Stringer: Wii isn't 'hurting us'

Sony CEO says Wii isn't succeeding at the expense of the PlayStation 3.

Speaking to Welt, Sony Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer has stated that Nintendo's success with the Wii has not come at the expense of Sony's PlayStation 3 console.

"... 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. The PlayStation 3 has an enormous processor; it is gradually emerging as the central server in our users' homes," said Stringer.

Stringer was also questioned on the huge cost of developing the PlayStation 3 and whether it is possible for the platform holder to make its money back.

"Not for as long as I live," laughed Stringer. "It will certainly take some time. The traditional business model for the PlayStation envisaged us making a loss with the hardware in the early years until the production costs had decreased to a point that enabled us to break even. In the meantime, we earn money with the games."

He added: "We are currently at the stage in which we need to get a grip on the production costs. That takes time. We are already making more money with the games than we are losing with the hardware."

Gamers hoping to pick up a bargain priced PS3 this Christmas also appear to be out of luck, with Stringer noting that he doesn't think we'll see a console price drop before Santa comes down your chimney.

clicky

Apologies if old.

I thought one of his interesting comment's was that about 'nintendo perhaps having the better business model', (I paraphrase). Does that mean ps4 will be designed to make a profit on the hardware alone side from day one, and if so does that mean no gargantuan leap in power, technology etc ??

I'm not a big Sony fan but I do think that in appointing Howard Stringer they made a very brave and wise decision. Given time he will drive some major changes at Sony and that will include the gaming division.

closer wrote:I thought one of his interesting comment's was that about 'nintendo perhaps having the better business model', (I paraphrase). Does that mean ps4 will be designed to make a profit on the hardware alone side from day one, and if so does that mean no gargantuan leap in power, technology etc ??

No. The general leap in power provided by a new consoles is generally simply a factor of time.

Sarge wrote:"... the Wii is not succeeding at our expense

That's not true, it's taking casual consumers away from any possibility of them buying a PS3 but, more immediately, away from them picking up a cheapie PS2 right now.

it's not like you can expect him to admit Wii is hurting, he's paid to tell lies.

It makes perfect sense. I don't know anyone who's decided to buy a Wii instead of buying a PS3. Or the other way round either. They're 2 completely different consoles after a completely different market. Also the Wii doesn't seem to be affecting PS2 sales at all from the figures.

If the Wii is still around in 3-5 years time when the PS3 price point is a lot lower then maybe they will be competing for the same customers. Right now people that are interesting in a Wii buy a Wii, people who are interested in more cutting edge games buy a PS3 or 360.

I also agree with what the guy from the E3 conference said in a post show interview, I've forgot his name. Any non/casual gamer Nintendo manage to convert now are potential customers for Sony down the line when the PS3 is at the same stage as PS2 now.

TheTurnipKing wrote:No. The general leap in power provided by a new consoles is generally simply a factor of time.

Sony could bung together a machine now with parts from PC parts suppliers that would be a leap over the PS3 if they needed to.

Eighthours wrote:

Sarge wrote:"... the Wii is not succeeding at our expense

That's not true, it's taking casual consumers away from any possibility of them buying a PS3 but, more immediately, away from them picking up a cheapie PS2 right now.

IMO that is wrong, the wii has attracted loads of non gamers and has not taken away from sony really, also i do not think casuals would be buying the ps3 at £300 anyway, it is simply making the market bigger for sony to take in a few years down the line

Consumers are purchasing our Playstation 3 video game consoles faster than we can produce them.

Funny quote from the interview, don't quite think thats true.

we make a loss on every console we sell.

Thought they were making a profit but I guess not.

Peter Crisp wrote:

TheTurnipKing wrote:No. The general leap in power provided by a new consoles is generally simply a factor of time.

Sony could bung together a machine now with parts from PC parts suppliers that would be a leap over the PS3 if they needed to.

But then it'd just be a big bulky PC. And to be honest not really that much more powerful unless it was a full size tower with a GPU more than the current price of PS3 on it's own. Yeah course it would be more powerful but hardly the supposed 10x leap from ps1-2 and 2-3.

I think next gen should in theory appear like a bigger jump though, that's my opinion anyway. The problem with the current high end consoles is that they're using a good percentage of their extra power to run at HD resolutions (most of the time ). Next gen i assume all games will be 1080p native which again is another jump (roughly 2x) over 720p standard but not quite the numerical jump (3x) 720p was over 480p.

For me next gen would be this gen but everything is 60fps 1080p with full anti-aliasing and no pop-up.

Developers of course will try to bite off more than they can chew.

The graphics wall has been hit now, the quality of games is getting lower

consolegaming wrote:For me next gen would be this gen but everything is 60fps 1080p with full anti-aliasing and no pop-up.

Developers of course will try to bite off more than they can chew.

The graphics wall has been hit now, the quality of games is getting lower

The graphics wall hasn't even come close to being hit yet, also we're never going to see every game at 60fps because developers will always try to push the hardware further.

