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So I've heard: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/04/11/r-i-p-playstatio n-3-20gb-is-officially-no-more/

But it gets pRon!

In all likelihood, buckets of money. Compare MS' or Sony's ADVERTISING budget to the ENTIRE budget allocated to the DOJ's antitrust division:

• MS: $945M (reportedly)
• DOJ: (2003) $140M

My google-fu on financial info breakdowns for publicly traded companies is obviously weak, but Nintendo said they were going to spend $200M on marketing the Wii *alone*, so it's likely that Sony's advertising budget for the PS3 ALONE is on the order of the entire allocation for the DOJ's antitrust division.

Was way more than a million they had available. PS3 has been in common supply in Europe and in fact in several places the stores had to try to discount the consoles a fair bit underneath MSRP to move overstock.

Few articles for you on that
UK Retailers dropping the price below MSRP http://www.joystiq.com/2007/04/05/uk-retailer-drop s-playstation-3-price-25/
82% sales drop http://www.joystiq.com/2007/04/03/playstation-3-sa les-plunge-82-in-uk/

Also considered they sold 800k on the first day so that means took them 10 weeks more to sell 200k more so about 20k a week which while a little over twice as good as its selling in Japan is not very good (Japan for reference sold less than 9k PS3's last week according to MediaCreate http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16168 3> and they are way past the launch period). The issue comes down to the PS3 just is selling pretty awful and worst than the GameCube sold in the previous console generation.

Was way more than a million they had available. PS3 has been in common supply in Europe and in fact in several places the stores had to try to discount the consoles a fair bit underneath MSRP to move overstock.

Few articles for you on that
UK Retailers dropping the price below MSRP http://www.joystiq.com/2007/04/05/uk-retailer-drop s-playstation-3-price-25/
82% sales drop http://www.joystiq.com/2007/04/03/playstation-3-sa les-plunge-82-in-uk/

Also considered they sold 800k on the first day so that means took them 10 weeks more to sell 200k more so about 20k a week which while a little over twice as good as its selling in Japan is not very good (Japan for reference sold less than 9k PS3's last week according to MediaCreate http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16168 3> and they are way past the launch period). The issue comes down to the PS3 just is selling pretty awful and worst than the GameCube sold in the previous console generation.

ahhh!! THAT explains all the cryptic talk about Maxis bailing on the next SimCity!

Errmmm....the Wii is already "encumbered" with all of those things. There are plenty of patented and licensed technologies in there, for which royalties were undoubtably paid - and the games are already region locked.

why? because its cheap.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/18/the-console-sale s-at-their-six-month-birthday/

what SHOULD ms and sony do now?
ms: cut the core system to $199 and add an HD, get ride of the mid system, reduce the elite price to $349.
sony: hm, tough call here, come out with a new ps3 without blueray for about $299?

what WILL ms and sony probably do?
ms: cut prices Q4 2007 by a little, making almost no difference in sales.
sony: cut prices Q4 2007 by a little as blueray becomes cheaper to make, making almost no difference in sales.

apparently it's only region free for HD, ie, you can't play a PAL game on an NTSC console

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/07/ps3-is-region-fr ee-but-theres-a-hi-def-catch/

just something to keep in mind if you don't have a HDTV

It's a viral marketing site for the film - entering "takara83" at the password prompt is supposed to get you in. Some discussion can be found at this site.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/04/18/battle-of-the-fp s-titans-samus-vs-master-chief/ Old news and somewhat less than relevant, but heretical fun nonetheless. Ending might not be safe for work!

Who called it?!

The protagonist uses a claw hammer similar to the that Cho poses with in his NBC manifesto to take on a hallway full of thugs and to do amateur dental work on one of his enemies.

So, Hammer plus Asian guy equals Mad Dog Killer in the minds of the Fort Bend Police.

1. Bad Advertisements. Everyone talked about them, everyone said "WTF", everyone shook their head. Again this isn't an awful move, but combine it with the rest of this list and we got the "PSP".

