that the PS3 hasn't outsold the 360 in the U.S. the majority of 2008? If that is what you are saying, looking back at the sales numbers, thats just obviously not true. Why you talkin' all that jazz???

tuaamin13 @ Aug 30th 2008 11:57AM

Actually, the NPD started this new thing that it gets together with other organizations to report global sales numbers on a semi-annual basis.

But in any case, this could be true. I mean, sales of the PS3 have picked up, and this just means that they produced a ton of them before (with low sales), and now they're selling more than they're producing.

Basically they stockpiled and now they're selling through.

No shortage here.

AdrianXIII @ Aug 28th 2008 3:05PM

I read that whole article, good read. That guy makes sense, unlike those PR guys that go "We are teh best, u sux my dick"....or something along those exaggerated lines.

Popfrogs @ Aug 28th 2008 3:54PM

Yeah, I find it refreshing how humble the Sony talking heads are these days. It's not like when the PS3 first debuted and they were all saying "this is god's gift to you, sell a kidney to buy one".

darthsim0065 @ Aug 28th 2008 3:13PM

gears of war vs little big muppets..adults only..

Daniel @ Aug 28th 2008 3:28PM

What does that even mean?

Mattchewie @ Aug 28th 2008 3:30PM

Well as an adult I can see that if I'm going to toss out 60 bucks on a video game I much rather it be something new and exciting than the same game with a couple of new features.

So as an adult I will vote for LBP and laugh at people that fall into the halo dup again.

PSN ID -- TheUnforgivenII @ Aug 28th 2008 3:42PM

X360 Fantroll.

Metal_Gear @ Aug 28th 2008 3:47PM

Yeah, another generic shooter, I am so jealous I dont have a 360 right now. ¬_¬

PSN ID -- TheUnforgivenII @ Aug 28th 2008 3:56PM

To be honest, I'd really like to have that "generic shooter"! One of some of the X360 titles that I'd really love to play.

Simstim @ Aug 28th 2008 4:28PM

@TheUnforgivenII

Gears of War 2 is the only 360 exclusive I want coming out this holiday season.

Sony, on the other, has a load of exclusives I want coming out this season going into 2009.

I hope White Knights Chronicle gets a fast English localization and we see some great platformer annocements next year, like Sly Cooper.

I am also hoping the game NCsoft is working for the PS3 turns out to be a Dragonica port.

Jon Acheson @ Aug 28th 2008 3:29PM

I doubt the PS4 will have to incorporate a breakthrough new A/V medium like the PS1/2/3. We'll still be using HDTVs then, and most likely we will still be in the process of converting people over from SD sets to HDTVs. So Blu-Ray should still be king for a while.

Hopefully that will make the PS4 more of an upgrade in graphics power, running on the same media.

And no, I don't think the PS4 will forego removable media. Though it wouldn't surprise me if the PSP-2 does.

Popfrogs @ Aug 28th 2008 3:55PM

That's the beauty of Blu-ray. Sony picked a real winner..in the future when games are bigger, they'll just use dual or quad layer media. 4x layers should hold around 200GB of data. Plenty.

Metal_Gear @ Aug 28th 2008 4:05PM

Indeed, PSone brought CDs mainstream (with the Saturn of course) it also brought 3D platforming that didn't look like ass. PS2 helped bring DVDs to the mainstream, PS3 being the biggest change is looking at HD gameing, Blu-Ray format and with huge heavy use of the Internet and networking with other gamers in a variety of gamers not to mention Sixaxis.

The PS4 can basically just be 2 PS3s taped together... just make sure more features are ready at launch >_>

dabamf @ Aug 28th 2008 5:00PM

I agree. I am thinking (hoping) that there will not need to be as huge a technological leap with the PS4 so that Sony's new system can hit the ground running.

Draco @ Aug 28th 2008 4:06PM

Yeah, and they will also up the speed of the drive, Blu-Ray 8x hopefully, I don't want to see a 16x cause then you get into the noise problems that DVD and CD have.

dabamf @ Aug 28th 2008 4:32PM

Responding to earlier comment...I too am totally glad that I splurged on a 60 Gig console! Backwards compatibility alone was well worth it. It pays to be an early adopter...plus I just upgraded my hard drive to 320 Gig.

Simstim @ Aug 28th 2008 4:33PM

A 2x BD drive is about the equivalent of 16x DVD and a 32x CD drives. Just as a 16x DVD drive is about the equivalent of a 32x CD drive.

Twinturbo120 @ Aug 28th 2008 4:29PM

woahhhh go PS3!!!!!

Name: @ Aug 28th 2008 4:30PM

what kind of jackass would make a comment about there needs to be a price cut when you got these 2 new systems comin out this quarter. There's your price cut Captain Dipshit

Simstim @ Aug 28th 2008 4:35PM

A Sony exec of course!

Sony has the worse PR in the world. Its execs suffer from foot in mouth disease.

Jay @ Aug 28th 2008 4:44PM

@Simstim,

You prat, Stringer was responding to not raising the matter. Where did he say there "needs to be" one?

Remove foot from stupid gob.

jaffa @ Aug 28th 2008 6:06PM

I hope Sony go all out for the PS4 pretty much like the PS3 thats why I really want them to make a lot of money off the PS3 - I love it. and I hate the way nintendo were very conservative with their console!

Meresin @ Aug 28th 2008 6:20PM

I'm actually kinda hoping that they go fairly inexpensive on the PS4, and gun for a reasonable price point next time around. Simply providing an incremental upgrade to the PS3's existing hardware (double the RAM, add more cell cores, build the GPU into the CPU from the start) would be a wise strategy because it would keep production costs low from the start while still providing very good performance.

aMIGA_dUDE @ Aug 29th 2008 3:00AM

Are people so dumb sometimes, Sony is not going to drop the price this year (2008). They have said this time and again.

Also Sony say there having a problem keep up demand for console.

Sorry to say this but it sounds like Sony doesn't need sales spike just before when sell 70% stock in a year. Or have you forgot Xmas is just few months away now.

But have you noticed that they will not said anything about price drop in 2009, take that as you please.

fayth @ Aug 29th 2008 3:59AM

"Or will the PS3 make back all the money it lost in the beginning, just like the PS2?"

I'm sure it will.

Nate @ Aug 29th 2008 5:49PM

I'm sure they'll end up making money on the ps3 at some point. On the other hand, I never understood the philosophy of loosing money on the razor to make money on the blades. Disposable razors are just as effective (if not more so), and far cheaper then even the refills.

If you loose money on the console, it leaves you vulnerable to someone that doesn't and still makes it fun. Then, if you slip at all, you loose big, but if you win, you win smaller then you could have. I heard once that the gamecube actually made nintendo as much money as the ps2 made for sony... even with a far smaller user base.

The ps4 I think should loose far less money. Next time don't use a uber-complex new style everything without tools that help out developers. Keep the flexibility and sony-awesomeness though (avoiding the general cheapness and evil sales tactics of microsoft business)

Quinn @ Aug 30th 2008 3:15PM

I dont get this at all?! Can someone explain this? I see ps3's in every store I walk into. I got my 60 gig at launch so it doesnt matter to mebut just curious if anyone can explain why a comment like this would be made. >>Sony CEO Howard Stringer said "We currently have a production bottleneck with the PlayStation 3 ... Consumers are purchasing our PlayStation 3 video game consoles faster than we can produce them."

For the LOVE OF GOD please push some more games out faster LOL I need the ps3 fixxxxxx. *slaps arm to raise vien*