Maybe if we see memory bandwidth approaching 1TB/s in 5 or so years time when the next console generation is upon us, then developers might be able to push the hardware pretty far while still maintaining 60fps, but i can always see developers taking the easy route, and i don't see anything wrong with 30fps for certain types of games.

consolegaming wrote:

Eighthours wrote:

Sarge wrote:"... the Wii is not succeeding at our expense

That's not true, it's taking casual consumers away from any possibility of them buying a PS3 but, more immediately, away from them picking up a cheapie PS2 right now.

IMO that is wrong, the wii has attracted loads of non gamers and has not taken away from sony really, also i do not think casuals would be buying the ps3 at £300 anyway, it is simply making the market bigger for sony to take in a few years down the line

See the bold.

<]:^D wrote:Stringer Bell

Omar being Nintendo then?

Shame he says there won't be a PS3 price cut, a significant one and I would consider buying one around Christmas.

Cuttooth wrote:

<]:^D wrote:Stringer Bell

Omar being Nintendo then?

Shame he says there won't be a PS3 price cut, a significant one and I would consider buying one around Christmas.

It's bad business to ever announce future price cuts, all that does is keep people already waiting for a price cuts waiting, while convincing people on the edge about whether to buy now or wait to wait. It's a lose lose situation. So you never know.

DaveDS wrote:

Peter Crisp wrote:

TheTurnipKing wrote:No. The general leap in power provided by a new consoles is generally simply a factor of time.

Sony could bung together a machine now with parts from PC parts suppliers that would be a leap over the PS3 if they needed to.

But then it'd just be a big bulky PC. And to be honest not really that much more powerful unless it was a full size tower with a GPU more than the current price of PS3 on it's own. Yeah course it would be more powerful but hardly the supposed 10x leap from ps1-2 and 2-3.

I think next gen should in theory appear like a bigger jump though, that's my opinion anyway. The problem with the current high end consoles is that they're using a good percentage of their extra power to run at HD resolutions (most of the time ). Next gen i assume all games will be 1080p native which again is another jump (roughly 2x) over 720p standard but not quite the numerical jump (3x) 720p was over 480p.

Agree - fact is Sony built a machine they've touted as being all powerful and its costing them gooseberry fool loads money. Stringer knows they'll never get that money back and, whilst he's big enough to laugh about it, he won't let the same mistake happen second time around I bet. (He wouldn't have let it happen this time around if he'd been brought in earlier.) Fact is it has cost them; last two generations were known by the name 'playstation' - this generation is known by the name 'wii'. That's one hell of a turn around and which ever way you look at it and its costing money in lost sales. Sony's main aim now has to be to keep that brand name well and truly alive ready for the next battle. I reckon that's perfectly achievable. What I don't think they'll do is release hardware that costs them money from day one next time around and is unlikely therefore to be supposedly head and shoulders above the competition. In any case Sony beat out the competition massively with the relatively underpowered ps1 and ps2, (and quite a few lies !), so they should know only too well how to play this game.

closer wrote:

DaveDS wrote:

Peter Crisp wrote:

TheTurnipKing wrote:No. The general leap in power provided by a new consoles is generally simply a factor of time.

Sony could bung together a machine now with parts from PC parts suppliers that would be a leap over the PS3 if they needed to.

But then it'd just be a big bulky PC. And to be honest not really that much more powerful unless it was a full size tower with a GPU more than the current price of PS3 on it's own. Yeah course it would be more powerful but hardly the supposed 10x leap from ps1-2 and 2-3.

I think next gen should in theory appear like a bigger jump though, that's my opinion anyway. The problem with the current high end consoles is that they're using a good percentage of their extra power to run at HD resolutions (most of the time ). Next gen i assume all games will be 1080p native which again is another jump (roughly 2x) over 720p standard but not quite the numerical jump (3x) 720p was over 480p.

Agree - fact is Sony built a machine they've touted as being all powerful and its costing them **** loads money. Stringer knows they'll never get that money back and, whilst he's big enough to laugh about it, he won't let the same mistake happen second time around I bet. (He wouldn't have let it happen this time around if he'd been brought in earlier.) Fact is it has cost them; last two generations were known by the name 'playstation' - this generation is known by the name 'wii'. That's one hell of a turn around and which ever way you look at it and its costing money in lost sales. Sony's main aim now has to be to keep that brand name well and truly alive ready for the next battle. I reckon that's perfectly achievable. What I don't think they'll do is release hardware that costs them money from day one next time around and is unlikely therefore to be supposedly head and shoulders above the competition. In any case Sony beat out the competition massively with the relatively underpowered ps1 and ps2, (and quite a few lies !), so they should know only too well how to play this game.

PS1 and PS2 certainly weren't underpowered for their time, just because more powerful consoles were released 12-18 months after doesn't change that. They've always aimed for cutting edge and made big losses on hardware sales.

