For the longest time, Sony was at the top of the gaming world; the PS1 and PS2 were phenomenal successes, with the latter gaining 70 percent marketshare and the title of “best selling console of all time.” So how did Microsoft – the underdog last generation – end up out-selling Sony these past few years? Ex-Microsft executive Robbie Bach explains how they took advantage of what he believes are Sony’s mistakes.
Bach is the former president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division, which means he played a big role in the development of Microsoft’s Xbox consoles, and the less-successful Zune. The Xbox 360 has undoubtedly become a bigger success than its predecessor, though according to Bach, that was just as much in part due to Sony as it was to Microsoft.
Bach believes Sony mismanaged a lot going from the PS2 to introducing the PS3, including cost structure and how they created a platform that was difficult to develop for. This could be seen especially in early PS3 games, wherein multiplatform titles suffered from poor PS3 port jobs.
“Some of the success of Xbox was due to the fact that Sony did some really not so smart things. They mismanaged their 70 percent market share. It’s a long conversation. The transition to PlayStation 3 was really, really bad. And really hard. They mismanaged their partners, they mismanaged their cost structure. They made their next platform so complicated that developers couldn’t develop for it.”
It’s well known that Sony had a relatively slow start this generation, and the $600 introductory price point certainly didn’t help make things better for a console launching a full year after the Xbox 360, even with the built-in Blu-ray functionality. While the console picked up steam since 2006, Sony as a whole still hasn’t seen much luck, with their share prices hitting an all-time low. Despite this, the PS3 has been catching up to the Xbox 360 in worldwide sales numbers and currently is less than four million units behind.
While this is good news for Sony, their initial “mismanagement” of the PlayStation brand, as Bach describes, may have caused them trouble in the long run, now that Microsoft has a stronger footing in the industry at a time when Sony is losing money in the billions and struggling to sell their new handheld device, the Vita, which has only sold 1.8 million units worlwide, a far cry from the Nintendo 3DS.
Still, competition can only mean good things for gamers (price drops!). So while it’s unfortunate for Sony that they lost their dominance from the previous home console generation, gamers everywhere should be glad to see relatively equal footing from Microsoft and Sony as we approach the next generation where everything could change again.
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Follow me on Twitter @AnthonyMole.
Source: Geekwire
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It is a shame that the PS3 was so expensive at the start. If it wasnt I more than likely would have stuck with the Sony brand but the xbox was so cheap at the start Im now in the microsoft corner and wouldnt change over. The exclusive titles for Xbox are far better.
Definitely true. Cell has been I think indisputably a failure, and the dropping of backward compatibility was also a big mistake IMO (and the price, obviously). They’ve still done well, all things considered, to have pulled almost even after coming out a year behind the 360, and they’ve done very well with their games library. But yeah, they would probably be way ahead if not for the difficult, expensive hardware.
The PS3 is backwards compatible, the oldest version at least. The newer ones are actually worse because they’re not backwards compatible… I feel bad for the people who bought the slims.
Yeah, but the hardware in the slims is probably better overall, minus the lack of the emotion engine. And I guess maybe you can buy a used first-gen PS3 for cheaper than $600 bucks nowadays, but they’re probably still more expensive than slims… so maybe the tradeoff is worth it. And a $300 PS3 + a $100 PS2 is still cheaper than a $600 PS3.
Still, I think Sony should’ve done whatever they had to do to make backward compatibility work with the PS3′s architecture, without having to just straight-up put a PS2 graphics card in there.
The fact is the PS3 was doing bad in da beginning. I remember being da only one of mah friends who had it. Everyone had Xbox.
But the reason everyone is switching over now is cuz they are tired of paying for Xbox Live when Playstation Network is free. So when u think about it 5 years of $10 dollars a month or so u pretty much lost the money you saved initially by buying Xbox over PS3
I’ve been getting Live for avg $3 a month…
Honestly, it’s funny when you think of how Sony’s commercials used to say that the PS3 “only does everything.” Which I guess doesn’t include backwards compatibility. I didn’t find that to be too big of an issue, because over time, I’d stop playing older games. The real issue for me was inconvenience (no battery packs, headsets don’t plug into controller so either recharge a bluetooth headset or have a wire going across the room)…there were things that the 360 had that allowed me to realize how clutch they were. At that point, cost isn’t an issue when it comes to my experience in the long run. In the end, I think the PS3 was great, but by comparison, worse than the 360, which is all it takes to not buy a PS3.
The way I see it, it’s always hard to transition from generation to generation when it comes to consoles. But in Sony’s case the playstation 2 was still selling strong when they decided to release the PS3. I think it would have helped a bit if Sony had waited a bit longer to put out the PS3. That way I’m sure they could have done a bit more work on it and possibly justified the higher price, or at least lowered the price a bit. I always found the PS3 to be an over glorified Blu-ray player but that’s probably because I’m still playing my PS2 like the day I first bought it. So I really see no need to transfer my consoles since I’m still playing the previous generation’s games.
When had the funds to purches a PS3 system I found that playstation removied the backewards compatabilty between ps1 and ps2 to be able to play them on PS3 so since playstation mees the system up I ended up purchsed an xbox 360 I still want a ps3 the system I need to get is the PS3 metal gear solid bundle set I have seen some on line but the price has been a little on the high side so til I find one for the right price I’ll have to just wait to get the system I need