Poor interpretation...

So there’s this article on Game Daily about an analyst speculating that the 80GB PS3 SKU is being retired because of poor sales, Game Daily and NPD seem to claim “NO YUO!” Where do I start? First of all the analystis indeed probably wrong. Sales performance of the 80GB SKU, good or bad aren’t going to be the factor in it’s retirement (although yes a potential factor).

To step back a bit further, one has to ask why is this even a big deal at all? What it boils down to is that the 80GB SKU (the initial 60GB PAL model for EU folks) is the only current model with some form of PS2 backwards compatibility. It seems to still be quite a big deal to some people due to the 40GB SKU’s lack of PS2 backwards compatibility. I could go one about that one for a while, but I’ll save that for another time perhaps.

Back to Game Daily and the Mr. Hickey of Janco Partners (the aforementioned analyst). Earlier I mentioned that regardless of sales the 80GB SKU would be retired soon anyways. That’s pretty obvious actually. It’s an older, more expensive design, therefor it’s in Sony’s best interest to retire it as soon as possible and push the 40GB SKU in it’s place. The 40GB SKU is simply a more cost effective design to manufacture;

• 65nm vs. 90nm components
• No GS (PS2 hardware)
• Simpler motherboard (lower part count)
• Fewer external ports (flash and USB)
• And a smaller HDD to boot

I’d imagine there’s a few others such as a simpler optical drive (perhaps explaining the lack of SACD support (don’t quote me on that though)). The point still remains, the 80GB SKU was simply one phase of many that will consist of cost reduction redesigns with the 40GB SKU being the next (or current if you prefer) phase. I could go on about the lack of PS2 backwards compatibility and such, but that’s a topic that don’t feel like discussing right now and I’ve already digressed way off topic.

So essentially Mr. Hickey claimed that the 80GB SKU was being retired (all starting from the Best Buy rumors BTW) because of poor sales vs. Sony’s internal projections, and that in what seems like a potential recession environment likely not to perform well vs. it’s 40GB brethren (and that the 40GB seems to be enjoying a faster uptake than the 80GB did). Apparently Game Daily (the original source article) heard from NPD that the 80GB SKU outsold the 40GB model in the 4th quarter. So some are taking this as a “NO YUO!” silly analyst boy! sorta response from NPD.

First of all, the 40GB SKU hit retail on November 2nd (in the US). So it doesn’t have a full quarter of sales vs. the 80GB SKU so NPD’s response is sorta odd in that regard. Unless they normalized both SKU’s out, but that data doesn’t seemed to be disclosed. The other aspect that leaves me scratching my head is that NPD mainly tracks North American sales. Last time I checked, Sony sells PS3s in more regions than just North America. The 40GB launched in the EU on October 10th, and in Japan on November 11th so it also be interesting to factor in those regions as well. Ultimately though, Mr. Hickey never even claimed that the 40GB SKU outsold the 80GB SKU, just that the 80GB one didn’t meet Sony’s expectations and that based on the 40GB holiday sales that the 80GB model wouldn’t likely hold up in the future.