The early "Pass It On" ads were fine. The most recent "Find Me" is cool. I will grant you that the animated mice ads, and the the european red robots ads were fucked up. And the "black-white" posters were tone deaf (but then, they come by that honestly.)

The cheese ads didn't doom the handheld, or even harm it, because those ads came well after the PSP launch. Those ads were irrelevant to the fate of the PSP, because the PSP's fate was already sealed at launch. It was overpriced and crippled. If you don't get traction at launch, no amount of advertising, good or bad, will change your fate.

2. Attacking the fans. People bought the PSP and homebrewed it. Sony closed the gaps. Now this isn't a bad thing but it forced people to make decisions between upgrading to buy games and leaving it at 1.5 to play homebrew. Overtime we've found ways to upgrade to 3.0+ software and play homebrew, however the sore feelings came early and lingered. When people were forced to make that choice and picked homebrew, then sony lost money right there. Games is all Sony's going to make money on.

No one gives a shit about homebrew. And by "no one" I mean the 99% of the people that own a PSP or would consider purchasing a PSP. It's an infintesimly small segment of the market. Sure you may care. Your friends may care. But you and your friends probably also get your jollies recompiling your kernel or something equally hardcore geeky. You're not mainstream. This point is irrelevant.

3. UMDs. Not the worst idea ever but UMDs are clunky and a poor format. They are also slow. Notice that DS is a cartridge. Yeah they are outdated but they also have no load time, and little if any problems. Sony was smart enough to protect the disc instead of putting the laser right next to it, but the UMD is a failed concept that no one was going to buy. Blu-ray is slightly better, but forcing it on the consumer was bad voodoo.

You've got the right point, but for the wrong reasons. The PSP failed because of UMD. UMD was going to be the big content delivery system. You were going to buy movies and games on UMD and use the memory stick for only saving preferences and the like. UMD was doomed from the outset because no one was going to buy movies that could only work on a 4 inch screen. A kick-ass 4 inch screen mind you, but a 4 inch screen none the less. You would have though Sony would have learned there lesson after the Minidisk fiasco, but no. They suffer from terminal not-invented-here syndome.

If Sony had went with all internal storage. iPod like storage, then they would have had something. I mean 4 GB max from an overpriced flash card? No. For the same price you could get an iPod with like 5 times that much space when I considered a PSP a few years ago. Games are cool and all, but I wanted the whole portable media experience Sony was promissing, and not providing. Not that the iPod completely provides it either, but does give me music and video, albeit not on nearly as good of a screen.

5. Ports. This is perhaps the most damning of them all. The PSP is the Playstation portable. The Gameb

Wouldn't that mean asking Microsoft to drop the 360 as well? The PS3 has been outselling the 360 every day since Amazon finally had them in stock a few weeks ago (scroll down to "Sales rank of the primary Systems").

With Perrin Kaplan, you have to pretend every day is opposite day... because the things she say have a nasty habit of turning out untrue.

It's not a new controller its a keyboard that fits snugly into your existing controller http://www.joystiq.com/media/2007/04/xbox360-qwert y-07-425px.jpg

Verified problem with PS3 Bluray playback which is NOT the same as game playback, and at NO time did I conflate the two. I don't know what your problem is, why the facts are so annoying to you, but no matter how much you pose and posture, you can't change the facts. Read the links - READ them, don't skim them. You are wrong, you've been wrong since your first post, and that's not going to change until you change your position.

What are you talking about? When have you ever seen a 720p native display refuse 1080i input?

About 2 minutes ago, in my Rec room. Infocus 5000, Firmware 753-0363-10, Brandware 753-0363-02, Bootcode 002-1082-00. That's what I'm talking about. You feed this thing 1080i and you get 1/2 vertical screen of bright green squish.

What does this mean? Well, that your complaint about being unable to watch a Blu-Ray movie on the PS3 due to lack of display support is completely bogus.

