Sleepy Gamer

With the phenomenal sales of the original PS1 and PS2, Sony was once way ahead of the curve.  So it’s come to be quite a disappointment to see the PS3 limping along this generation.  When Ken Kuturagi unveiled the PS3 back in 2005, it was touted as the most powerful and revolutionary gaming system ever made.  Apparently, all that power and revolution didn’t mean squat.  Looking at the December 2008 sales figures, we can see that the Wii completely outsold the PS3 almost 3:1, with the Xbox 360 outselling almost 2:1.

* Wii — 2,150,000
* Xbox 360 — 1,440,000
* PlayStation 3 — 726,000

Sony needs to do some damage control, and they need to do it fast.  Here are some suggestions to make 2009, the year of the Playstation.

PS3 Price Drop
Since there’s no way for the PS3 to compete with the Wii, the best that they can do right now is fight for 2nd place.  With the current recession, it’s obviously not a good idea to be the most expensive system on the market.  With the PS3 models retailing at $399 and $499, it’s much more expensive than the Xbox 360 at $199, $299, and $399.  Sony justifies this price difference due to the built-in blu-ray player capabilities, but it appears the general public is still quite happy with their DVDs and can’t justify paying the extra premium for this feature.  To top it off, most PS3 versions of a game often look worse than its Xbox counterpart.  So why pay more when its competitor is providing a better gaming experience at a lower price?  Sony needs to drop the price to $299 to simply compete with the Xbox 360.

Stop Home
I really do commend Sony for trying something new to rejuvenate the Playstation 3 community.  But from what we’re seeing so far, Home is better off dead.  In its current form, all you really do is walk around sparse environments and visit various locales that don’t have much substance.  It’s awfully slow, dull, and unappealing even after just playing the first 5 minutes.  I understand that it’s still in beta release, but I honestly don’t see how Home can move any PS3 hardware units off store shelves.  It’s nice to be able to see your gaming achievements materialize as trophies within Home, but that’s really the only positive feature it has.  It’s quite disappointing that Sony is investing millions into services like this.  Is it too much to ask for Sony to put where Home belongs … in a garbage can?  Quite frankly, they should follow Microsoft’s path and use that money to buy game exclusives… which brings me to the next topic.

Buy exclusives
Despite all the other shortcomings, game exclusivity is what’s hurting the Playstation 3 the most.  Within the last 2 years, we’ve seen Sony lose many of its key exclusive franchises.  It’s quite sad to see old Playstation exclusives like Devil May Cry, Ace Combat, and Final Fantasy, being released for the Xbox 360 as well.  Losing these exclusives basically equates to lost hardware sales for Sony since the more affordable Xbox offers the same games.  On top of that, most of the downloadable content (DLC) are solely exclusive on the Xbox 360 version, which makes it even more appealing to get an Xbox instead.  These exclusives are really what would make or break a system and will allow them stand out from the competition.  Sony really needs to pony up the money for these exclusives, otherwise, just count on continuing to be 3rd place.

Advertise more to the general audience
Not too long ago, a friend of mine stopped by just to hang out.  I asked him if he wanted to play this neat little game called Little Big Planet.  But to my surprise, he had no idea what I was talking about.  This leads me to think… how is Sony trying to reach out to the casual audience?  Apparently the general consensus for the PS3 is that it’s a complicated, high end, hardcore entertainment system.  That intimidating image might have worked for the PS2, but Sony needs to really get off that high horse and start appealing more to casual gamers.  Sony needs to showcase more features that are often overlooked for that system.  Did you know that it has a built-in Internet browser that allows you to stream your favorite movies and shows from popular sites like hulu.com?  Or what about how you can turn your PS3 into a digital media center that streams multimedia from your home desktop to your big screen TV.  Also, if you have a PSP, you can even connect to your PS3 remotely and play certain PSN games away from your home.  The beauty of all this is that it’s available absolutely free of charge.  Now why didn’t everyone know that?

Stop the multiple SKUs
One of the annoying things about the Xbox 360 were the different bundles that Microsoft offered for it.  If you read Garret’s post, you can see what I’m talking about.  Sure it gave consumers the freedom of purchasing a system that fits their tastes, but when it comes down to it, people want simplicity.  How is any unsuspecting parent supposed to know what’s the difference between the Arcade, Premium, and Elite Xbox bundles?  Heck, even a lot of hardcore gamers don’t know the difference.  The beauty of the Wii is that there’s only one model that includes everything that you need.  Sony made the right choice by including a hard drive in every PS3 bundles, but did they really need to fragment their user base by offering multiple SKUs?  All these different models end up doing is cause confusion and grief for any parent who just wants to make their kids happy.  The PS1 and PS2 didn’t have these confusions, so why does the PS3 need it?