Sony still Stringering us along with PS3 price cuts

Mike Bantick
Monday, 01 September 2008 05:35

Your IT - Entertainment

Sony are in Germany as part of IFA 2008.  At the press conference, CEO and Chairman Sir Howard Stringer has set some company goals and poured water over any PS3 price cut speculation.

Current.com.au has reported words from the press release given by Sony (Europe) CEO and Chairman Howard Stringer.

In the speech Stringer gives out the three clear targets for the company’s business moving forward; “At our corporate strategy meeting this summer we identified three key strategic initiatives critical to Sony’s success: to strengthen our core businesses, to make 90 per cent of our products network enabled, and to capitalise on international growth.”  He said.

One of the ways Sony hope to achieve this is by putting an emphasis on OLED technology in the television market; “Sony was the first to bring the next generation of television technology — OLED to market. As many of you have seen, this television is only 3mm thick and has a brilliant contrast ratio of more than 1,000,000:1 — that makes it very bright.”

Stringer went on; “We continue to improve our OLED technology for larger televisions and other applications and we continue to grow our enormous digital imaging business where we maintain leading market share.”

During a post press release interview with WELT , Stringer expanded on the companies pricing strategy for entertainment flagship the PlayStation 3.  In Stringers opinion the PS3 is at a competitive price point, with the Nintendo Wii no longer seen as a threat.

“We are currently at the stage in which we need to get a grip on the production costs. That takes time. We are already making more money with the games than we are losing with the hardware.” Stringer said.

When queried if he had played a Wii, Stringer said “Yes”, to the follow up question asking if it was more fun than the PlayStation?  Stringer diplomatically replied; “It's a different experience. The Wii is a well-made device that has found a new target group. For a while, we held the same target group with the SingStar karaoke game. But perhaps we neglected to pursue that avenue. Playstation games are rather designed for those who play a lot. Although it's a different strategy, it pays off. We currently have a production bottleneck with the Playstation 3.”

What about a price reduction for the PS3 in the near future? “I think not” was Stringers simple reply.