Sony finally 'gets' gaming again
Sony is back
(Credit: Digital Home)Has it finally happened? Has Sony finally found the solution to its year-long Playstation 3 problem? It certainly looks that way.
According to the company, Sony has cut its software development kit prices in half to $10,250 in North America, $8,600 in Japan and $11,250 in Europe. And while this may not mean much to some, to me it indicates a startling change of course by a company that had heretofore lost sight of what is important in this generation.
And although I've beaten on Sony quite a bit on Digital Home, this change in policy -- namely, price reduction -- could spell trouble for both Microsoft and Nintendo.
Reducing the price of a software development kit is immensely important to the survival of the Playstation 3. So far, Sony has been desperately trying to court developers to make games for the console and has been generally unsuccessful in doing so. And while this can be attributed to more factors than the cost of the software development kit, it certainly makes it much easier for developers to jump into the world of Playstation 3 game development.
But perhaps the most important development stemming from the price cut is the ability for independent game studios to more readily create games for the PS3.
In fact, Game Development Association of Australia CEO Greg Bondar indicated that Sony's move would allow smaller software developers to be more competitive in the game industry.
"A lot of the larger, established studios can get into it, even they find it cost prohibitive, but in general it now gives us and our members a broader base of access to such technology and opportunity to develop. I think it has been a prohibitive factor," Bondar said.
As I've mentioned many times before, hardware does not sell consoles. Instead, a steady stream of good games will make any person go to the store and plunk down $399 or $499 for a console. And now that smaller game studios may be able to enter this market, Sony has created an environment that is conducive to innovative game development.
But the story doesn't quite end there. Sony's dual-pronged attack on pricing should be extremely effective. Aside from a reduced cost to developers, the company's decision to drop the price of the Playstation 3 to a more competitive level was a welcome move.
In effect, Sony has finally realized that success in the gaming industry does not rely on a highly advanced machine that has very few games to play on it. First and foremost, people buy consoles to play games -- it's as simple as that.
And for the first time since its release, the PS3 is no longer just a multimedia device, it's a full-fledged gaming machine that will appeal to the two most important facets in the gaming industry -- developers and consumers.
And while I'm still suspect of its motives, Sony is well on its way to becoming a force to be reckoned with in the gaming industry. And if it continues to push the right buttons and create a compelling reason for consumers to buy the console, look for Sony to become the leader in this industry once again.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Until then, its more rough times ahead for Sony.
They intended to delay the profitibility of the PS3 by twice as long as it took the PS2 to become profititable in order to invest in the cell processor and blue ray technologies.
The high price of the PS3 and PS3 development kits were integral to reclaiming all that money that they spent coming up with the thing.
By dropping the price of the PS3 and PS3 development kits, sony is basically pushing their investment return further and further out.
The fact that they are moving a unit or two is indeed good news for them, because it means they are penetrating the market and getting the unit into homes, but the fact that they had to cut prices to do so is a HUGE problem for them and their financials.
I haven't seen their bank book, but I'm sure their current and very vocal pleasure at the beginnings of their "turn around" belies a quiet desperation.
They based their strategy on PS3 selling a lot MORE than the PS3. Not less.
Its going to take Sony making a sacrifice financially in order to make them gain the momentum they want in my honest opinion .
I think costs & prices need 1 more "big" push to be competitive enough to do some damage to its rivals.
the price changes. And your response is "duh, i knew this was coming"? That
makes no sense at all. Sony is/was failing, which promoted their move here
with prices. Even with the move, that does not guarantee anything here. The
simple fact, is that as much as Sony WAS the King in the video game industry
for many, many years, Microsoft has came in, and not only put "Sony on the
ropes" with some massive uppercuts, but they have actually taken the lead in
many people's eyes as THE video game giant. Even being able to have such a
close race, if you will, is an extremely amazing achievement by Microsoft, for
remember, Sony had how many years of video game industry experience
BEFORE Microsoft came in?
Hmm. And to now (rather quickly in my view) have Sony on the ropes
clinging for life.
Amazing accomplishment, and one that must be respected by any fan of the
video game industry.
As far as having other choices to make it cheaper last year, I'm not sure it was that simple for Sony if they really wanted to be forward looking. Blu-Ray was pretty essential to their conception of this, I think for gaming as well as movies and only recently have the drives become cheaper to produce. The benefits of the advanced hardware and Blu-ray can be seen in Ratchet and Clank, for instance, which has more on screen than anything I've seen before. We'll just have to see how many developers can make such good use of the machine's abilities, though I expect it will be too much time and trouble for all but a few to really use them extensively. The Cell is hard to program for and too unusual for most to bother studying, though better development kits might bridge the gap, we'll just have to see. Really, though, it doesn't matter, the main thing is having smooth, compelling games, whether or not they use all the machine's features.
Even if it generally only matches the X-Box 360's (still impressive) level of performance, having an included Blu-Ray player, HDMI 1.3 and a quiet fan make it a way better multimedia player right out of the box, which makes it much better value. You are getting so much more than just a dedicated console, you are getting the perfect partner to an HDTV. People can see that and now the price is down, they are buying it in droves.