Crispy Gamer News

You spin me right round Sony .. or at least you’d like to.

Sony sent out an interesting release about its holiday sales that did not actually address coming in dead last in Dec. , but rather how great the PS3 is as a full-featured Blu-ray enabled entertainment and gaming device. The chart above compares the big three (the lowest entry points from each manufacturer — PS3 80GB - $399, Xbox 360 Arcade - $199, Wii - $249) based on space, Blu-ray, support, Wi-fi support out of the box, the cost of online gaming and HDMI cable support. Here’s some finely craft, grade A spin from Sony to set the mood:

 

The PS3 is the perfect example of a product featuring superior technology and a sophisticated design creating an ideal all-in-one entertainment product. The Xbox 360 requires additional money, multiple upgrades and additional external devices, putting a burden on the wallet and adds clutter to the entertainment center. And the Wii’s lack of enhanced features comes at the expense of a comprehensive entertainment solution. So as PS3 continues to evolve without the need for additional parts or expenses, expect the competition to continue peddling add-ons in an effort to keep up with the Jones’.

Too bad the Jones’ are probably broke, just like the Smiths’, and the Washingtons’. It is hard to deny that much of what Sony says is true, but a lot of the argument is irrelevant. The question the company really needs to address is how do they get consumers to purchase a game system that is $200 more than the Xbox 360 and $150 more than the Wii when the economy will continue to be in the shit for at least the next six months - if not longer. My advice? A price cut.

Sony has denied reports that it was considering additional restructuring actions beyond what it had announced in December. The speculation came from  a report over the weekend that said the company planned a big corporate upheaval. This might include more job cuts, dramatic changes to management and manufacturing processes, according to UK-based paper, the Times of London. If true, the restructuring would probably be announced after the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. Naturally Sony flatly denies the report saying that it has no further beyond the job cuts and plant closures it unveiled in December. 

“We announced the restructuring of the electronics business last month,” said Sony spokesman Atsuo Omagari, speaking to Bloomberg. “We are not planning to announce further restructuring at this time.”

Sony may be forced to make further difficult restructuring decisions beyond what it has already announced. This could include cutting more jobs than the 8,000 fulltime and 8, 000 temporary that it already announced last week. According to a Kyodo news service interview with the Sony president Ryoji Chubachi published Thursday, Sony’s top executive said more steps including further lay-offs may be needed to keep the company from sinking further into the abyss.

“With only these measures, we cannot fully survive the current economic situation,” he said.

Chubachi pointed out that global business conditions are getting worse and demand for its consumer electronics products have been falling since late November. He believes this trend is one that isn’t going away anytime soon, so the company needs to do whatever it can to keep its head above water.
He also said that Sony would have to reassess the planned expansion of its personal computer, Blu-ray Disc and semiconductor operations into “trillion yen businesses” by March 2011.

While the awful state of the global economy can be attributed to a portion of Sony’s current problems — including consumer demand for some of its electronic products — the company’s PS3 can only be competitive with the Xbox 360 and Wii by cutting the price of the system. Cheaper Blu-Ray disc players are not helping matters any, considering that the PS3 was being billed as an excellent cost effective means of playing Sony’s high definition disc format.

It is a tough position to be in — and one that will mean some hard decisions and difficult times for workers who may become a target to reduce cost.

To say that PlayStation Home has had a lukewarm launch would probably be one of the biggest understatements of the year. The PS3’s social networking service has been plagued with server crashes, stripped features, and even reports of widespread hacking. Sony seems to be scrambling to fix things, though, as a post on the PlayStation blog is reporting that the service will be undergoing another round of maintenance today to try and fix some of the issues.

The new update, moving things up from v1.03 to v 1.04, is supposed to address “the difficulty some people are having accessing PlayStation Home due to the high demand for the service”. It also looks like Sony thinks some of the issues may be stemming from the chatter going on in Home, as the voice chat feature on the service is being “temporarily suspended”. Who knew that that smack talk and cybersex could take up so much bandwidth? Well … who besides more than three quarters of the people who ever go into virtual worlds? (Second Life anyone?)

To make up for the temporary case of laryngitis on Home, the new update will add give players something extra in their avatar closets: beards. While the selection is extremely limited, and you still can’t create the “Mirror, Mirror” style evil twin of your Home persona to blame for all your actions, there’s a nice big set of muttonchops and even a full beard/moustache combo that would do Santa proud. If nothing else, this should bring a little more diversity to the appearance of the Home population. The fairer sex, though, is out of luck. With no new additions to the female avatar toolbox, it looks like the Bearded Lady will have to be content to stick with her carnival act.

NPD sales data numbers for the month of Nov. 2008 are in, and to its competition’s chagrin, Nintendo continues to dominate the hardware sales chart. for the month of November, Nintendo managed to sell through 2.04 million units in North America, outpacing its own sales numbers from the same period a year ago (981K) by twofold. The Nintendo Ds also did pretty well during the month, moving 1.57 million units, up slightly from 1.53 million in Nov. 2007.

While Nintendo’s platforms continue to take the rest of the pack to the woodshed on a regular basis, there’s some good news for Microsoft and some even more bad news for Sony; the Xbox 360 sold 836K units in Nov., up slightly from 770K units a year ago beating out the PS3, PSP and PS2. The PS3 moved 378K units, but was down from 466K a year ago. The PSP moved 421K units, but was down from 567K in the same period a year ago, and the aging PS2 moved 206K units - down substantially from 496K units in Nov. 2007.  (more after the break)

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According to CVG, who taps into a questionable news report from a UK newspaper The Sunday Times, Sony’s Home will launch on Dec. 17. The virtual world space, which has been compared (much to the chagrin of Sony) to Second Life, lets users create a virtual space of their own complete with themed decor, trophies and other baubles. Home also lets you enter into public areas where you can find other players to chat with or play against in a relaxed setting.

The Sunday Times report may just be a confused moment on the part of the writer, or maybe even wishful thinking; gamers are expecting an open beta, as opposed to the final version of Sony’s special product so soon. Still, the Home beta is in the hands of hundreds of thousands of gamers now, so maybe it is ready for wide distribution. The official word so far from Sony is no word at all: “No comment.” We’ll keep you posted.

Sony’s virtual ‘Home’ away from home hasn’t even officially opened to the public yet, and it’s already looking like the neighborhood is getting zoned for commercial use. According to a report this morning on UK-based marketing website BrandRepublic, energy drink manufacturer Red bull has become the first brand to build a presence in PlayStation Home. While game companies have promised to have their own presence in the virtual PS3 community, Red Bull is the first non-gaming company to announce a brand partnership with Sony.

The Red Bull brand will be showcase on a new tropical island built in Home, which will feature an airplane racing game based on Red Bull’s real world Red Bull Air Race series.
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