The Marketing of the PlayStation

The PlayStation consoles produced by SCEI built a good reputation among the community of gamers: 3% of PS3 users experienced technical problems, while 42% did with the Xbox. Only 9% say they want to change their PS3 for an Xbox 360. 90% of the PS3 users voted having a satisfactory experience compared to 66% for the Xbox 360 users. % of the PS3 users have problems with the reliability of the console compared to 20% of the Xbox 360 users. These surveys have been made by vgchartz, gamespot and psu. All these strengths allowed SCEI to be placed in the stars in the BCG matrix.

Weaknesses But SCEI has also few weaknesses from its internal environment: They don’t market a lot to children and prefer to aim a mature public. They lose many potential customers who would turn to the Nintendo company that always targeted an immature public: the parents choose a Wii console for their children because they are afraid that the PS3’s violent games will have bad effects on their ids according to Halocrossing. Products from SCEI are also considered as expensive due to the high technology involved in their consoles: The PS3 was sold $599 at its launch compared to $399 for the Xbox 360 and $299 for the Wii.

This high price made the buyers hesitate according to vgsales. SCEI has opportunities from its external environment: The culture in the U. S. for the violence increases every years: gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade according to the Dailymail. The violent american movies motivate the population to act in the same way. The video games allow these people to fulfill heir wish for destruction and violence by giving them a virtual control. The PlayStations always targeted that population and have the reputation to welcome violent games.

The population’s trend to seek for a highest display definition for their home cinema contributes to the success of the Blu Ray technology from SCEI: The PS3 is the only console equipped with a Blu Ray player so consumer may want to choose the PS3 over the other consoles so that they can play games and watch high quality videos from the same device. The HD dvd technology competed with the Blu ray one but failed because it was inferior according to the Inquirer. But SCEI has also threats from its external environment: The threats come essentially from the hard competition with the Nintendo and Microsoft companies.

Nintendo seduces the children that SCEI doesn’t. Microsoft targets the same segment than SCEI. Microsoft is the main competitor of SCEI. Anti-violence movements in U. S. criticize the violent video games and force the government to impose restrictions like age ratings from the Motion Picture Association of America. The violent video games have been accused to be the cause of the increasing violence in U. S. according to the Christian Science Monitor. 3. Market segment and positioning a. Segment SCEI targets gamers who like violence and complexity.