We have a petition running in an attempt to get Sony to reduce the price of the PS3 in Europe.

Please come along to http://www.sonycon.co.uk and sign it!

Your support is appreciated.

!CS!

That’s is just so stupid!!!
I can’t even begin to come up with a comment… It’s like trying to convince a five year old kid, his father isn’t the strongest man alive.

Once again the brain trust at Sony (or more specifically, SCEE) have offered some more
amazingly insightful pearls of wisdom in relation to PS3 console pricing, consumers, and the
European market.

Corporate mouthpiece and stand-up comedian in-the-making (SCEE president) David Reeves has
once again given us all an instance of SCEE arrogance by quietly murmuring the following
statement in an interview with semi-official Sony blog Three Speech;

“July is not really a gamers’ month unless you get a big, big title. So we thought if we reduced the
price (of the PS3), we’d annoy a lot of people.”

Let’s review that statement.

Firstly, how can you “annoy a lot of people” with a price cut for something as desirable as a PS3,
no matter what month of the year it is? Secondly, if July is a little low on big name game releases,
why the hell wouldn’t you announce a PS3 price cut WHEN PEOPLE HAVE SOME SPARE CASH
TO THROW AROUND?!!?

If you have some big games lined-up for the holiday season, what better time than the summer to
grab a price-reduced console in preparation? Buy a PS3 now and the window of saving time
between the summer and the holidays is such that you actually spread the cost of purchasing a
new console and three or four games.

Wait for a price cut, and you give up on potential game sales, further reducing the market to a
shining example of corporate-controlled franchise instalments designed to drip-feed so-called ‘new
modes’ and ‘exciting new feature(s)’ that should have and could have been included in the
previous year’s version.

So, the situation is now this; come the holiday season, consumers will buy a cut-priced PS3 and
perhaps two games. If the price-cut had happened in the summer, consumers would already have
a PS3 and would therefore have more money saved to splash out on three or four titles - instead of
only purchasing just the latest Madden or Tony Hawk outing, consumers would have more choice
to spring for a title they would not normally grab, thus giving smaller (and in most cases, more
playable) titles a piece of the consumer pie.

How long will it be before we start to see some of the smaller games companies go out of business
as the ‘corporate giants’ stride across the bloody battlefield, hurling well-placed copies of ‘Fifa’ and
‘Smackdown Vs. Raw’ into the backs of the little guy?

Okay, perhaps that’s taking things a little too far - after all, Microsoft (and to a lesser extent
Nintendo) are just as responsible for flooding the market with tried and tested titles which
guarantee sales. And let’s not forget the role of the consumers themselves that have a very
important hand in all of this too (so what if you miss the latest ‘update’ of your favourite franchise
game? Wait another year for double the improvements so that you at least get more bang for your
buck).

The bottom line is this - SCEE have once again misjudged their consumer base. Their finger is no
longer on the pulse of the gaming community - it’s attached to the hand that’s hurriedly taping
figures into a calculator in an effort to make up for the 68% drop in operating profits from the 1st Q
of the current financial year.

Take care of the consumer, and they’ll take care of you by displaying brand loyalty. Screw with
them - or worse, take them for granted - and they’ll flock to the opposition.

Looking at the big picture (and ahead to the future) it’s hard to believe that the PS3 will have
much of a fan base left at all by this time next year. This is just the latest example of stupid
thinking on SCEE’s part, and one more nail in the coffin of a company that should know better.
Arrogance and stupidity are great traits for a pro-wrester - they’re not so good for a publicly funded
company.

Cry all you want about ‘Microsoft Points’ or ‘faulty 360‘s‘; the fact remains that, even though they’ve
only been in the console market since 2001, Microsoft have not only managed to compete with
Sony and Nintendo, but they’ve also succeeded in taking the entire gaming platform to the next
level.

Faulty 360’s? Hey, at least Microsoft are owning up to and fixing their mistakes, at some
considerable cost to themselves. Can you imagine the mess that Sony would make of a similar
situation?

“We are aware of problems with one or two PS3’s, however, the return rate of individual units is well
within the acceptable rates commensurate to a major console release.”

Giving the excuse that, because the PS3 arrived later in Europe than other global territories means
that it’s still too early to consider cutting the price of the machine, is quite frankly, bone-headed.
PS3 sales in Europe are apparently “not doing too badly” - so why cut the price now when units are
still being sold, and money (however small the mark-up may be) is still being squeezed out of loyal
Sony customers?

You can deliver lines like “the UK is a really competitive market” all you want - to my mind, that’s
just a cowards way of saying “we don’t like it when our consoles are reduced by UK retailers, so we’
re taking our ball and coming back when we feel like it.”

Thanks for thinking so highly of us here in Europe, SCEE - you can take your ‘PS3 Value Packs’
and…well, you know the rest.

Steven Lowis
http://www.joo-see.com/ps3pricecut002.html

-Sony really does have HUA disease!!