No, what it actually means is that you don't know what you're talking about, that there are 720-only capable displays out there, and that you didn't do any research before you shot off your ignorant mouth. For instance, one quick Google search turned up the problem at IGN, avforums, arstechnica, joystiq and many more, both user forums and more technical forums. So lets just drop the "it's not a problem" nonsense right now. It is a problem.

Look, just because 3rd party support is eroding and previously exclusive titles are going multi-platform (or becoming 360 exclusives), doesn't mean the PS3 was a poor investment, right?

Look, just because 3rd party support is eroding and previously exclusive titles are going multi-platform (or becoming 360 exclusives), doesn't mean the PS3 was a poor investment, right?

I thought the PS3's drive read data at 9MB/second, while the Xbox's drive reads almost twice as fast at 16MB/second (although it seems to depend on some other factors, as well)? Here's the link. Please note that while I own a PS3, I have not actually bought a game yet, so I don't really know how fast it loads in real life.

You may think your A52/AC3 5.1 dolby digital compressed surround sound is good, but uncompressed TrueHD/DTS HD BLOWS IT AWAY.

You're probably right about that, but honestly, how can a person possibly tell the difference unless they use a measuring device? I bet 99% of people out there won't be able to hear the difference between the two. Personally, if the number of speakers are the same, I can't tell the difference between CD audio and something of higher quality. Console manufacturers are really going overboard with all this HD crap. It increases the cost of the console tremendously without providing any serious benefit at all.

The real shame about the 360 Elite is that it will NOT use the cooler running 65nm processors (no 65nm, no 65nm). Having that would have been much more preferable than a DRM ladened a/v port.

Correct, but the same cannot be said in reverse. For example the $400 X-box has twice the system ram of the $500 PS3. It also has a hardware scaler built in.

According to http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/20/ace-combat-6-rev ealed-as-an-xbox-360-exclusive/ Ace combat - the best flight sim for consoles is branded as an Xbox360 exclusive. Is Sony just going to sit there and let games like this slip away??!! Devil May Cry 4 is no longer a PS3 exclusive, now Ace Combat will not even appear on PS3. Do you have ANY plans to fight this back? Or at the very very least make it multi-platform?

"the difference being MS never advertised full compatibility whereas Sony did so unless this list improves fast, full backwards compatibility as promised feels like a big fat lie from Sony - at least with the European console."

-- not quite... --

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2005/05 /20/rumours_of_xbox_360_nonbackwards_compatibility _explained.html
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2005/05/19/no-y ou-do-not-need-to-recompile-your-xbox-games.aspx

"Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360. You will NOT need to purchase a new 'version' -- your original games will work on Xbox 360."

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/06/01/xbox-bc-not-a-pr iority-says-moore/
here they claim that they underpromised and overdelivered and are going to slow down their BC push.

-credit: jackson98

since my xbox broke, i would really like to finally finish my copies of mercenaries, jet set radio future, xmen legends, TES: morrowwind, and mechassualt. not to mention the fact that unless i buy a new xbox, i'll never be able to play "top" games i always "wanted to get around to playing" like panzer dragoon orta, otogi and chronicles of riddick. [they DEFINITELY promised that the "top" games would work]. i own a xbox360 and my original xbox no longer works, so outside of buying an used xbox, what options do i have left?

the xbox360's 10-20% BC is really not cutting it for a gamer like me. i dont mind playing the older titles. 72% BC out of the gate, with room for much improvement is not a "shame", as you put it; it actually looks like sony may be better at keeping the BC promise than MS.

I know this is probably a chicken or the egg kind of question, but here goes.

I would like to know if the 20GB PS3 is discontinued.

Now that my (one and only) question is out of the way..let me explain why I'm asking a redundant question.

Disclaimer: The rest of this comment is purely my own paranoid speculation on if Sony actually pulled the plug on the 20GB PS3, which is why almost every retailer you go to has not had stock of this model recently. Any questions posed are generally for the sake of argument. Please turn off all pagers, cell phones, and babies for the duration of this comment. Thanks!

