SWOT Analysis of Playstation 3

Introduction

PlayStation is a gaming console brand of Sony Corporation, which was first launched in 1994, and it is one of their most successful brands in the market. They have introduced three versions of PlayStation and have sold more than 200 million units of all the PlayStation 1, 2 and 3. Sony, after initial delays launched the PlayStation 3 in 2006 and till 2012 sold about 70 million units of the latest version of PlayStation. It currently competes with Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii. We are now going to carry out SWOT analysis of PlayStation 3 vis a vis Singapore.

Strengths

1. Strong Brand Value: Sony has made a strong brand value of not only of the company but also of the PlayStation Brand itself. As far as Singapore is concerned PlayStation enjoys a fairly good brand value, which gives it an edge over its competitors in the Singapore market. Due to its strong brand value the PlayStation 3 is considered to be a high quality product. In Singapore the PlayStation has enjoyed a considerable success due to this the next version of PlayStation is hugely expected to become a hit in the Singapore market.
2. The Blue-Ray function: The PlayStation 3 comes with an advantage of playing the Blue-Ray discs in the console, which is not provided by its competitors such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360 as well as Nintendo’s Wii. It is the only gaming console in the market, which has the function of playing Blue-Ray discs in it. This gives consumer the advantage of not only playing the games but can also watch movies on it through this function. This function also increases PlayStation’s attractiveness among the movie buffs.
3. Better Hardware: The PlayStation 3 has a better hardware over its competitors like Microsoft Xbox 360. It provides for two 2.0 USB ports and multiple memory card reader slots which makes it faster and better to the Xbox 360. In addition to this most of the models of PlayStation 3 also provides for an in built Wi-Fi port, which comes separately under the Xbox 360 as an accessory. This spares the consumer of the headache of buying a separate Wi-Fi port as in the case of Xbox360.
4. Network of game licensees: PlayStation provides a very strong network of game licensees, as it owns 159 titles of exclusive title of games as compared to Xbox 360, which owns 117 exclusive titles of games. In addition to this it provides more number of games than its competitors, which brings it an added advantage.
5. Backward Compatibility: One of the main features of PlayStation 3 is that it is compatible with its predecessors, which means that any of the games of PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 can also be played in PlayStation 3 while this feature is not available in any of its competitors.

Weaknesses

1. Costly: If Sony is making a high quality product then it is bound to be costlier. PlayStation 3 is much costlier than its competitors like Xbox 360 and Wii. This is one of its biggest weaknesses due to which the popularity of PlayStation 3 is decreasing. The cost of manufacturing gaming consoles in Sony is very high as compared to Microsoft. As PlayStation comes with the blue ray feature the price on games in PlayStation 3 also increases.
2. Delay: Though the PlayStation 3 was launched in 2005 but it took nearly one year for it to reach markets, as there were multiple delays in reaching directly to the consumer. This made the consumer angry as they bought more of rival products as the rivals had further lowered their price.
3. Not so good graphics: the graphics of PlayStation are not up to the mark as compared to its competitors.
4. Losses on some of Sony’s products: Sony as a company has incurred huge losses in some of other products such as mobile phones sue to which has given it a bad name in Singapore and people here generally refrain to buy any of the Sony products.

Opportunities

1. Singapore Market: According to a World Bank report the Singapore has been described as the best place to do business, due to this there are less restrictions on any business and gaming console industry in Singapore is right now in a developing stage but it promises huge returns as a lot of companies have started investing in this industry in Singapore as it has a huge potential.
2. Reputation: So far PlayStation enjoys a great reputation in Singapore as compared to its competitors due to its performance and quality and if the consumers want this version of PlayStation can also be upgraded in accordance with their wishes.
3. Launch of PlayStation 4: Sony has now launched a new version of PlayStation on February 23, 2013, which gives the PlayStation brand a new impetus in the Singapore Market and will be able to exploit it better.

Threats

1. Population: According to the census of 2011the average age of a Singaporean is 37 while Sony is targeting age group of 15 to 35 for the gaming consoles. By the time this average age will increase and it will hinder the sales of gaming consoles in Singapore because persons of elderly age are less likely to buy a gaming console.
2. Launch of Xbox 720: Microsoft is planning to launch a new version of Xbox in April which is expected to be much better than PlayStation 3 and it might hinder its sales in Singapore Market and it widely circulated to overtake the PlayStation in coming months
3. Moving people: In today’s market the customers are not loyal to any company so in order to satisfy their gaming needs they might switch on to more cheaper gaming console as PlayStation is very costly.

SWOT Analysis Resources

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