Blu Ray Drive Will Cost $100 Per PlayStation 3

fembots writes "The Inquirer is running an article detailing how Blu-Ray drives for the PlayStation 3 will cost Sony a small fortune. It turns out that at the release of the console in the first half of 2006, Sony will have to pay more than $100 per drive which will dramatically increase the unit cost of the PS3."

Comments

Cost saving idea direct from me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Replace the blue-ray drive with a 1.44meg floppy drive.

An expensive addition...

[SleepyHappyDoc]

Do you want to pay an extra $130 ($100 cost of drive plus 30% profit margin) on your new PS3 for a DRM-laden drive that can 'punish' you? No thanks.

Re:An expensive addition...

[thesymbolicfrog]

...Or, you could by an Xbox and support Microsoft. Which is worse?

Re:An expensive addition...

[plasmacutter]

I like how you phrased that.. someone please mod the parent up, but I would just forego the "blue ray player" functionality and use it for gaming. Of course, if they try to make me connect to the net to start a game I'll tell them where to stick their console.. along with several large pineapples.

Re:An expensive addition...

[squidsoup]

or you could wait for the Nintendo Revolution, which will probably be priced reasonably - announcements about this console (possibly a release date) should be made shortly at the Tokyo Games Show.

Re:An expensive addition...

[KillShill]

they punish you anyway. the console manufacturers i mean.

when the ps3/xbox360/revolution come out soon, you can buy one. but when you buy one, even though you paid for the graphics chip, the sound chip, the cpu, the vector/simd processors, the storage units; these are all off-limits to you, THE OWNER.

that means you need to get the company's permission to access your own PROPERTY!

how is this any different than lexmark's position? in fact it's even worse. these COMPUTERS can be so much more and legally you are in the RIGHT to do with them anything you wish, including but not limited to, programming the chips on the units to accomplish any task.

before you rush headlong to tell me "it's their business model"... i'll have to tell you how their business model is of any concern to me. to prevent legal access to your own property under the use of high-grade encryption constitutes a breach of commerce. to make this model work, it requires them to strip you of property rights.

those are your chips they're holding hostage.

and "don't buy from them" is not the answer. because here we have companies that are practicing an unethical business. you don't see gillette requiring high-grade encryption on the razor blade cartridges preventing customers from using it on any other brand of handle. how absurd would that be. software in this respect, follows the same pattern. if you give them the right to block lawful use of software, then also to be consistent you'd have to give them that kind of authority over physical items as well.

don't let them fool you with adjacent arguments about how this is their business model or how they sell the consoles (read computers) at a loss and make it up on game sales. that's a bunch of hogwash. this isn't at all about copying games or not paying for their hard work. because up till now i've only talked about one thing: access to the programmability of the chips. your chips, once you purchase the item. we're not talking about renting here, you have the RIGHT to access those chips.

if they have to sell consoles more expensively, then do so but any business model that deprives you of full access to your own property, is illegal and should be outlawed. this would never hold up under an educated citizenry.

i sincerely have no idea why more people aren't competely outraged over this. you're not renting these devices. you outright buy them. you buy everything, including the right to use the software on the machines. yeah, you purchased a copy of the core system software.

and we're not talking about 8bit microcontrollers (though the principle still applies), these are powerful multimedia processors. you have the right to have full access to those resources. it's not like you broke into IBM's hq and are running programs on their mainframes, this is YOUR property and the bastard companies are denying you your right to access it.

if they can't make money (and there's no reason whatsoever that they can't and still allow end-users to fully have access) then they need to find a business they can or go out of business.

for heaven sakes people, fight for basic rights like property rights or you'll truly regret it in the future.

the right to read comes to mind... but if all text is electronic and you don't and can't own the hardware with full access... it'll make you pine for these days we live in now as the good old days.

oh and btw, there are other ways to prevent "piracy", you don't need to deny the owner their property rights just to outlaw game copying.

just to reiterate, i have no interest in game "piracy", i only want full access to my own hardware. and i'm sure you do too.

Re:An expensive addition...

