Today's title brought to you by Mega Man.
I will 'fess up to loving any musing about economic theory, especially ones that are based on actual data, with graphs and comparable large numbers. It verges into the realm of statistics, which seems indistinguishable to magic to be. "Really, so you just pick 200 random people and ask them something, and their answer MACTHES UP to what happens when you ask all 200,000 people the same thing? That actually works? You're not just calling a cluster of Ron Paul voters?"
Anyway, the talk of the day is on the PS3 price cut. It was $300 bucks: now it's $250. (The same price as a 3DS at its launch.) As this brilliant post by Bill Harris breaks down, it's important proof that Sony shouldn't expect to win this round of the "console wars." Xbox 360 is increasing year-over-year sales. And it's doing a bang-up job selling PS2s still -- PS2 holds the all-time console sales record -- but Harris's charts show the Wii selling comparatively better at this point in its lifespan that the PS2.
I loved the deep delving into the five-year and ten-year business plans. You see, game consoles traditionally have been out for five years before a new version replaces it. Sony and Micrososft are both on ten-year plans for their consoles. This is right around the five-year point, and Nintendo's announced its new console, the Wii U. Sony and Microsoft are sticking to their ten-year guns. But will consumers keep buying five- and six- and now seven-year-old pieces of technology for top prices, with nothing new on the horizon? Or will the large install base ensure game sales to the point where they can walk away from the new hardware sales a new SKU would bring?
Guess we'll find out.
