Sega Saturn vs PlayStation

Pego un pequeño texto sobre la guerra entre Sony y Sega que es un pepita de oro de la historia de los videojuegos, sacada del libro "Revolutionaries at Sony: The Making of the Sony Playstation and The Visionaries Who Conquered The World of Video Games" de Reji Asuka. Ahora a ver si encuentro una copia...


DRAWING SEGA INTO A PRICE WAR

After its launch, the PlayStation incorporated a number of potentially cost-cutting designs. As we've seen, parts count fell sharply, and there was a dramatic overall production cost reduction due to lower parts costs and fewer production processes. The greatest cost savings were realized not on the initial modest production volume, but on the much higher volume after sales of the unit started to soar.

The company took a substantial loss on the first model, which retailed for $399, but today the cost is a third of what it was then. The most strategic action in this respect was that sales revenues were not all plowed into profit, but were used in moves that would lower the retail price.

The retail price of the first model (SCPH-1000, launched in December 1994) was $399, the second model (SCPH-3000, released in July 1995) was $299, the third model (SCPH-3500, launched in March 1996) was $249, the fourth model (SCPH-5000, released in June 1996) was $199, and the fifth model (SCPH-7000, launched in November 1997) was $180. Needless to say, the fall in price led to expansion of the user base from die-hard game lovers to the general public.

There was another strategic purpose in slashing the price of the PlayStation: to draw Sega into a price war. In fact, Sony lowered the price in stages to make it easier for Sega to take up the challenge. Kutaragi predicted that Sega would have difficulty reducing the high cost of the Saturn, because the Saturn was a collection of parts supplied by different companies.

On November 22, 1994, the day the Saturn went on sale, Gotoh immediately acquired one and took it apart. He was astonished to discover how complex the structure was, with cables running all over the PCBs. It was an inconceivable structure for Gotoh, whose design imperatives were simplicity and ease of manufacture, and obviously much harder to manufacture than PlayStation's. If Sony reduced the price of PlayStation, to follow suit in order to Sega would have stay competitive, but Saturn's high manufacturing cost would then translate into huge losses for the company.

As expected, Sega took up Sony's challenge. When Sony reduced the price of PlayStation by $100 in June 1995, Sega began selling a set of Saturn hardware and software, with more than $100 off the price of the two bought a la carte, and subsequently reduced the hardware price by $100 from $449 to $349.

By the end of 1995, Sega's counteroffensive had defeated PlayStation. Although it was the year end, a time of peak demand, PlayStation did not have many best-selling software products. Sony found that PlayStation was outclassed by Saturn. "We were unprepared,'' Gotoh admits.

But Sony fought back. Sega could not help but retaliate against Sony's attempts to provoke a price war. In February 1998, Sega changed its policy and decided to no longer pursue volume by lowering the price of the Saturn. It was effectively a declaration of defeat in the battle against PlayStation. In the fiscal year ended March 1998, Sega wrote off the cumulative losses of its U.S. subsidiary and posted a loss of $4.3 billion, going into the red for the first time since going public in 1988.

Sega published a full-page advertisement in the major morning papers on May 21, 1998. The ad depicted a battlefield from Japan's Country at War Era-the fifteenth and sixteenth century - with bodies of brutally slain armored samurai everywhere. The ad contained the Sega logo and a tattered flag. The copy read, "Has Sega been defeated for good?" The next day's papers carried another full-page ad, with exhausted warriors struggling to their feet. Sega was down but not out. Executives were regrouping to fight another day.


Texto visto y copiado de un comentario de Curmudgeon Gamer