[FLAGGR]

Nintendo doesn't sell their consoles at a lose. Whereas MS basically took a PC and put it in a smaller box (not by much either :P) and now with the 360, there are reports of serious bottlenecks in the hardware (bottlenecks are unavoidable in PC's to some extent, but in consoles, the less bottlenecks, the less money you're throwing away) Sony has never seemed to be able to build a very cost effective (and lets not even begin on well designed and easy to develop for) system, the only reason they now make money off their hardware is because of mass production.

Nintendo puts more research into their hardware development, so that things are more tightly designed. For example, the GCN costs them under 100$ to produce, somewhere between 50$ and 100$, yet its only a hair less powerful than the xbox, which MS is *still* selling for a loss, and yet the "number" specs of the GCN don't look anywhere near as good as the xbox. Why? Because the xbox's "specs" are more of theoretical specs, untainable because of bottlenecks. So, Nintendo can use cheaper parts, and get the same performance.

Because of this, Nintendo never sells at a lose. The only time they've done so is a few months with the GCN after a price drop, and it was somehwere around like 2$ a system, but mass manufacturing caught up quickly. Even the GCN now, selling for what it is, and the DS at 129$ makes them a profit.

Re:An expensive addition...

[squidsoup]

Not at all. Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, has a keynote speech scheduled, during which some new information about the Revolution will most likely be revealed. The following is from the IGNcube mailbag:

Nintendo will not be showing anything at the Tokyo Game Show 2005. This is not really surprising because the company rarely exhibits at the event, considered by many to be the Japanese equivalent of the Electronics Entertainment Expo. That being true, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata opened TGS 2003 with a keynote speech and he's set to do the same at this year's event. The subject of his speech has not yet been revealed, but it's scheduled to take place on September 16 before the show officially kicks off. In 2003, Iwata spoke vaguely about the videogame industry and the future of game consoles. In two weeks, we expect him to talk about Revolution, possibly unveiling the top-secret controller. So although the Big N won't be on the show floor with games, it should be an exciting TGS for Nintendo fans all the same. Stay tuned for more, obviously.

Re:An expensive addition...

[AnObfuscator]

...Or, you could by an Xbox and support Microsoft

actually, Sony and Microsoft *loose* money each time they sell you a console. They expect to make up the loss on the game sales. Thus, if you really want to hurt Microsoft, you should buy TWO xboxen.

Re:An expensive addition...

[Unnngh!]

Yes, the much-anticipated top-secret controller. It will have - not the piddly 10 to 12 buttons that the competitors have - but a full 110 buttons to enhance your gaming action. The console itself will support not just blu-ray but dvds, cds, and pretty much any other drive you can fit into the expansion bays. The connector to your tv will be a 15-pin cable. It can not only run Microsoft's proprietary software but Linux as well...

Wait a minute!

Re:An expensive addition...

[Osty]

when the ps3/xbox360/revolution come out soon, you can buy one. but when you buy one, even though you paid for the graphics chip, the sound chip, the cpu, the vector/simd processors, the storage units; these are all off-limits to you, THE OWNER.

(The rest is just blah blah blah)

News flash: The act of modifying a console has never been found illegal. While companies have tried (Sony in Australia, everybody going after Lik Sang, etc), the only cases that ever hold up are those that also involve piracy. Thus, you certainly can hack your Xbox36/PS3/Revolution to your heart's content, so long as you're not doing anything otherwise illegal (using it to pirate movies and games, accessing services that otherwise bar modified consoles like Xbox Live, etc).

There's certainly a grey area around console modification due to the DMCA, but that's about circumventing a copy protection device. If you're modifying your console to run linux, or to play homebrew games, you can argue that you're not breaking the DMCA. If you were to come under fire, which is doubtful as companies like Sony or Microsoft really only target the egregious offenders (people modifying Xboxes and then selling them with pirated games already on the hard drive for example), any competent lawyer should be able to do the right thing so long as there's no evidence of piracy (you mention you don't want to pirate games, so don't fall to that temptation once you do modify your console).

In short, take off the tinfoil hat and realize that there's no way they can stop you from poking around in the internals of your console in the privacy of your own home. You may lose certain services (voided warranty, banned from online play), but in terms of the hardware itself you can do whatever you please.

Re:An expensive addition...

