Sony Shares Tumble to 31 Year Low Amid Record Losses - BBC

[Zetta_x]

Okay, what is it with people thinking a hack would significantly increase hardware sales? You do realize the people who would buy a system specifically for a hack are actually a rather small minority?

Hacks won't help for shit on sales, especially when it comes down to the brunt of their money coming from software. And if you're buying it so it can be hacked, odds are you're either not buying or pirating games.

Sales increases come from doing things that normal consumers want, not from what a minor minority want.

And the wii sold well because it was the best system.

The biggest factors influencing sales are:

Popularity
Userbase
Advertisements

How good games actually are is not as big of a factor as you think.

When parents go out shopping for a video game console, when people want video game consoles, when someone has to decide between a video game console, the average person will choose the most popular one (or one that a friend will have). Holy fuck, how many people picked the wii because it was hackable; not a single one of them was part of the minority that knew about hacking. They have all had friends with hacked wii's so they bought: harddrives, wii's, wii accessories and sometimes even wii games. I have had about 80% of my close friends go out and buy wii's who had no intentions of spending money on games.

At my school, we had this big ass event, in one of the concession stands, there was a wii with a homebrew channel on it. In the first 30 minutes of hanging around there, there was a fuckaton amount of people asking about it and what it can do. FUCKATON FUCKATON FUCKATON. Most of my friends, never played consoles, never knew shit about what games were on the wii, never anything. Yet, holy fuckaton they bought into it.

Same thing with the playstation, when people came over and saw a TI-84 calculator hooked up to my playstation, they were like WTF. Then every mother fucking friend went out and bought a playstation; holy mothafuckaton.
These people aren't gamers
These people had no taste on what games they like
Yet they went out and bought these shit mothers.

Think about Christmas time, the majority of children who have had no idea of what game console to get, they are going to choose the ones all of their friends are talking about. What is "good" has so many definitions, it's impossible to say all the good games are to one console, my cousin swears that PS3 has all the good games but I hated the majority and loved the majority of the wii games. From here you can see the high dependence on that minority you are talking about and the majority.I'll say it say it again and bold it, while the minority only knows how to hack, there is a strong relationship that influences the majority to buy into it.

Now what happens when a console gets hacked? Surely, it spreads like wildfire through out a small community, from there, it leaks like wildfire making the minority into a bigger minority. Then the amount of popularity, userbase, increases drastically, the console advertises for themselves. Then the majority take over. You should see all the sales of the PS3, when the console got hacked, holy mother fuckaton sales increased. Then as it couldn't get hacked, it slowly declined. However, the selling point now was still a fuck more than before it was hacked.


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You are right, the wii being hacked is not the cause of the system to start selling well. It's the popularity that's gained from being able to be hacked which boosts the sales.

 

[ZAFDeltaForce]

The thing with Sony is that the company's present in numerous sectors of the industry wheras GBATemp users should probably limit their interest to Sony's involvement in gaming.

Their shares tumble because they make quality hardware - hardware not everyone can afford nowadays, especially when there are cheaper alternatives. As much as I'd like to own a Bravia, a Samsung is simply "sufficient", it's similar with many other products of theirs. They need new lines of hardware - affordable and functional hardware, to put it bluntly.

I agree. Sony has been making quality hardware with a premium price tag to boot. They're severely limiting their market base in this manner. It's also exactly why I bought an LG TV than a Bravia; not only is it $100 cheaper, it is also good enough.

@[member='DSGamer64']
...
The Gamecube launched at $199.95, did that help it get the upper-hand? No, it did not sell as well despite being superior to the PS2 in many ways. Why? Because the PS2 had a lot backing it up - multimedia features, adapters for networking, IDE expansion, multitap, a massive library of titles and a headstart.
...

If I recall, one of the biggest selling points of the PS2 was DVD playback. Given that DVD was the Bluray back in the day, many people saw it as a good investment. Heck, a decent portion of people who bought the PS2 did it for the DVD playback features.

Man, all this talk of the PS2 makes me crave to play mine again.

