LALALALALALALA !
So how far does Sony have their fingers in their collective ears? It turns out that would be elbows deep :
Sony Corp., maker of the PlayStation console, said the growing popularity of games on Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad isn’t a threat to its games business.
“It’s something that will lead to broadening the customer base of the overall game industry,” Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony’s Networked Products & Services Group, said in an interview in Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo, today. “People who had never played a game before may enjoy it on their iPhone or Android cell phone and may want to play more at their home.”
Ummmm... yeah. Because people who just spent a few hundred bucks getting a portable device that can do anywhere with them will then want to spend more, in a down economy, to be tied to one, single spot on the planet Earth. Then they will want to go through the hassle of setting up that PlayStation. Because, Kazuo, that is so much easier than just pulling a device out of your pocket, or a backpack.
And then going anywhere on the planet you want with that device.
Demand for video-game consoles may be little changed at 52.3 million and shipments of portable units may drop 2.5 percent to 38.9 million, the El Segundo, California-based researcher said.
Sony will be selling the “Move” controller, resembling Nintendo Co.’s Wii motion-sensing wand with a colored ball at the top, in the U.S. and Europe this month and in Japan in October. Sony is also offering new game titles such as Gran Turismo 5, which can be played in 3-D format, to stimulate consumer demand.
The company started offering 3-D game titles that can be downloaded through the Internet in June, when it also began selling Bravia 3-D televisions.
There’s only one problem with that strategy - THIS :
If 3-D television is in fact the future of home entertainment, that future may not be so very bright. In a recent Nielsen survey, consumers expressed a variety of concerns about purchasing 3-D TV tech, not least of which are the obvious complaints: there’s not enough 3-D programming, and you have to wear silly 3-D glasses to view the content that is presented in three dimensions. What’s worse: the numbers suggest that the more experience you have with 3-D TV, the less likely you are to buy one.
If this survey is correct, then the Sony strategy is a dead-end. But that is ok, because they don’t see the iPhone / iPod Touch as a threat, despite the fact it is already generating 2X more game revenue than the PSP.
SONY is Apple circa 1995.