[Guspaz]

With Id Software (Doom, Quake) and Epic (Unreal) as well as a few other developers porting their games to Linux, linux gaming isn't non-existant, just limited. Valve is the last holdout of the big three of FPS, and they have no plans to support anything but Windows and consoles/arcades. Still, I understand Cegeda (Formerly WineX) runs Valve products decently (They actively release updates when Valve's STEAM updates cause trouble), so it is still possible to play their stuff without paying "the Microsoft tax", as you put it.

shortly following....

[GenKreton]

This shortly following the announcement of additional DRM in blu-ray. Maybe Sony has finally made a fatal mis-step. Obviously they haven't learned from history yet.

So you're telling me

[knappz]

That I'm going to be paying even more than the $300 pricetag that was on the PS3 before this spec was released? That just makes me wonder why I'd even get one in the first place, especially with the performance statistics and upgradeability of current PCs. If you ask me, console gaming is pointless if you have a worthwhile PC. If the game isn't on the platform, run an architecture emulator. Like the controller? Buy an adapter. Consoles are a waste of money.

Re:So you're telling me

[BewireNomali]

You're thinking about having a worthwhile PC for playing recently released games. Standardization is an issue. Consoles standardize platforms for developers and ensure that games play the same way across the spectrum. You're paying modestly (even at $400 US) for standardization and a uniform game experience.

Also, gaming in front of a PC is not as cool as vegging out on the couch with your XBox or PS2.

Some would argue that GAMING PCS are a waste of money. What is it going to cost you to keep your PC current and viable as new games come out? I got my XBox for ~$150, and that was like 15 months ago.

Re:So you're telling me

[secolactico]

BTW... my PC will still run PC games from 1995 as well as brand new titles... name a console that can do THAT

Does the Gameboy count as a console?

$100?

[king-manic]

Where did that figure come from? Sony owns the patent so it's not from licencing, unless they need gold wires/contacts through out the reader I doubt that $100 figure is accurate. It will have both an economy of scale as well a verticle intergration for this hardware, I'm more inclined to beleive 40$ of raw materials and a fudged math estimated R&D of 60$ per unit.

Re:$100?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It does cost money to make the optical mechanism, it's a little more complex than the DVD mechanism, and blue lasers are harder to make reliably.

Still, $100 more is still better than a $1000 separate machine. Some companies are announcing HD disc machines and $1000 is what the cost will be price for the first ones.

Perhaps the price will not increase

[iced_773]

IIRC, Microsoft sold each XBox at a loss, and game sales made up for the loss. Is it possible that Sony will think the same way?

I've seen this article... but

[mcc]

Where are they getting this from?

The Inquirer doesn't say where they got this number from... they don't have a source... it just seems to have come out of nowhere. Do they have a source they just forgot to cite? Or are they just running rumors without checking them?

This is the same number ($100) the Merill Lynch analyst report about the manufacturing costs of the PS3 (which slashdot itself has reported on at least once in the last few months) gave. I have the same doubts about it that I had then; it isn't from an "official" source (or in this case... any source at all), and I wonder if that $100 represents real per-unit costs or things that ought to be considered sunk costs, things that are just a natural byproduct of getting blu-ray production lines up and running. The reason this distinction matters is because Sony is going to have to be paying the second category of costs anyway, since for whatever reason they're going to be building blu-ray drives for sale anyway... so bundling those costs into the per-unit costs of the PS3 doesn't make all that much sense.

Re:I've seen this article... but

[nacturation]

They got the number from Sony's PR department, who gave that in order to make it seem like the PS3 selling price is such a bargain because they'll sell more units if people think they're getting an advantage. Nothing to see here, move along.

What's wrong with DVD anyway?

[zbuffered]

Can they seriously not fit all their games' data in a Dual-layered DVD?

This might be a deal-breaker for me. If I can interface my PS3 with, say, my PC or share it out to the network to use the Blu-Ray drive with non-gaming discs, then it's useful new technology and adopting it with the PS3 may end up cost-effective in the long run. Otherwise, this is Sony using new tech for... What purpose, exactly? Copy protection? Gee, thanks.

Re:What's wrong with DVD anyway?

[king-manic]

Can they seriously not fit all their games' data in a Dual-layered DVD?


Textures can be very big, bump maps can doubel ro tripple that size, and then there is audio/fmv's. The actual game binaries woudl fit on a CD but it's the Art assets that are huge.

Re:What's wrong with DVD anyway?

