You'd think a company with decades of experience and many other successful products would base a marketing strategy on things other than hope. Unfortunately that is not the case for Sony, so it seems, as nothing else has gone right with the PS3. However, their hopes certainly are high, claiming that this fiscal year might see a huge turnaround for the PS3, in terms of cost.
The hope is that lowered manufacturing costs will bring the PS3 closer to a break-even point, to where they will no longer lose money with each console sold. That change, they say, could be less than a year away:
Sony executive VP Nobuyuki Oneda said during an investor conference call that the company may be able to break even on PlayStation 3 production costs sometime this fiscal year, which ends March 2008.
That would be a very good sign for them, though Microsoft has shown that a console doesn't have to be profitable to be successful. Given the oodles of money Sony has poured out to other venues, though, they want this, as do their investors.
Now they just have to convince people to start buying the console.