Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
I dunno, I think Sony is probably done. Despite getting into the market first, they just don't have a brand identity that is associated with books, while Amazon and B&N obviously do. They would've been much better off building ebook devices for an existing chain of bookstores at the outset.
Also, I suspect Amazon is at least temporarily suspending its previous strategy (profiting from both device and ebooks) in favor of profiting primarily off the ebooks. I'm pretty sure Sony was planning to make money from the device, in which case the price war is going to seriously hurt them.
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Sony and Amazon have other diverse sources of income to play the price war game for a while.
I'm not sure if Sony does have the stomach for it-they just managed to get profitable on the PS3...having to go back in the red for another product line might be too much. I will be interested if they really commit again to the Japanese market.
Borders (Kobo) and Barnes and Noble? Looking at their market caps and revenue streams, it is hard to see how they can compete in a hardware price war at all, even if they make a pure razor/razorblade play with their content.
And the hardware device only guys? Pain.