[NanoGator]

"You said tripple the size. As I said, can you explain how bump maps could be larger?"

I can offer a little detail. Have a peek at this image I made here. No, this is not an in-game mesh, but it's the sort of graphic that game consoles are rapidly approaching the ability to do in real time. There are a lot of photographic textures in that scene. Each texture is 2048 by 2048 in size. Here's a breakdown of the data involved:

- Color texture. (24-bit) :: This is the color image for the surfaces. The warning sign and the "DO NOT BLOCK ENTRY" sign both use images made in Photoshop to look like that. Those vents on the back wall are also simply photographs. (I'm starting to wish I made a render of this cannon without the textures to give an idea...)

- Bump texture (8-bit) :: This generates a 'bump' on the surface by adding an embosed looking shadow to the texture. The tiles on the floor in this image us that process.

- Specular Texture (8-bit) :: This controls how much 'shininess' is reflected from the surface. It is hard to see in this pic a great example of this process, but it's fairly subtle in this pick. Take a look at the tiles in the floor, though. There is some roughness on the floor from the specularity image, the bump image, and the glossiness image.

- Glossiness Texture (8-bit) :: This affects how 'big' a specular highlight is on a per-pixel level. This is great for making metal or something look 'smudged' when light hits it. The floor also uses this technique. Unfortunately, you'd have to see it animated to really get an idea of what effect it has on this scene. Basically, if the camera were to slowly truck to the right, you'd see a sort of 'shimmering' effect as the light hit the different areas of the glossiness map, causing the specular highlights to change in size. That's really the main reason I put that in there, I thought it'd make it look a little more like a real set.

- Diffuse Texture (8-bit) :: This texture controls how much light is reflected from each pixel of the surface. Sort of a poor man's HDRI. The floor just under the cannon uses this effect. It's sort of bluish in this shot. If the light dimmed a bit, the cannon would still be quite visible, but the blue floor beneath it would be black. The seams between the tiles are also almost black in the diffuse channel.

- Normal Map (24-bit) :: I did not use normal maps in this scene. If I had, the bump would look a little more convincing. (Although, for a scene like this, it would have been hard to tell.) These are full color images that represent bump in 3 axes instead of just one. I could have made those vents in the background appear to have more depth to them if I had known about normal maps at the time. To be honest, though, if I did this shot again, I probably would not use them. I would, however, if I were trying to simplify the geometry. There are 1.2 million polygons in this scene. The main reason there are so many is that every edge is rounded. A normal map could have done effectively the same trick at the cost of texture memory. Unfortunately, this would have been painful, as it was this scene took most of my gig of memory to render. As it was, I had dithered down the color textures to 8-bits each. (yes, those are 8-bit images and not 24. I wasn't sure whether to mention that or not... Hard to tell, iddn't it?)

Assuming I had used normal maps and didn't use an 8-bit image for the color channel, each texture in that scene had 80-bits of data. If I could only have used 24-bit color textures, then I would have seen at least a doubling of the assets. (But not quite tripling..) If I had come from using 8-bit textures... well the numbers turn a lot worse. Unfortunately, I do not know if game companies typically use 8 or 24 bit color t

Wise Business idea

[Goldfinger7400]

This is actually a very smart move by Sony in my opinion. With Sony backing Blu-Ray (I'm assuming) for the next generation DVD format, this will enable Sony to move large numbers of Blu-Ray drives, driving down the price and increasing the installed base of consumers with Blu-Ray players. Not to mention Sony gets to safely sell at a loss with game licensing backing up their bottom line... Leaving Sony and the Playstation as the best vendor and device for Blu-Ray movie playback and price.

Odd...

[squidsoup]

Do Sony really expect a lot of people to be able to afford these? Given the depressed state of the US economy, I can't see people snapping these up.

I suspect the Nintendo revolution will be reasonably priced, and I'll most likely buy one of those instead.

I own a ps2, but really can't justify spending that much on a console.

This is true at the start, but

[artifex2004]

Over the life of the console, this will come down significantly. So the average cost of that player will end up being somewhat less. Also, if you consider what a new standalone Blu-Ray player will likely cost when Sony introduces the PS3, it makes the PS3 look like a much better deal, even to people who mostly just want to play Blu-Ray, not games.

