Sony credits the PS3 Slim as their turning point

Sony’s hardware business was limp and sad even right after the launch of the PS3. I was an idiot and paid $600 for my PS3, but no sane person fronted that kind of money for what boiled down to be a fat Blu-ray player that could also play a handful of mediocre games. But even when the good games began to hit, people still sat back, as the price was still too high. We muttered under our breaths for years that there needed to be a price drop. Sony finally listened, and now SCEE president Andrew House says that the price drop and the release of the PS3 Slim was their “stand out moment” in the turn for the better.

You don’t say.

“From a business point of view, I have to say that the stand out moment for me has to be the launch of PS3 slim at 299 euros in September 2009,” House said at the UK PlayStation Blog. “We know that for a long time, PS3 was expensive and therefore holding people back. When we launched the slim PS3, sales exploded and haven’t really slowed down since.”

I appreciate that Sony feels good now that they’re actually selling hardware, but they talk like they found some magic forumla to making sales. If there’s one “magic formula,” it’s selling hardware at a reasonable price from day one.