No matter where I go, the 20GB model just isn't in stock. Amazon doesn't have it. Best buy (obviously) doesn't have it. Gamestop (and any derivative store) doesn't have it, and haven't had it for some time. It sounds like Sony's official stance is "The retailers don't have a demand for the 20GB model"..if that's the case, then why are the 60GB models still sitting in the store?

For instance, I was in an EB Games, perusing their wares when I heard a kid (not any older than 10) say "Yeah, the PS3 is awesome! and the 20GB model is even cheaper than the 60GB version!" (I paraphrased that one a bit, but it gets the point across.) I'm a little biased towards this particular store, as my significant other works there. However...they haven't had a 20GB PS3 in stock for quite some time. I'd say that there's an obvious demand for the system, and especially if little kids can be talking about the financial differences between the 20GB and 60GB models - I know it's not an end-all for the conversation, but kids are obviously going to be a deciding factor if Mom & Pop are looking to buy a system.

The point is that if there are more PS3 systems pushed out to the public, more people will buy games for the PS3. The more people that buy games, the more games will inevitably get traded in, which is how the Gamestop business model thrives. It would be in Gamestop's best interest to do whatever is necessary to foster this business model. Personally, if I purchased the 20GB model, I'd spend that extra $100 on games/acessories. If the game sucked, I'd trade it back in (and get ripped off in the process ;p), and get something else with my store credit.

I'm not claiming to know how Gamestop is choosing to stock their stores, and I realize that this same business model wouldn't work for Best Buy. It IS, however, a huge coincidence that all of the major retailers just decided to drop the 20GB model, all around the same time.

Xbox 360 Controller for Windows

Well, when MicroSoft announced that they're about to enter the console business they also noted that they won't make a profit on the first generation and that they knew it and that this was okay since their goal was to get into the peoples' living rooms. And I think for Sony, it's really important for them to push Blueray with the PS3, if that ship sinks like Betamax it'll really hurt.

A few links:

• Forbes: Xbox lost Microsoft $4 billion (and counting)
• Microsoft's Red-Ink Game (about XBox360)
• Is Sony eating hundreds of dollars on each PS3?

EA claims that they're working on foot planting and other realism-enhancing animations. I think there's videos online from their E3 presentation, and while it looks good, I'm still less than convinced of their ability to pull it all off in-game.

XBLA is actually about to get a number of classic boardgames. No Monopoly or Scrabble (the licensing fees would probably be astronomical so as to not outstrip sales of the real thing), but games like Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Alhambra, all very involving strategy board games, should be here in the spring. There's a pretty nice interview with the lead developer of Settlers at http://www.joystiq.com/2007/02/22/off-the-grid-int erviews-brian-reynolds-of-big-huge-games/

For example, Wing Commander is a series that is sorely missed by fans. It never really died, having been killed off by EA's strip mining procedures.

I'm sure I can't be the only person on slashdot who reads this and thinks "well actually I thought it would." Surely I haven't just become the world's leading business analyst overnight. Following on from their strong showing with the DS, I felt a lot of people (although none of the moron^H^H^H^H^Hexperts who get paid to share their infinite wisdom) seemed to predict this as Nintendo's second coming. Perhaps some analyst company would like to pay me stupid amounts of money - I'm open to offers. I was so sure about it, I even told my retired and not particularly wealthy parents to buy Nintendo stock (and they'd never forgive me if I was wrong).

Not to mention the danger posed by virtually every other medication and foodstuff on the planet if consumed to excess. Even too much water can kill (have we forgotten so quickly?).

If I use 10 packets of saccharin in my coffee every day for the rest of my life, the increased cancer risk I'd obtain from that would be so minimal that it would hardly be worth considering (forgetting, of course, that the caffeine would probably be a lot more dangerous to my health). In fact, it would NOT be worth considering since I would get significantly more carcinogen exposure walking down a busy street, inhaling exhaust fumes as I go. So, I'd be happy to eat a reasonable amount of the GM potatoes these rats ate (assuming they taste good, of course). I'd just avoid eating more than 20 potatoes a day...and I'd ban gasoline-powered vehicles, but that's another topic entirely.

