Ok, with that out of the way...

Sony needs to simplify and cut costs. Just one SKU, with a cheap ass hard drive. Better marketing: a commercial should be nothing but in-game footage. Get the fuck away from Home: there's nothing noteworthy going on there yet anyway.

Jazz up your marketing Sony! Play up your strengths! You have blu-ray, excellent exclusives, and free online! Play that shit up in your commercials! Do some Genesis does/Nintendon't style marketing. Position yourself as the "high-end entertainment experience" that's worth more than your competitiors. It works for Apple, it can work for Sony.

I really wonder what the hell is going on with Sony. They need to wake the hell up over there!

*with

This is a sad day, unless it means I can get a PSP with a big ass hard drive.

@Tubatic: Agreed. While Sony's development learning curve certainly put off a few developers in the beginning it has been Sony's marketing and advertising plans that have effectively done them in.

Your mention of the vague reflections in the show windows brings up a thought I had last night. I saw the PSN commercial where the people had the games playing on their shirts, and while I can appreciate the artistic value of the commercial (and 'I' certainly get it) the average consumer who isn't keen to vague advertising might just look at it and think "WTF" was that?

Although, I have to say, the new Sony ads are NO WHERE NEAR as creepy as the 360 ads where people with the back of their heads are opened up and the camera pans around and there is like some stage where the back of their skull should be.

I go the answer!!!

Release a PS2 with blu ray....haha

No seriously they need to drop the price, as ive said before i got a upgradable blu ray player for 129.99 which is awesome so i cant justify 299 pound son a games machine which has the same games as my xbox more or less.

MS did right by getting the console out first, its different this time around as the exclusive third party is dead.Before SONY had loads of em so it didnt matter when the console came out compared to its competitors.

They need to lower the price, have a 40gb unit at £150 and a 160gb unit at £250.

Sony advertising has always been bizarre and very 90's

FUCKING HELL SONY!!

What on God's name is going on? They really, really, really, really need a massive management shake up, it's the execs and the marketing department that is 'killing' the PS3.

The ads were horrible, and still are, the decisions made by the execs were terrible, the thnigs said by them were facepalm worthy.


Sony are making the PS3 struggle, no one else.

the people that sony markets to don't have brand loyalty, so with every hardware generation, they have to grab as much marketshare as possible, as quickly as possible.

the ps2 was great at it, early console on the market, combined with brand recognition equaled large marketshare. that marketshare forced developers to get on board. ps3 has none of that. it's definitely a niche console, and should be marketed as such.

M$, i think, is going to continue to do well, as they have developed a sizeable following. i see plenty of 360 owners staying with M$ in the next few years.

ps3 is the n64 of this generation. out late, a little too high tech, and not enough games.

@cartman08,
What I really meant was people seem to sign up for Dtoid just to take a swipe at Sterling. They could at least be courteous enough to get an avatar first.

And with Home in open beta, there is no world beyond my monitor! I can cross-dress, get sexually harrased, and dance the running man all day without leaving my house! So there :P

Oh yeah Sony better marketing please. Save that avant garde advertising for your indy movies, not your games.

It's not just marketing that Sony has made mistakes in. They gambled that despite a high price for the PS3 it will get adopted pretty fast by loyal consumers who bought over a 100 million PS2 in the past generation. I would agree with those who have said that they made too much of the PS3's many bells and whistles which didn't involve playing games.

It also didn't help the PS3 that it came out late thus giving the 360 more than a full year to create a solid base of users. It also allowed developers to learn how to develop on the 360 which from all intents and purposes was already much easier to develop from due to its similarities to PC. Even now we still get multi-platform games where the PS3 version is either inferior in quality, or just equal to the 360...or worst yet, comes out months and months after the 360 version has already come out.

But in the end what is probably screwing up the PS3 is the fact that when its suppose to finally be gaining major momentum to overtake the 360 in overall sales the global recession hit. Outside of the hardcore gamers who don't care about price, most people now have become more price-conscious. Why pay 400 dollars for a system when they can spend less on another system which also has the same games. It also doesn't help that despite the PS3 actually being a bargain for all the stuff it has under the hood the perception still remains in most consumers' minds that the PS3 is more expensive.

I don't see the PS3 ever recovering from all the many blunders Sony made during its release and still doing to this day.

Having a high price point during a debt-deleveraging, deflationary recession means you will lose. Features don't matter. Games don't matter much. What matters here is the macroeconomic picture in terms of consumer spending, and Sony got it massively wrong.

I have to say that no one is going to care about the commercials- what they need to do is stop focusing on interim h/w builds of the psp, do a price drop on the ps3, get more 3rd party devs for both platforms, work on an emulator or b/c with ps2 games (that would automatically expant the library 4 or 5 times what it is at least) and push the fact that online is free-

You can't get the equivalent of a PS3 in the Xbox 360 for $200 The $200 Xbox comes with internal memory of 256 MB, one controller, and one game. When you spend $500 on your PS3 you get a wireless adapter, a hard drive, a means of charging your controller, sometimes you get a game. You also get to play online with your friends for free.
You spend the same amount on an xbox, you get shorted your wireless adapter and free online play. I bought my PS3 before they dropped the BC out of it. So my money was well spent. I have a system that can play PS3 games, PS2 games, and ps1 games. Because of everyone's "needs a price drop" they removed BC (backwards compatibility) out of the newly manufactured systems. I thought my $500 PS3 was well worth it. I saved up for a year and a half for it and have never had buyers remorse. I get excited every time I turn on my system to play Metal Gear, GTA IV or even LBP with my better half.
(A small side note for Jim)
I recently got enough cash to buy an Xbox 360 (arcade) and after my purchase I realized that if I wanted the same package that my PS3 offered I'd need to spend another $200-$300 on accessories. Controller wire and rechargeable battery pack $40, HDMI cable: (retail price at bestbuy and other electronic stores) $50. Wireless adapter: $100. One year of Xbox live gold $50. dont forget that you don't just get the white and green box for your system, there's a GIANT external power source that the xbox needs to be powered on.

Also.. Do I really need to point out that a Blu-ray player costs roughly $250-300? Why are you people being so damn stupid about this? You pay for quality. the Xbox is like the ford focus that could break down 6 months after you buy it whereas the PS3 is like the BMW, Mercedes, or Cadillac of the gaming world (well made and extreme quality)

You get what you pay for in this world. I saved my loot and bought myself a Playstation 3. And personally I think it was worth every penny.

Wii? Low quality graphics and low quality controls all for $250. (don't get me started on the bundle ripoff packs and the fact that most TVs are high definition now, yet the wii is still doing soft definition.. as Shao Kahn would say: "Don't make me Laugh, you weak pathetic fool!"

the biggest mistake Sony's made thus far with the PS3 is removing backwards compatibility. i was lucky enough to snag an 80GB model just before they took that out, but i just don't understand why they did it.

anyway, time to drop that price, Sony. although i love my PS3 and think it's worth every dime i paid for it, the PS3 needs to be $299 to compete in today's market.

i'm also VERY surprised that the 360 has become the go-to console for JRPGs over the past two years.

Hit sony over the head with a frying pan Credit Suisse.