Dear Sony…

It has caught my eye that you have had some issues recently as far as your position in the current console race goes. The gaming press, publishers, consumers….they all talk about doom and gloom at Sony. You come out at E3 and scream “We’re being awesome”….yet i can’t quite buy that. The gaming line up is fantastic. What you have to offer your current customers is great yet for some reason you struggle to get new ones. Strange really, as 5 years ago you really were kicking butt. The world was at your feet. Something’s changed and i have some thoughts as to why. Let’s start with the PS3.

Let me be blunt with you. I can be, can’t i? It’s too fucking expensive. It’s been nearly 2 years since you brought the 80Gb version out for £300, and nothing’s changed. You’ve just sort of left it there….sometimes throwing in the odd game. This needs to change. I understand that what you get in that box more than makes up for the price you pay. I also understand that if you bought a 360, Wireless Adaptor, Live, Play and Charge Kit etc, it comes to the same price. The customers out there…they don’t. They see it and think “My, that’s a fucking expensive Call of Duty playing gaming machine. I shall get a 360″. I bet half the buyers out there only realise it plays Blu-ray when they get it home. More work needed on getting that message out please.

Also, your marketing on your awesome exclusive games is shit. Utter shit. inFamous comes out and is allowed to be crowded by the other releases. Game didn’t even have it on their front gondolas. Same with Ghostbusters. You have Ghostbusters, a massive frachise and a PS3 exclusive (in Europe) and you can’t be bothered to pay for it to be on the front gondolas. In terms of trying to get back into this console race, you need to hammer home the message that “These games are fucking awesome, as if you don’t have a PS3 you can’t play them so na na nana na”. Come this Christmas, I expect TV adverts and in store advertising.

Let’s have a look at the handheld market. Your PSP is being dwarfed by the giant that is the Nintendo DS. You bring out good quality games such as LocoRoco and Patapon, yet are failing to turn those into sales. Major high street retailers are giving you slightly more shelf space than HD-DVD and things are not looking good. You can blame failing software sales on piracy all you want, but Nintendo are having to deal with the exact same thing. You need a major turnaround. You need a fresh injection into your platform. You agree, which is why you’re about to bring out the PSP Go.

A nice slick design is what was needed, and that’s what you’re offering. A load of memory onboard to save those downloaded games is also nice (though i would question if people are REALLY going to want to only download PSP games). All you need to do now is get the price right, then this could be a major turning point for PSP and Sony. So imagine my surprise when retailers leaked it was going to be TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY QUID. WHAT THE FUCK SONY! You do realise that you are playing catch-up here, yes? You do realise that you need to catch the customers attention. What you DON’T fucking do is say “Fuck it, we’re Sony” and price it nearly £100 more than your previous model. You do know that not only is the PSP Go more expensive than the DS, DS Lite and DSi….it is ALSO more expensive than the top range 360 AND the Wii. It only looks cheap in comparison to the PS3!

Why, exactly, is it this price anyway? As far as i can tell, the internal parts of the machine are EXACTLY THE SAME. You’ve taken out the UMD drive and placed in some internal memory. Wow. Internal memory really has shot up in price recently. The screen i can accept might cost more, but i refuse to believe for one second that Sony are just breaking even at this price. It screams “We know that there are a few people out there who would buy a cardboard box with a carrot inside as long as it had Sony on it”. You have an awesome line up of games due out on the PSP this year (including Gran Turismo!), why are you sending the machine out to die.

My advice would be to take a loss on the hardware if needed. You are asking people to buy a machine where they can only buy games through download. Preowned is completely cut off so customers might not buy as many games for it…thus making play time less. To get people to even think of buying this, it has to be competitive with the DSi at the least. Yes, the PSP offers music and video playback, but people have iPods/iPhones. You can’t get away with calling them a feature anymore. People just don’t care. Price it at £150 and pray. Bundle it with Gran Turismo on the machine already. Treat it like a new product in an existing market.

Finally, your advertising. Wii – perfect. People having fun in the living room. Great. 360 – decent. Talks about the different features like the video marketplace. PS3 – NOTHING! You can’t rely on word of mouth and internet advertising to get you through this. It hasn’t worked so far.

DON’T try to get into this motion sector. Nintendo have it sorted out now. DO focus on the strengths – a good line up of games, nice entertainment kit….oh, and it plays Blu-rays.

WAKE UP! YOU’RE FUCKING LOSING!

Yours faithfully,

Me.

ALSO THIS WEEK!

Not gaming related but i don’t give a fuck. It’s my blog. Some fuckawesome guy on Twitter approached me and offered me their spare ticket to see Charlie Brooker recording his new TV series – “You Have Been Watching” this coming Sunday. Was really pleasantly shocked. Along with Blur in Hyde Park on Friday and some other stuff, this will be a great week. So thank you Mikey, and see you there! *thumbs up and cheeky wink*

So, the blog next week might be a little late…or shit/short.