...
Think about Christmas time, the majority of children who have had no idea of what game console to get, they are going to choose the ones all of their friends are talking about. What is "good" has so many definitions, it's impossible to say all the good games are to one console, my cousin swears that PS3 has all the good games but I hated the majority and loved the majority of the wii games. From here you can see the high dependence on that minority you are talking about and the majority.I'll say it say it again and bold it, while the minority only knows how to hack, there is a strong relationship that influences the majority to buy into it.
...

I like how you kept using "fuckaton"

This is very true and I agree. Back in my day (in my country at least), the PS2 was hot shit. Every little mother fucker on the block, the neighbourhood, and the nation had or wanted one. When it was Christmas, hardly anyone wanted to get a Gamecube or an Xbox. It was clear: "I want a PS2". Why? Because kids kept talking about it; how awesome GTA is, how awesome Final Fantasy is, how awesome all kinds of shit it does is.

Today it's different though, the Xbox360 is more popular in my country than the PS3 or the Wii. Mostly because people kept talking about it and building hype around the console. And I'm talking about the same people who, not too long ago, were clutching their PS2s with vice-like grips.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Now what happens when a console gets hacked? Surely, it spreads like wildfire through out a small community, from there, it leaks like wildfire making the minority into a bigger minority. Then the amount of popularity, userbase, increases drastically, the console advertises for themselves. Then the majority take over. You should see all the sales of the PS3, when the console got hacked, holy mother fuckaton sales increased. Then as it couldn't get hacked, it slowly declined. However, the selling point now was still a fuck more than before it was hacked.

I'd like to see your source on these PS3 sales when the hack was released. I can't really remember anything in recent memory getting a huge sales boost from a hack. I out of all my friends, I'm the only one whose "hacked" a console I own. Which was a Wii. And at least four other friends I know own a Wii and it's not hacked.

 

[Zetta_x]

I don't have sources; just instinct. My friend just graduated from UC Berkley and I have been away from the internet for like 3 days. So my post was pretty much an impulse post from excitement of being back!

But, I too would like to see some chart of hardware and software sells. If anything I said was right, then my guess it increased with it hacked (from an initial burst of people buying PS3's), started decreasing ever since, but the steadystate of sells is larger than it was before. But like I said just a prediction based on how many people I have seen bought a PS3 because of it.

 

[HamburgerBandit]

It's funny how people came to conclusion that Sony is losing money over their PS Vita or PS3 sales, well you people are wrong. PS3 is doing well even though I believe they're selling it at loss(prove me wrong if otherwise)

Prove you wrong? Sure thing.

http://kotaku.com/59...oses-28-billion

PlayStation division loses 2.8 Billion in 2011.

They've also lost around 6 Billion since launching the PS3. And Vita, as much as I love it, is a total failure. Sony needs to do something quick. I think E3 may turn things around.

Um, gaming has actually been a rather positive area for them in recent years, the PS3 was successful for them.

I don't know where people get this idea when the facts completely disprove this statement.

Of the big three sony is in the most trouble and they have lost the most money on gaming.

Pointing this out doesn't mean I hate Sony. It just means I keep with the news.

 

[Rasas]

Sony's Playstation division is making profit but is still in the red.
Microsoft's Entertainment and device division has made profit in 2008 but is still in the red and this includes other devices.
Nintendo is in a slump but 3ds sales are improving and the Wii U might help greatly.

Hacking a system may not help hardware sales or maybe it does. It might of arguably helped Playstation sales but overall I said it did more harm then good but what do I know maybe the publicity from the users helped or it just hurt sales since more people stopped buying as many or any games. Lets just not argue about it since their isn't much to prove either side wrong or correct. Look at the DS and when Slot 2 devices were made DS sales dropped. Look at the PS3 and when 3.15CFW was made sales increased. PSP sales increased but it got hacked early.
After figuring out when a device got hacked and sales I say it does boost hardware sales for a while or maybe it is coincidence who knows.

The PSP pretty much died since of who it catered to and the DS succeeded because of who it catered to can be one argument but honestly with a dozen or so articles and numbers showing that sales of hardware increased when a hack is released it proves it may increase hardware sales but it may cause devs to leave the system and other things that might hurt it in the long run. The PSP, PC (sort of) and Wii being prime examples of devs leaving.