PlayStation Network Return "Uncertain", May Not be 100% Back Until May 31

"The PlayStation Network has been down for a while now. We've been warned that it may be down for a little while longer. Now Sony says it could be weeks still before the PSN is fully operational.

Sony's Shigenori Yoshida has told Bloomberg that his company's deadline for the full return of all PlayStation Network services is May 31. The PSN went down on April 20. That's nearly six weeks of downtime if it takes that long for the entire network to be restored to full operation.

While you'd assume/hope that signing into the network and playing games online are the first things to come back up, and in a much quicker timeframe than May 31, Yoshida says that Sony is "uncertain" when the PSN will actually get back up and running." Luke Plunkett @ Kotaku.com

Week 14 - Business Marketing

Greg Peters, VP of product development at Netflix had announced back in Fall 2009 some great news for PS3 owners. The availability to instantly watch movies and TV episodes on your TV via the Playstation 3. Sony PS3 joined the ever growing list of Netflix ready devices that allows streaming of movies and TV shows whenever you want, as much as you want, all included in an unlimited Netflix subscription. The PS3 is a great Blu-ray and gaming platform that got even better when these two ventures collided their powers together. While still delivering a continuous improvement into their architecture which imporves the Netflix experience by adding more and more features over time. The Netflix application has some exclusive features for the PS3:

• 1080p resolution support 
• 5.1 audio support    
• Multiple language support     
• Subtitle/closed caption support

this all shows a great cooperative agreement between these two business firms creating a strategic alliance (strategic partnership).

PlayStation Network Down

On April 20, 2011, there was an outage on the Playstation Network. The updates on the PSN Service Outage on the Playstation Blog on April 20th was posted by Patrick Seybold, Sr. Director, Corporate Communications & Social Media stated that "We’re aware certain functions of PlayStation Network are down. We will report back here as soon as we can with more information. Thank you for your patience."

Now over two weeks now and the Playstation Network still hasn't resumed to normal services. On Tuesday, April 26 they shared that some information that was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into the network.

"Once again, we’d like to apologize to the many users who were inconvenienced and worried abut this situation.
We want to state this again given the increase in speculation about credit card information being used fraudulently. One report indicated that a group tried to sell millions of credit card numbers back to Sony. To my knowledge there is no truth to this report of a list, or that Sony was offered an opportunity to purchase the list.
We continue to work with law enforcement and forensic experts to identify the criminals behind the attack. Once again, we apologize for causing users concern over this matter." Patrick Seybold May 02, 2011 @ Playstion.Blog

Week 13 - Segmenting and Targeting Markets

Most cultural distinctions, different needs and demands of individuals, and diversities in customers’ buying behaviors really require market segmentation of companies to satisfy their customers effectively. The market can be divided in geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral segmentation variables and the company can focus on target segments which it wants to attract.

According to Sony, the main geographic segments of the PlayStation 3 consist of the Northern America market, the Japanese market and the European market. When Sony released their first video game console PlayStation in 1994, the company’s main focus was on the marketplace from 12- to 17-year-old boys. But nowadays, Sony’s demographic segmentation divides the market of the PS3 in male and female, old and young players and expands its business vastly to a bigger mainstream of entertainment.
Since the PS3 offers a multi selection of video games which includes something for everybody. There’s not merely one game to ultimately define the PS3 platform, but rather different must-have games for different segments of consumers.

Week 12 - Developing and Managing Products

Certain Key factors that can help decide your product and pricing policy is the Product Life Cycle.

Product Life Cycle (PLC): The timescale within which a product is introduced leading to a growth in sales, before sales mature and begin to decline, possibly even ending in the product being withdrawn. (Birth till Death)

Since the launch of the Sony Playstation 3, developer releases and games conferences have seen examples and demos which meant that the press had latched on and the hype was starting to grow. It was an understatement that it was going to be one of the hottest products. As such this gave a great working example to illustrate the product life cycle on product selection choices.

