Sony have reduced the manufacturing cost of the PS3 by 70% according to Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony CEO and EVP: “The cost reduction since we introduced the PS3 is very substantial and this is on schedule. We don’t disclose how much of the PS3, specifically the cost deduction was achieved during the past two years. But that is on schedule.” Pushed further he admitted: “About 70%, roughly speaking,”
Obviously this gives Sony room for a price reduction and thus make the PS3 less uncompetitive.
The 70% reduction is nothing special here. Firstly Sony were forced to rip a lot out of the original machine, including hardware backwards compatibility, to reduce costs. Secondly Moores Law reduces semiconductor costs by half every two years. And thirdly the Bluray drive was new and expensive at PS3 launch, now it is a mass production part which must be costing them a tenth as much to make.
This was actually very good marketing. In fact better than some legitimate MMOs manage. The thing they did wrong is not to have a King of Evony competition as well.
“The developers of Evony, UMGE (United Multiplayer Gaming Entertainment) have come up with an exciting, yet novel competition called the ‘Queen of Evony’. The Queen of Evony Photo Competition quite simply, is an offering to the Evony gaming user base, plus new arrivals to the MMORPG game the opportunity to submit a photo of a pretty Queen with the words ‘Evony’ displayed realistically (not super imposed) on the photo of the lovely maiden.”
I just had a chat with a 12 year old who has been playing Runescape for a couple of years. Currently, in his summer holiday, he is playing it for about 50 hours a week. He has tried other MMOs. Free Realms, for instance, is too childish for him, just like Maple Story. He very much likes the latest upgrades to Runescape, especially the animation pack (except for the abyssal whip). So I asked him who plays Runescape, and this is his opinion:
20% Fat short bald men.
50% College/university nerds.
5% Kids like him.
2% People with illnesses and mobility problems.
23% The rest
The marketing community will love his demographic classifications!
I have written on here many times about how stupidly repressive and anti gaming German politicians are. It is as if they are all Keith Vaz! They blame all the troubles of the world on video games, especially when there is any violence in the news. Even though they have no evidence to base their suppositions on.
In fact they are exactly 180 degrees wrong. The playing of violent video games and real violence in society are inversely proportional. This is proven, with real evidence. The games act as a catharsis to get the aggression out of people’s systems. So the German politicians are taking the opposite action necessary to solve their problems. They need to read Grand Theft Childhood.
Yesterday you saw the first interview in Bruceongames. Ed Vaizey, shadow Minister for the Arts told us some of what Conservative policies will be towards games when they take over government 0f the UK within the next year. The idea now is that this will be the first of a series of regular Tuesday interviews. The interviewees will all be people who are very important to the games industry. And the questions, based on my 30 years of industry experience, will try and elicit interesting and useful insights. So in future readers of this blog will not only be getting the benefit of my world view, they will also be seeing things through the eyes of some very informed people.
Coming up:
Tuesday 4th August. Philip Oliver, CEO of Blitz Games Studios, one of the world’s biggest independent game developers. Philip works tirelessly to improve the industry. Just recently he had breakfast with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, where he was able to effectively communicate a wide range of industry views. Next week you too can benefit from reading his views in his own words.
Tuesday 11th August. Jez San OBE. Game designer and developer, book author, microprocessor designer and highly successful businessman. Jez is famous as the author of the 1986 game Starglider, but these days he is a business angel, investing in a number of companies related to the games industry. So he has a wide ranging and highly informed perspective on many elements of gaming.
As you can see we are off to a brilliant start and I have promises of interviews from some impressive game industry leaders. I am really looking forward to what they have to say. I hope you find it interesting too.
