Sony has no plans to cut PS3 price

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Sony isn’t planning to cut the price of its PlayStation 3 to pep up demand or counter surging sales of Nintendo rival Wii, Sony’s president said Friday.

Sony President Ryoji Chubachi also said in an interview that operating profit margin at its mainstay electronics unit, which makes hot-selling Bravia LCD televisions and Cyber-shot digital cameras, is likely to exceed its 4 percent target for the current fiscal year that ends in March 2008.

“At present, we have no plans,” Chubachi told Reuters when asked whether Sony had any plans to cut the PS3 price.

Sony has packed cutting-edge technology such as a Blu-ray high-definition optical disc player into the PS3, driving up production costs and making its retail price more than twice as expensive as the Wii.

The higher price tag and lack of attractive software titles have been cited as main reasons the PS3 has been trailing the Wii in sales, and analysts have been widely expecting Sony to soon slash the price to spur demand.

In a Reuters survey of four game analysts this week, three expect Sony to cut PS3 prices by $100 by the end of the year, while one analyst said a cut of $150 is more likely.

The PS3, with a 60GB hard drive, carries a price tag of $599 in the United States, while the Wii sells for about $250.

“If you take a look at how PlayStation and PlayStation 2 have taken off, this is not such an unusual start,” Chubachi said.

When the PS2 made its debut in 2000, Sony was initially criticized for lack of strong titles, and some software publishers said the machine was too complex to develop for.

Sony eventually overcame those difficulties and has sold more than 120 million PS2 units, making it the top-selling video game console ever.

In a sign of lack of confidence on the side of investors, however, Sony, which has sales eight times as big as Nintendo, was overtaken by the Kyoto-based company last week in market capitalization and bumped off the list of Japan’s 10 most valuable companies.

ZDNET

E3 to focus on cheaper hardware, new games

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The video game industry will gather for its annual expo next week, with expectations that cheaper hardware and new games will fuel the strongest sales in years.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is also a chance for investors to look under the hood of a $30 billion global industry that rivals the movie and music businesses as it expands beyond a traditional audience of teenage boys.

This year’s E3 is forgoing the huge crowds, gaudy displays and scantily clad “booth babes” of years past in favor of smaller, more dignified proceedings scattered among venues in the Southern California seaside city of Santa Monica.

The biggest expectation is that Sony will slash the price of its PlayStation 3, which is stuck in last place among new gaming machines due to its $600 price tag and thin lineup of games.

However, if Sony does cut the PS3’s price by $100, the impact could be blunted if Microsoft responds by trimming prices on its own Xbox 360, which comes in three models now costing from $300 to $480.

“The biggest potential would be maybe announcement of price cuts for both the PS3 and the 360,” said Mike Hickey, an analyst with Janco Partners.

Nintendo almost certainly won’t tinker with its prices. Its Wii console is enjoying runaway success, outselling rivals by several times due in part to a $250 price that hits a sweet spot of mass-market affordability.

Instead, Nintendo may announce new features for the Wii or unveil a redesign of its popular DS handheld gaming device.

“The only thing I think Nintendo may announce is a headset and microphone for the Wii. They are also inching their way into online gaming. They are not as focused on communications as they should have been,” said Peer Schneider, vice president of content publishing for IGN, a games-oriented Web site.

Price cuts for two of the three consoles may be just the thing to juice sales and build a larger base of hardware ahead of the year-end holiday shopping season that accounts for more than half of the industry’s annual sales.

But Evan Wilson, an analyst with Pacific Crest, said Sony may not cut prices until just before the holidays. Sony already loses several hundred dollars on each PS3, and management’s drive to get the giant electronics company back on track financially may force it to stay the course on price.

“Any meaningful price cut on the PS3 would drag down the profitability of the game unit,” Wilson said.

Many are looking forward to checking out a dizzying array of new games at E3 that analysts think will mark a turning point for the industry after a longer-than-expected transition to new consoles.

“The migration to next-gen consoles has taken longer than expected, which is prolonging the early stages of this product lifecycle,” analyst Eric Handler wrote. “But an increasing slate of games being readied for market offers the potential for strong growth.”

A small sample of the titles expected to grab the spotlight this year includes Grand Theft Auto IV and Bioshock from Take-Two Interactive Software, Killzone from Sony, Super Smash Bros. Brawl from Nintendo, Rockband from Electronic Arts and rival music game Guitar Hero III from Activision.

“Last year was all about hardware. This year is software, and software drives hardware,” Hickey said. “In a few years, they’ll be selling software to a gigantic installed base and at a higher price point. The economics are phenomenal.”

The new game titles could be a catalyst for publisher shares, many of which have traded flat to lower this year.

Wilson of Pacific Crest estimates industry total revenue could jump 20 percent in 2007.

The fast growth is drawing increasing attention. Lehman Brothers recently began covering four major U.S. video game publishers, saying that returns in the industry were better than in all other media and entertainment sectors.

