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Forbes: " Sony draws yawns ".

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S

sphinx

the piano man
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/07/11/sony-e3-nintendo-tech-personal-cx_rr_0711techsony.html

Sony Draws Yawns
Rachel Rosmarin, 07.11.07, 7:49 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - If the best Sony has to offer is a Darth Vader-branded PlayStation Portable, it may be in trouble.

Having already announced its big news July 9 — a $100 price drop on the PlayStation 3 — Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people )'s event at the E3 video game convention Wednesday didn't leave room for many surprises.

However, Sony made a point of picking a hardware fight with Nintendo (other-otc: NTDOY - news - people ) on the portable front. Sony redesigned its PlayStation Portable into a slimmer shape, offered two new colors (one silver, and one etched with Star Wars' Darth Vader) and gave it the ability to export video to high-definition televisions, all to better compete with Nintendo's DS. Nintendo sells about 423,000 portable devices per month, while Sony sells only 221,000, according to NPD.

Sony executives made it clear that they know they need to do more than lower prices to woo consumers back to its flagging video game brand. Tepid audience response at Wednesday's event suggests the company hasn't yet done enough.

“Our accomplishments bring no guarantees for the future,” said Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton. “We want to earn each and every one of our customers.” While Monday's price cut is already reaping rewards — Tretton said sales of the just-reduced PS3 have already doubled at the company's top five retailers — it won't juice sales enough to give the company the “installed base” that it wants.

Sony tried to impress its bread and butter customers — hard-core gamers — with a slew of exclusive violent action games from third-party publishers and Sony's in-house studios. Footage of gruesome knife battles in Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4 drew cheers, but it might be too little too late: the game will be released later than expected in early 2008.

The company can't promise PS3 owners exclusive access to Grand Theft Auto 4 from Take-Two Interactive (nasdaq: TTWO - news - people ) — it will appear on Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people )'s Xbox 360 as well — so Sony's taking a stab at creating a game called Infamous, which features a similar style of play known as the “emergent gaming sandbox.”

Price cuts and new colors on hardware will only go so far to help Sony catch up to Nintendo, which is moving to take an even bigger lead. Earlier on Wednesday at Nintendo's E3 event, the company attempted to prove that it could expand upon its successful strategy of appealing to nontraditional gamers, while at the same time encroaching on Sony's hard-core gamer demographic.

Nintendo aims to get traditional gamers interested in the Wii with a new gun-shaped controller and a few “first-person shooter” games. For everyone else, Nintendo intends to capitalize on the Wii's motion-sensing features by selling a new suite of health-conscious games called Wii Fit. It requires the purchase of a floor-pad controller that looks a lot like a bathroom scale. :lol
Click to expand...



Don't kill the messenger, lock if old or uncomfortable
 
G

GavinGT

Banned
No mention of the boring MS conference, or the boring Nintendo conference? If anything, Sony had the most exciting showing.
 
R

reilo

learning some important life lessons from magical Negroes
Heh.

You have to realize Forbes is a financial magazine. They only understand numbers. They don't understand games.

Ignore this article.
 
J

jman2050

Member
Articles like these make it all the more mind-boggling that people still think Nintendo doesn't have this generation in the bag.
 
T

TheGreatDave

Banned
jman2050 said:
Articles like these make it all the more mind-boggling that people still think Nintendo doesn't have this generation in the bag.
Click to expand...

People can't stick with 480p for more than another 3 weeks. The shift is coming.
 
M

mollipen

Member
Two years ago, I never would have thought that I'd be feeling sorry for Sony and wishing that people would give them a bit of a break. But, here I am.
 
F

fernoca

Member
:lol
Oh well..
And Wii Fit includes the floor pad...so I don't why he says that it requires the purchase to play it.
 
M

MightyHedgehog

Member
GavinGT said:
No mention of the boring MS conference, or the boring Nintendo conference? If anything, Sony had the most exciting showing.
Click to expand...
What does a conference mean in the end, though? Pretty much nothing. A moment of relief is all that E3 is for fans of the system, though it doesn't change the reality of the system's poor business.

shidoshi said:
Two years ago, I never would have thought that I'd be feeling sorry for Sony and wishing that people would give them a bit of a break. But, here I am.
Click to expand...
You feel sorry for them? Why? If they rode the media to success, they can ride it downward, too.
 
C

Cheebs

Member
It is amazing how out of touch we all are with the mainstream gaming public. We all praised the sony conference yet most only care about Wii Fit. :lol
 
S

Stop It

Perfectly able to grasp the inherent value of the fishing game.
Oh Gaf, they fap at Sony, while any media that actually means anything to the average consumer just stares and says "Whatever", heh.

People here wonder why Ninty pulled what they did in E3, wait until the media bites with article after aticle about Wii Fit, then you'll realise they weren't really interested in fanboys bitter tears.
 
H

Hcoregamer00

The 'H' stands for hentai.
Is anyone shocked here?

Wii Fit will be plastered all over the mainstream newspapers tomorrow talking about it being the "next big thing."
 
F

FrankT

Member
If the best Sony has to offer is a Darth Vader-branded PlayStation Portable, it may be in trouble.
Click to expand...

Cold, ice cold. Eh, Sony is trying at least they dropped the price by 100. I'll give em credit where credit is due. It is going to be an uphill battle this year for them, no doubt.
 
P

Pachael

Member
TheGreatDave said:
And this is why Nintendo focused so much on Wii Fit
Click to expand...

Yup. And you know when mainstream America wakes up tomorrow, they will be reading about Wii Fit (and that Sony's in trouble). I expect Wii Fit to be a hit. Sales figures are king!
 
H

Hollywood_mIRC

Banned
:lol

Sweet justice. GAF =/ the rest of the populace.

GAF = LOLZ Nintendo sucks, exercise game? Sony wins!!!

Mainstream media, casual consumers - OOOOH! Exercise pack? Awesome. Sony = lame

Nintendo = $$$$$ :lol
 
A

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
well nintendo can sell their exercise game ($300 christmas bundle with Wii Fit), it just doesn't interest me. Their conference was awful. Sony, on the other hand...
 
F

fortified_concept

Banned
Are they ****ing stupidd or something? The way they're dismissing everything so easily and not even mention many great games is ridiculous. WTF is this shit?
 
S

sphinx

the piano man
PantherLotus said:
Was laughing smilie in the article or did you add that?
Click to expand...

:lol :lol :lol

of course I added the :lol.

and by the way I think Mrs Rosmarin is being a little unfair this time around. Most of the time I agree with the media that flames sony but I think sony did deliver this time and catered nicely to their fanbase and followers.

the :lol was because you would think they'd proceed to praise their precious, selling nintendo Wii but all they said was the bathroom scale comment. This people are really hilarious.
 
S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
soundwave05 said:
Kinda funny to see MS and Sony get totally chumped by the mainstream media.

Complete opposite of 5 years ago.
Click to expand...


And thats what the entire Nintendo's press conference was about: To thank them so that they get more media...

Seriously. Gaming will forever change if the mainstream media feeds crap like that to people. Even EA was showing "casual games"...
 
T

titiklabingapat

Member
In the eyes of the mainstream media, most FPS, hacknslash, adventure games outside of Tomb Raider, Platforming outside of Mario, and Pokemon's genre outside of Pokemon are all the same.
 
T

TheGreatDave

Banned
Hey guys, you can read This as well if you feel like being angry.

"Sony's E3 briefing was more like a blind guy throwing a bunch of darts, hoping some will actually hit the board."

"Sony really should have taken a page from Nintendo..."

GO GET ANGRY
 
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