All the news out of Sony at this week’s Tokyo Game Show isn’t about rumble-enabled controllers coming to the PS3. In addition, Sony has announced a delay introducing its online “Home” virtual world, and as sales of the PlayStation 3 continue to disappoint, the company plans to go “back to basics” by expanding its PlayStation 2 business.
First, Sony announced it is delaying the launch of its “Home” virtual world until at least the first quarter of 2008, with Sony’s newly installed head of Sony Computer Entertainment Kaz Hirai saying in his address which was almost as much an apology as new announcements: “We wanted to wait until we could offer what would be totally satisfying for consumers.” Sony’s Home online virtual world will offer a real-time interactive environment similar to Linden Labs’ Second Life: users will have their own avatars in the online world, where they can control their appearance, interact with other players, visit locations in the virtual world, and even doll up their own virtual abodes with gaming trophies and other prizes. Home is being designed for the PlayStation 3, so, for now anyway, Home looks like it’ll be a comparatively small virtual world of PS3 owners.
At the same time, Hirai announced Sony plans to focus on expanding the business for its PlayStation 2 console, which has already been superseded by the pricey PlayStation 3 and is approaching its eighth birthday—positively ancient in video game years. When a company introduced a new game console, it typically tries to get the previous generation of console off the market as fast as possible to spur adoption of the new system; instead, the PlayStation 3’s high price (and lack of must-have games) has kept the PS2 alive and well (and seriously outselling the PlayStation 3) so Sony plans to capitalize on the console’s enduring popularity by continuing to promote the console in developing and emerging markets around the world, as well as develop new games for the aging system.
The move may be a shrewd one for the electronics giant: the cost of manufacturing PS2 systems is likely lower than ever, meaning Sony’s profits on the consoles are probably fairly high. And, since the PS2 will be so much cheaper than the PS3, it’s an easy sell in developing and emerging economies—and it already has dual shock controllers and an enormous library of games.