Virtual Fighter was #1 in japan last week. Landing with a thud?

You should research a little before making patently FALSE statements.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/02/15/japanese-softwar e-sales-week-ending-02-11-07/

One wonders why you care so much about all the consoles doing OK?

They said 1080p was basically impossible..

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/03/22/xbox-exec-on-ps3 -1080p-will-be-basically-impossible

Now of course, it's possible all of a sudden. What gives? The truth was it was always possible, and PS3 was doing it, Microsoft however lied, as they did not have the capability at the time..

I feel sorry for the puppets that belive anything that Microsoft says, in particular the lying b1tches at the gaming division...

Microsoft told us, that 1080p was basically impossible: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/03/22/xbox-exec-on-ps3 -1080p-will-be-basically-impossible Until of course, they can do it, then it is possible.. LOL. People actually take in this Microsoft spin and believe it as gospel...

Ok, I'll bite.

For the nth time, the campaign that you refer to was:

A. Based solely around the image of white woman dominating a black woman. B. Built around the message "white is right" C. Made and presented in the racially-hypersensitive United States of America. D. None of the above.

If you knew how to use the Google you would've discovered the answer is D.

As this Joystiq post illustrates, there were several images in the ad series in addition to the incindiary one of the white female grabbing the black one. For those new to the situation, each woman represents a color of the Sony Playstation Portable, that ad series was meant to announce the release of a white PSP. For bonus points, where was the billboard series actually presented? Amsterdam. Not the United States.

Sony's ad agency had to know the outrage it would create if the ads were released here where the first thought is always race. The purpose of the ads was anthropomorphizing something mundane and aesthetic. To spice things up they made the young hot models show aggression. Rather than a bumble it would appear the ad agency knew exactly who they were marketing to.

The agency major miscalculation came in forgetting about the internet. Obviously someone was going to take pictures of these and send them around the world the moment the dropped. Apparently they figured the drawbacks didn't outweigh the potential gains. Given the controversy in combination with Sony's reverend blunder factory, I think they would've been better off without.

Getting back on topic, I agree with your sentiment that this furor over something completely innocent (middle finger pixels aside) is ridiculous. Even if Sony never said "white is right."

BUT, this whole thing afterwards is just insane. Politicians criticizing the company for doing this post 9-11, decrying the use of them putting up "hoax bombs", etc -- that stuff just infuriates me. The company could have handled the whole thing better, that's for sure, but they weren't putting up "hoax bombs," they were putting up advertisements. I realize they could have easily been IEDs but if you nail them for putting up "hoax bombs" you'll need to nail everyone that puts up anything short of a piece of paper.

Personally, if I were in Boston right now I would be pissed off. Not at the advertisers, but at the city that wasted millions on a force that cannot tell the difference between a bomb and a 40 year old child's toy which for some reason they never got. I guess all the journalists and police got coal in their stocking instead. Not one journalist has pointed out the real problem here, which is that this *proves* that Homeland Security is too poorly run and trained to keep us safe in a real emergency. They shut down parts of a large city all day to determine that a Lite Bright is not a bomb. How long could it possibly take?

It's clear to me that they would not know a real bomb if it bit them on the ass, and that they have no idea how bombs are made or work. Don't they have demolitions classes for these guys? They shut down a whole river for a "potential bomb" smaller than a childrens' book! They wasted over a million dollars on one days' activity clearly designed to justify their existence which in reality proved their utter incompetance. But instead of taking them to task, every news show is clucking their tongues and saying we should just cane the ad guys to death and burn the bodies. Can you say "talking points?"

It's not like this is the first time a harmless gesture was ridiculously treated as terrorism. In Ohio some obviously overworked law enforcers seem unfortunately unaquainted with Mario Bros and decided that the little guys were the next incarnation of Hezbollah. Meanwhile the real Hezbollah were probably laughing their asses off right under their noses.

