Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
For the first time Sony's Blu-ray players are cheaper than its PlayStation 3 console, after the company announced a US$100 cut off the price of the BDP-S300 player to US$499. The move begs the question: can Sony now afford not to also slash the price of PS3?
One of the saving graces of the massively
disappointing sales of PS3 to date has been the fact that it was the
cheapest Blu-ray player on the market - at least the equal cheapest.
Video buffs could not only get a high definition Blu-ray player for a
relatively reasonable price but they got the added bonus of a gaming
console.
In turn, it has been the PS3 that is arguably helping Blu-ray win the
high definition format war against the HD DVD camp by getting Blu-ray
players into the homes of gamers. Even its relatively poor PS3 console
sales still outsize the fledgling but gradually picking up momentum
high definition video player market.
All that changed today. By cutting the price of the BDP-S300, Sony has
in effect severed the link between the PS3 and Blu-ray players. If a
video enthusiast just wants a Blu-ray player, the PS3 is no longer an
option because it's now too expensive.
In effect, Sony has just kicked out one of the legs supporting the
table of its still struggling PS3 business. With both Nintendo's Wii
and Microsoft's Xbox 360 walloping the PS3 at the cash register, a lack
of exclusive PS3 titles to choose from and still plenty of grumbling
from gamers at the price, having one less reason for consumers to buy
its next gen console is something Sony can ill afford.
Of course, all of the above assumes that Sony is not going to drop the
price of PS3 to match that of the BDP-S300. After all the nightmarish
blunders of the past year in the consoles space and still sluggish
sales, it is hard to imagine that Sony could possibly believe that
leaving the PS3 at US$599 is now a viable proposition. Then again,
after what's gone on in the past year, it may not be that hard to
imagine.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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