I think Stringers comments about not getting the money back from PS3 is a bit tongue in cheek, they fully expect to start breaking even very soon and they're only 2 and a bit years into a 10 year strategy. People forgot consoles continue to bring in money even after their successors have been released, and I'm sure from the start they've planned the PS3 to follow the same sort of sales as PS2.

Because the PS2 has sold 140m and continues to sell people look at the PS3 figures and believe it's already failed in this goal. I think that's a bit short sighted, according the sales figures the PS3 is very close in sales to where the PS2 was at the same point in it's life cycle. Great games and price drops are inevitable, and will only encourage interest and increase sales.

I think starting off making a loss for the first couple of years is a good long term strategy and the only way we're going to see consoles as powerful as PS3/360 for their time, it proved an extremely successful strategy with PS1, then with PS2, is looking like proving successful with PSP, time will tell if it proves successful with PS3.

In terms of taking note of Nintendo's approach for their next console i can't see it happening. One thing Sony don't have to worry about with PS4 is blu-ray. It will be considerably cheaper to implement, and I'd be surprised if they don't use an evolved version of the Cell. That will automatically be billions of dollars worth of investment required for PS3 not required for PS4.

DaveDS wrote:

closer wrote:

DaveDS wrote:

Peter Crisp wrote:

TheTurnipKing wrote:No. The general leap in power provided by a new consoles is generally simply a factor of time.

Sony could bung together a machine now with parts from PC parts suppliers that would be a leap over the PS3 if they needed to.

But then it'd just be a big bulky PC. And to be honest not really that much more powerful unless it was a full size tower with a GPU more than the current price of PS3 on it's own. Yeah course it would be more powerful but hardly the supposed 10x leap from ps1-2 and 2-3.

I think next gen should in theory appear like a bigger jump though, that's my opinion anyway. The problem with the current high end consoles is that they're using a good percentage of their extra power to run at HD resolutions (most of the time ). Next gen i assume all games will be 1080p native which again is another jump (roughly 2x) over 720p standard but not quite the numerical jump (3x) 720p was over 480p.

Agree - fact is Sony built a machine they've touted as being all powerful and its costing them **** loads money. Stringer knows they'll never get that money back and, whilst he's big enough to laugh about it, he won't let the same mistake happen second time around I bet. (He wouldn't have let it happen this time around if he'd been brought in earlier.) Fact is it has cost them; last two generations were known by the name 'playstation' - this generation is known by the name 'wii'. That's one hell of a turn around and which ever way you look at it and its costing money in lost sales. Sony's main aim now has to be to keep that brand name well and truly alive ready for the next battle. I reckon that's perfectly achievable. What I don't think they'll do is release hardware that costs them money from day one next time around and is unlikely therefore to be supposedly head and shoulders above the competition. In any case Sony beat out the competition massively with the relatively underpowered ps1 and ps2, (and quite a few lies !), so they should know only too well how to play this game.

PS1 and PS2 certainly weren't underpowered for their time, just because more powerful consoles were released 12-18 months after doesn't change that. They've always aimed for cutting edge and made big losses on hardware sales.

I think Stringers comments about not getting the money back from PS3 is a bit tongue in cheek, they fully expect to start breaking even very soon and they're only 2 and a bit years into a 10 year strategy. People forgot consoles continue to bring in money even after their successors have been released, and I'm sure from the start they've planned the PS3 to follow the same sort of sales as PS2.

Because the PS2 has sold 140m and continues to sell people look at the PS3 figures and believe it's already failed in this goal. I think that's a bit short sighted, according the sales figures the PS3 is very close in sales to where the PS2 was at the same point in it's life cycle. Great games and price drops are inevitable, and will only encourage interest and increase sales.

I think starting off making a loss for the first couple of years is a good long term strategy and the only way we're going to see consoles as powerful as PS3/360 for their time, it proved an extremely successful strategy with PS1, then with PS2, is looking like proving successful with PSP, time will tell if it proves successful with PS3.

In terms of taking note of Nintendo's approach for their next console i can't see it happening. One thing Sony don't have to worry about with PS4 is blu-ray. It will be considerably cheaper to implement, and I'd be surprised if they don't use an evolved version of the Cell. That will automatically be billions of dollars worth of investment required for PS3 not required for PS4.

A lot of stuff in the above I don't disagree with but I'm really not convinced re Stringer being tongue in cheek - he's clearly far too smart for that. Also, just because Sony have always told you that their products are cutting edge doesn't mean they actually are - some are but they trade off the name on others An awful lot of stuff they sell really isn't as good as they make it out to be but hey good luck to them. I still think with Stringer in control, things will change - whether he succeeds or not only tie will tell. As a whole I reckon he will turn the big foundering ship that is Sony around but he'll make ruthless decisions to do so. Don't even be surprised to see that there isn't a ps4 ! He'll do whatever it takes to sort out the bottom line.

Whats someone who works for Sony(or any company) supposed to say?