Stage 1 - Introduction Phase

With all consoles at launch the demand well outstrips the supply which ensures that the market price of the product will be artificially high, the reason being that there will be relatively few suppliers with stock and basically people will pay anything for the product. From your perspective you have no competition in the marketplace and you are guaranteed to sell them at a large mark up. This is one of the best times to sell and your margin will be through the roof.

Stage 2 - Growth

The supply is starting to catch up with demand, which in turn means that there are going to be more people with the product and hence the price will start to fall. Increased advertising by Sony and increased press coverage will ensure that the demand rises and as such you can make a continued profit; at a lower rate. Early growth stage is the key are as you approach the latter end the market starts to get saturated with sellers. A good part of the cycle to be selling in as the volume sales counter the reduced margins and provide a great selling base.

Stage 3 - Maturity

This is probably the hardest stage of the cycle to operate in and unfortunately the point where most sellers start to sell, product supply is normal and lots of sellers that have seen the previous profits made jump on the band wagon to get a slice of the action. Sales start to stabilize and then Sony will start to introduce a differentiated product into the marketplace to maintain sales such as a limited edition designed Playstation 3 (ie: Playstation 3 Slim)

The effect of all these sellers coming into the marketplace means that the price wars and intense competition will occur, the market is basically becoming saturated and this is where you see the bigger players leaving the marketplace as the margin produced by the product sale is no longer ‘worth the effort'.

Stage 4 - Decline

We all know there will be a Playstation 4 (probably named differently) and the market starts to decline because people are waiting for the new model to come out, maybe even a competitor brings out a console that will ‘take up the slack' during the waiting period. This generate intense price cutting in the marketplace and the price can drop significantly from day to day.

The hardest part of selling any product within the profitable sections of the product life cycle is judging the time of each stage, every products life cycle is different with some having longer stages than others and even some missing stages completely and going from introduction straight to decline. The key is to become an early adopter and aim to get the product early and maximise the market potential of the product, using the Playstation 3 example this will be extremely difficult for the majority of sellers however every product has a life cycle and every product has the potential to make profit so limiting yourself to a specific product is like throwing money down the drain.

Week 11 - Integrated Marketing Communications

Corporate blogs are sponsored by a company or one of its brands maintained by one or more of the company's employees. 

The official Playstation.Blog is "where people who create the Playstation experience meet gamers and fans directly. Conversations here goes both ways, so make your throughts known through comments, ratings and via Twitter, Facebook, and Share."

Week 10 - Product Concepts

Sony is looking at minimizing their impact with their products by reducing the size of their packaging. They also use non-VOC vegetable oil-based ink in all Japanese made units. On the inside of their boxes, all Sony-created documentation uses 85% post-consumer recycled content. By promoting environmentally conscious packaging the size of the product packages become smaller making it is possible to increase the number of products it can load per container, thereby increasing trasport efficiency.

On behalf of Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PSP; their products are the easiest to get out of the box quickly and safely. The accessories and add-ons for these games systems, whether by Sony or a third party, are very easy to get out of the box, too. Even the tough shrink wrapped Sony accessories have a secret pull-apart section, making the impossibly tough looking protective shield a snap to remove and open. Their product packaging is part of the whole marketing plan for a great majority in their products. Packaging is important because their stunning or attractive packaging draws customers to try their new product without that customer even knowing anything about it. Thinking about it practically; if product packaging didn't play an important part of Sony's product overall appeal, then why do they spend so much money on packaging? It's because they know that their attractive packaging can make a difference between their products being sold.

MGS4 PS3 hardware bundle box art, which is now officially in a white box instead of the black blox shown when the bundle was announced back in February 2008. 

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) also started the Playstation Logo Licensing Program, part of their Official Licensing Program, which is targeted to a variety of lifestyle products from apparel to everyday items. Licensees who enter into an agreement with SCE through this program can design their product using the PS3/ PSP/PSPgo/PS2/ Playstation/ Playstation Family logo and iconic (triangle, circle, x, square) marks on a variety of lifestyle products such as apparel, accessories, house wares and more.

The packaging for such items will show the same "Official Licensed Product" logo that's applied to licensed gaming gear. Since the launch in 2009, 45 licensees have released over 123 items.