Electronic Arts and Activision are two favorite picks by analysts due to their broad array of games and strong movie tie-ins.

Investors have frowned upon publishers that are overly reliant on one or two hit games, such as Midway Games, which has dropped 10 percent this year and Konami, which has shed 23 percent.

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Good Bye DAX; Dark_Alex leaves the scene

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Recently, Dark_Alex aka DAX has now left the homebrew scene. Other’s think it was a rumor, and others are sad, angry, and worried.
You can visit Dax’s site here, containing his good-bye message. http://dark-alex.org/

His last message were:

Bye, scene.

I’ve decided to cease OE development, and leave PSP scene.
The reasons are various.
One of them is the time it consumes, which i’m losing from other things.
The other is related to my security. I didn’t like Sony menaces to PS3 hackers.
I think it is better to leave now rather than end paying the consequences.

He decidido cesar el desarrollo de OE, y abandonar la scene de la PSP.
Las razones son varias.
Una de ellas es el tiempo que me consume, que estoy perdiendo de otras cosas.
La otra esta relacionada con mi seguridad. No me gustaron las amenazas de Sony a los hackers de la PS3.
Creo que es mejor retirarse ahora que estoy a tiempo, que acabar pagando las consecuencias.

Dark_AleX

Shot at 2007-07-02

Dark_AleX skipping 3.50-OE working on 3.51-OE instead

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French PSP news site PSP-Generation has posted some pretty big news - both good and bad - concerning the PSP homebrew scene.

The bad news is that according to Mathieulh, Dark AleX will not be releasing custom firmware 3.50 OE, so those who have been waiting for it won’t ever get it. The good news is that Dark AleX will be rolling out custom firmware 3.51 OE instead to keep abreast of Sony’s most current firmware version for the PSP handheld system.

There has been no time frame yet for when 3.51 OE will come out, but rest assured that we’ll be reporting it as soon as it does. Keep checking back here for updates. Thanks to bhattsan for the heads-up on this news piece.

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Nintendo Wii outsells PS3 6 to 1 in Japan in June

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Nintendo sold 270,974 units of the Wii in the four weeks ended June 24, compared with 41,628 units for the PS3 and 17,616 units for Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360, according to data from Enterbrain.

The Wii’s lead against the PS3 was 4 to 1 in April and 5 to 1 in May.

The Wii’s strong performance, coupled with continued brisk demand for Nintendo’s portable game gear, the DS, helped the Kyoto-based company shoot past Sony in market capitalization last week and become one of Japan’s 10 most valuable companies.

Shares in Nintendo were up 0.2 percent at 45,200 yen by late morning on Monday, while Sony, a company with sales eight times as big as Nintendo’s, fell 0.3 percent to 6,310 yen.

The Nikkei average was down 0.19 percent.

The Wii has won more customers than its two rivals since its Japanese launch late last year by offering innovative ways of playing console games.

The device features a motion-sensitive controller that allows users to direct on-screen play by swinging it like a baseball bat or wielding it like a sword, opening a new avenue of game playing.

Sony, which has dominated the $30 billion global game industry over the past decade with its PlayStation and PlayStation 2, saw a slow start for the PS3 due mainly to its high prices and lack of attractive software titles.

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33 Percent of Xbox 360s Failing?

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According to anecdotal evidence provided by retailers. But is anecdotal evidence enough? Daily Tech conducted a non-scientific “poll” by calling several North American retail outlets and inquiring about Xbox 360 failure rates. The response? A resounding “least reliable gaming console in recent history.” Ouch, and scary-bold words, but what do they mean?

Maybe nothing, but probably something. Did you read about the guy who returned his Xbox 360 twelve times? How about an alleged Australian failure rate “as high as 30%”? Maybe you caught this gem about Microsoft deleting over 900 replies from the Forza 2 forums claiming the game was crashing Xbox 360s?

I’ve mentioned it before, but I had a 360 meltdown a while back myself. It happened to correspond with a rampant Internet rumor that the game Dead Rising was killing systems (one of my favorite games on the platform). I sent my system into Microsoft, got it (or a refurbished unit) back, no harm no foul, and it’s been chomping data and spitting heat in an enclosed cabinet for the last six months problem-free. My personal experience = excellent.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say again that I’d really like to see Microsoft release internal tracking numbers. Give us date ranges with reasons for failure, or just debate Daily Tech’s numbers, though in the end, I certainly can’t argue with Microsoft VP Peter Moore when he tells 1UP “What [the] consumer should worry about is the way that we’ve treated him…Y’know, things break, and if we’ve treated him well and fixed his problem, that’s something that we’re focused on right now.”

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HOT PIXEL demo now available on PSP

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PSP owners can now visit www.yourpsp.com and download the demo for the PSP exclusive HOT PIXEL.

The demo features one full episode of HOT PIXEL comprising 10 mini games and a boss battle. Weird and wonderful tasks thrown at the player include catching marshmallows, skateboard odd-one-out and staying on a diet in the face of an onslaught of hamburgers.

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