No. Press Up, then Up again…
CVG is running a teaser for their interview with Sony’s David Reeves. Naturally, we’re talking about the PS3 here and Sony’s big push for the system that begins with asking the low, low price of $499 for the low-end model, $599 for the high-end model, and follows that up with not having games available at launch. No word on the crippling, consumer-crushing DRM that has been promised in the past, but I’m sure we’ll hear plenty of it in the weeks and months to come.
What is interesting in the teaser, however, is Reeves’ idea for how Sony is going to sell the PS3 with no launch titles, a hefty price tag, and industrial design that bears a strange resemblance to the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A (Come on, I can’t be the only one who’s noticed it).
Reeves also revealed that the company plans to cast a wide net during the initial PS3 launch window, saying that “for the first time we are not going to go just for hardcore gamers”.
Speaking exclusively to CVG at E3, Reeves explained that Sony is “going to have a portfolio of social gaming” for the launch window, Singstar and EyeToy an integral part of this battleplan. It’s not clear whether Singstar on PS3 will be out on launch day, but it’ll hit “certainly before Christmas”, said Reeves, with “an EyeToy one [game] after Christmas”. He added: “EyeToy is not playable at the moment, but it will come before March 2007.”
Social gaming appears to be the Next Big Thing^TM^ in this generation of systems. XBox hasn’t spoken much about it, but Nintendo is on the bandwagon bigtime with the Wii. That’s part of why the Wii has a controller designed more like the familiar remote control – so that people who aren’t hardcore gamers will feel comfortable picking it up.
Even so, casual gamers probably aren’t ready to drop $599 on a game system, no matter how new and shiny. It might help matters that it doubles as a Blu-Ray player – after, all, DVD support was what helped the PS2 beat the Dreamcast – but only if Sony can manage to get the consumers interested in Blu-Ray. Right now, the ones paying attention seem much more enamored of HD-DVD, while the rest of us are too busy defending ourselves from lawsuits filed by the MPAA. Otherwise, $599 is an awful lot for a party game machine.
And when your social-gaming launch strategy depends heavily on two products – like, say, Singstar and EyeToy – wouldn’t it be a really good idea to have them at launch? Just thinking, ya know.
Reeves, however, does have one interesting notion. At one point in the teaser, it’s apparent that he is no longer thinking in terms of consumers making an either/or decision. He actually states that the later release date of the PS3 will help sales because when the hardcore gamers get around to the system, “They have also bought Xbox 360 and they have probably bought Nintendo Wii as well.” In other words, multi-console homes have become so common that they’re not concerned about whether you’re deciding which one to spend your paycheck on.
But perhaps the saddest thing about the interview is this:
Reeves maintained that shifting PS3s in the early days won’t be a problem, such is the strength of the PlayStation brand: “We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn’t have games.”
Sad, but true. Sony will be shipping a product with few or no games available. They will be shipping a product based on the strength of promised peripherals that are not yet available but will be “soon” (it worked so well with the PS2 HDD). They will be shipping an exorbitantly-priced unit with little value for the money. It will be packed with intrusive DRM that will destroy the used game market, but – hey – you’ll be able to play import games in languages that you don’t actually read.
And the first 5 million units will probably fly off the shelves before retailers know what hit ‘em. That’ll be somewhere between $2,495,000,000 and $2,995,000,000 crossing the checkout counters of Wal-Marts, Circuit Cities, and Best Buys across the country – and probably a decent resaler boom on eBay.
And I predict: CNN will still tell us that it is the worst retail Holiday season in history.