I think incidents like this should result in some serious public hearings on the readiness of those who claim to protect us. Obviously they are doing a piss-poor job and it's only the relative stupidity/poverty of our enemies that really protects us here (in other words, they are just that much dumber than the dumbasses protecting us from them, and that sliver has been enough).

As dumb as it sounds, yes. The kicker is that you need the PS3 as a download gateway so your PSP can download it, but once you buy that game through their store, (and download it on your PS3) you can't play that PS1 game on your PS3. This will likely get sorted out as someone pulls their head out of their ass at Sony, and issues a new firmware, but currently that's what you get.

Although, if you would rather bypass Sony entirely there are other methods of playing PS1 games on your PSP.

The anwser is yes. The Wii is an online console, but currently in the US there are no online multiplayer games (Elebits uses Wiiconnect24 but not for multiplayer). Of those announced Pokemon Battle Revolution, Battalion Wars, and Super Mario Strikers, and Animal Crossing were are all announced to have online multiplayer.

... of course I liked the game but after playing that, wii sports, wii play, red steel and Zelda I NEED something that feels more mature and its just not there (I am planning to buy one of those racing games like NFS or GT ).

If you honestly need an 'M rated fix' -Godfather Black Hand Edition for Wii comes out in March, 2007 and has very violent motion controls added.

"If people think Wii Sports boxing is a blast, imagine taking out a baseball bat to "un-even" the odds... or even grabbing your opponent by the lapels and throwing him through a window."

Scarface was also announced to be coming to the Wii this summer. The system may not have it all right now (After all the Wii is just over 2 months old), but there's lots in the pipeline.

About a price cut on the PS3: Let Sony answer that question for him.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/01/22/tretton-ps3-will -be-difficult-to-cost-reduce/

Don't expect it any time soon. There won't a price cut nearly as quickly as the PS2 got one and it won't be for nearly as much.

(Although if it doesn't sell well for a year that could easily change)

You know those comparison pics we keep seeing, of Wii boxes marked 'totally sold out' and PS3 boxes marked 'Please for the love of God take these things off our hands'? Where are the Xbox 360 boxes?

They're not there. Nobody in Japan wants them at all.

According to this article the PS3 has already sold more units in Japan than has the Xbox 360. Even though it's only been out a month.

The people telling you how the PS3 would surely sell in Japan were telling you that on the assumption that the contest was between Sony and Microsoft - in which case, Sony is a surefire winner. The whole Wii thing was unexpected - although given the enormous craze in Japan for the DS over the summer, perhaps it should not have been such a surprise.

I hate to reply twice, but to further refute your point, it is happening in the US but in a slightly different manner. Gamestop & EBGames announced $100 off the PS3 if you turn in your PS2. Apparently people bought, and continue to buy, the Wii, 360, and PS2, just not the PS3 or its sister console, the Dreamcast.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/01/13/deal-or-no-deal- 100-off-ps3-by-giving-up-ps2/

I wonder if this will get Sony thinking at all. Technically they won't make a difference in profit from stores loweing prices, but if all shops start doing that and refusing new ones, its got to be bad news.

However Sony saying they won't lower prices means the only way you'll get a reduction any time soon is shops acting independently.

I wonder if this had something to do with it. It would seem MS and Sony had some trouble getting thier demos going on time, and Nintendo stole the show.

Perhaps this helped seal the deal for E3 (for now) as the majority of game companies cannot redifine gaming every E3 and stand to get much less press than the big few who try.

As far as Sony not doing anything right lately, the simply have too many divisions that have competing and different needs. They really need to spin off some departments imho. After the root kit incident I really don't care what happens to Sony but if they are going to do outrageous things like that they need to hide it behind a different company name at the very least.

Regards,
a +2 Bathtub Larva

They already did. One of Sony's execs (of austrailia) Said the Wii was a 'bit pricey'.