What are the main reasons for Sony PlayStation’s profitability? Essay

What are the main reasons for Sony PlayStation’s profitability? In the year 1994, Sony launched its own video console called the PlayStation which is now one of the most well known and best selling gaming consoles in the whole world. The PlayStation has been even more successful since the product has been re-launched and innovated in 2000, called PlayStation 2. The secret behind the success of high profitability will be discussed in this coursework, primarily the main reasons have been Innovation, the Advertising Strategy applied and the rest of the marketing mix used by the Sony Corporation. One of the main reasons behind the PlayStation being a ‘winner’ for the Sony Corporation is Innovation. Innovation is the process of bringing a new idea to the marketplace. Sony’s PlayStation revealed the CD-ROM gaming technology for the first time in the market instead of the cartridge-based technology which was used by its respective competitors, Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn. This mind-blowing technology helped to improve the graphics providing a 3D multimedia view along with the incorporation of a 1024K dual-parted VRAM which allowed the picture displayed on-screen to change quickly. These high quality graphics proved to add value to the product and thus many consumers decided to go for the PlayStation. To Sony’s delight, PlayStation sold more than 300,000 units in the first 30 days: a great achievement which boosted up the profitability of the company, leaving the competitors thoughtless. Another reason which has helped to increase PlayStation’s profitability is the advertising campaign approached by Sony. The PlayStation is usually advertised through magazines and TV adverts. This time it did not aim at the traditional 8-16 years old demographic target audience. Although, this time the product was aimed at an older audience so that higher consumer awareness could be achieved. The good thing about the PlayStation’s TV adverts is that it tries to differentiate the product from the competition whilst also generating interest and awareness of the new product launch. Also, Sony tries to sponsor certain big and famous events such as 1995 MTV Music Awards and the UEFA Champions League in order to increase more profitability. Furthermore, all this advertising has helped to create a positive image about the company. This strong and po... ...his has helped to satisfy the demand better which has increased Sony’s sales and therefore led to higher profitability. Apart from all these things, Sony’s PlayStation has had other innovative ideas which have increased profitability. The PlayStation 2 also has a DVD player incorporated with it. This means that now the consumers enjoy the added value of a DVD player and they do not need to have a separate one. Moreover, Sony was the first one to introduce more than four players gaming through the Multi Tap. This meant that now consumers could play with each other just using one console which helped to increase flexibility. Furthermore, it also introduced the Memory Card which allowed users to save their game data in it. Like this, the user could continue the game from last saved stage or could take it to a somewhere else and play there. What is more that, PlayStation’s remote control have more better design which make it easier to play and prove to be more comfortable. All these innovative ideas have helped to make the PlayStation much more appealing than the competitors’ products. The profitability has again been affected due to these factors by incrementing it.