By Joe Keiser
August 28, 2008
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“The Wii is a well-made device that has found a new target group. For a while, we held the same target group with the SingStar karaoke game. But perhaps we neglected to pursue that avenue."
While Sony CEO Howard Stringer doesn’t think the Wii is hurting the PS3, he does admit that Nintendo's refusal to sell hardware at a loss may represent a “superior business model” to his own company’s razor and blades system.
Speaking to German news outlet WELT Online, Stringer contested that the PS3 is in direct competition with the Wii, especially when it comes to the long-term strategy of Sony. “…the Wii is not succeeding at our expense – it is not hurting us,” he said. “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.”
Stringer mentioned that executing this strategy may have cost Sony an opportunity with the target demographic of the Wii. When asked if he thought the Wii was more fun than the PlayStation, he said “The Wii is a well-made device that has found a new target group. For a while, we held the same target group with the SingStar karaoke game. But perhaps we neglected to pursue that avenue. PlayStation games are rather designed for those who play a lot.”
Stringer also said that he did not think the PS3 would see a price cut before the holidays. When asked if he thought Sony could ever get back the US$3 billion (£1.64 billion) poured in the PS3, he answered, “Not for as long as I live,” before qualifying that it would “certainly take some time.” According to Stringer, Sony still needs “to get a grip on the production costs” with regards to the PS3, but, he added, the company is “already making more money with the games than we are losing with the hardware.”
"Razor and blades" isn't actually that stupid a business model when selling your machine at cost/profit would make it prohibitively expensive, as it would be for PS3 or 360... Nintendo's business-model innovations have certainly worked extremely well but I don't know if they were really that obvious!
Haha, yeah this is why these guys are CEOs they know the fundamentals of business like no-one else could!
Not selling your console at a loss is a "superior business model"? Get out! who knew?