As I recall, in markets outside the United States, the PS2 saw a large percentage of its initial sales attributable to being an inexpensive (for the time) DVD player, that happened to also play games. It looks like they're repeating what worked well for them, before.

Interesting Idea

[MBCook]

Well, depending on Sony's pricing strategy they may end up selling at a loss again. If the console were to retail for $300 (at this point that's looking doubtful), that would be 1/3 of the cost of the console. That is a LARGE chunk. Now over time that drive would get dirt cheap, but that is still a lot of money.

Now it does add value (just like the DVD drive in the PS2) if you want a Blue Ray player. That said, I still think it's a good move for Sony in future-proofing. We are already seeing multi-disc DVD games, and with the kind of graphics that people will expect on the XBox 360 you will need lots of space for artwork and models. That means more and more multi-disc games. Having all that extra space will surely help as time goes by.

It's a gamble. I think it will pay off, but it is a surprisingly high cost for the drive. The Revolution and the XBox 360 are both sporting DVD drives from what we know right now.

The one thing that comes to mind most with this is: one more reason for Sony to hike the price up. I've been buying consoles at their release since the PS1. But even though I now have a job and it pays well enough, I'm not planning on buying a XBox 360 because it is WAY too expensive. I'll wait for the price drop, or to buy one used because someone didn't like theirs. I trust Sony and would like a PS3. I was planning to buy one. But if it costs more than $300, I'll wait on that too. The Revolution is the only one I don't know the price of, but I'd be willing to pay up to $300 (I expect them to launch at $250), and I intend to buy it.

Sony and MS are trying to price me out of the market (especially with games). And at this point, they have succeeded at delaying my purchase. If they're not careful, I'll learn I can live without it. If there is one thing I learned during this last generation, it was that I was right assessing the previous generation. N64 vs PS vs DC games? 30+ vs. 6. vs. 4. 'Cube v XBox vs PS2 games? 15+ vs 5 vs 8. DS vs PSP? 10 vs 4.

Nintendo systems always seem to have the most games that I want. Sony and MS aren't helping themselves with their prices.

Re:Interesting Idea

[ScrewMaster]

... I trust Sony ...

Arguably your first mistake.

Consoles are often sold at a loss

[mcc]

Sony has with its previous consoles sold the console at a loss initially, then gradually moved into profitability on each unit as their production costs come down. The Microsoft XBox was selling at a tremendous loss initially and is probably still doing so now, right up to the point where the console is being discontinued-- Microsoft H&E is still continuously losing money.

Sony will probably sell the PS3 at a loss initially.

Costs for Sony don't mean costs for you as a consumer. Businesses don't necessarily set prices for goods based on what it cost them to make it, they set prices based on what they think the market will bear. If you raise the price of your product by $100 and only half as many people are willing to buy your product as a result, your revenues have just gone down, right? Of course if you lower your prices below your per-unit cost you aren't going to make any per-unit profit, but there's more than one way to make profit; for example, Sony makes licensing fees on every PS3 game sold, and the more people own PS3s the more people there are out there buying PS3 games.

We didn't know whether the PS3 was going to be $300 when that number was batted around. We don't know whether the PS3 is going to be $400 when that number was being batted around. We have no idea what the PS3 is going to cost except that it's almost certainly going to be too expensive. If you don't like that, Nintendo would be more than happy to sell you something cheaper.

If you ask me, console gaming is pointless if you have a worthwhile PC.

So $300 for a console that will last you four to five years is crazy unreasonable highway robbery, but $3000 for a computer that will play this year's top-of-the-line games (but might not play next year's top-of-the-line games unless you buy an expensive new video card) is only just, normal and rational?

Right...

HDTV Reqs

[VoidEngineer]

What people are forgetting about here is the HDTV specs, which roughly triple or quadruple the memory requirements of video footage stored on a game cartridge/disk. Forgetting about the dual layer capabilities in the future, a 24G Blu-Ray disk, divided by 4, equals 6G. Approximately the size of a standard DVD. "But wait!" you say, "A DVD already can play HDTV!" Ah yes, but a typical game with multiple avenues of game play doesn't record the content of a single linear gameplay... it records many different avenues of gameplay. Which winds up tripling or quadrupling the storage requirements.

My two cents worth of opinion? With this decision, Sony is going to have a much better HDTV compatible offering.

So . . . if you hack your drive . . .

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

. . . will just the drive be disabled? Or will the DRM gods take out your whole PS3 as just compensation for daring to defy their digital restrictions management/regional price scam schemes?

TheInquirer aren't reliable sources

[doctor_no]

I wouldn't trust The Inquirer regarding PS3 news.

They were the ones who spread false PS3 news last week based on a message board post saying that the Nvidia 7800GTX was faster than the PS3's RSX. It turned out that the person on the message board misread PSM magazine and it really said the RSX is FASTER than the 7800GTX. I don't think that they do any fact checking. Likelyhood is that Sony manfacters the Blu-ray drives in house and it won't cost more than adding the DVD to the PS2 and they would likely be able to leverage economies of scale in the long run(which were very expensive at the time of the PS2 launch).

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25838

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25862

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9126/PlayStation-3-G PU-Less-Powerful-than-GeForce-7800/

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9132/PlayStation-3-G PU-More-Powerful-than-GeForce-7800/

sony and microsoft

[frankmu]

i wonder if Sony is spreading this rumor to let microsoft increase their price on the 360? there is no source behind this rumor as others mention. the price might be quite lower than people assume, but if sony could fake out microsoft by letting them shoot for a higher price. sony may come back with a $299 console

WRONG

[DigiShaman]

the current DVD format is not HDTV spec. While some of the newer players can up-convert the output to 480p, 720p, and 1080i, the original DVD source is not HDTV spec.

This would be like taking the RF (coax) signal from my Atari 2600 game system and up-convert it to S-Video. While I might get a more stable imagine for the TV to work with (depending on the hardware doing the up-converting), the resolution of the source still sucks ass.

*Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge*

[jayhawk88]

Sony: Say, Random HD-DVD Manufacturer, how much would we be paying for some HD-DVD drives for the PS3?

Random HD-DVD Manufacturer: For the PS3? Well, since you're going to be buying about 6 quintillion of them, I'd say about $25 a drive. Hell, make it $15 if you put our logo somewhere on the case.

Sony: Let me rephrase that. How much would we be "paying" for some HD-DVD drives if we wanted to justify an insane price-point for the first 12 months of the PS3 release?

Random HD-DVD Manufacturer: Oh, then it's $100 per drive. But if the first batch would turn out to be "bad" for some reason, we would of course be obligated to ship you 5.9 quintillion drives at a vastly reduced price - Say about $25 - to make up for our error, if it would help ensure future business with you.

C. Montgomery Burns: Excellent!

Yeah yeah, I know, new technology, blah blah blah. All I know is that this 4th gen console war is quickly making me want to dust off the Dreamcast.

Re:DVD Wars

[LnxAddct]

How much does this Blueray tech cost over using HD-DVD...
Your freedom.
Regards,
Steve

Very Old & Incomplete News

[iamghetto]

"The Inquirer is running an article detailing how Blu-Ray drives for the Playstation 3 will cost Sony a small fortune. It turns out that at the release of the console in the first half of 2006, Sony will have to pay more than $100 per drive which will dramatically increase the unit cost of the PS3."

Though this story was recently posted by the inquirer, it's very old news, and only a third of the story.

I already rebuked the story a couple days ago on my own website at http://www.gamegeeknews.com/?p=140 which itself referenced a GamesIndustry story from the end of June.

In short, Merril Lynch Japan has determined that it would cost Sony +$101 per part to manufacture each of the PS3's key components (Cell CPU, nVIDIA GPU, Blu-Ray Drives). That said, it expected Sony to sell the PS3 for $399 and to stomach a +$100 loss on each system sold. So this isn't new news, it doesn't mean the PS3's price is going to sky rocket... It's all already been covered.

Re:Bring it on.

[Doomstalk]

Sure, if cutesy kids games are your thing, go for Nintendo.

They certainly are if I have to choose between them and the masturbatory, self-indulgent tripe that passes for "mature" these days. Honestly, don't you guys feel the least bit patronized? Or are tits and violence the only things you want from an experience?

Re:Bring it on.

[Txiasaeia]

Or you can have both - Gamecube games that are mature rated and are actually not bad.

Re:Bring it on.

[Rayonic]

masturbatory, self-indulgent tripe

Because we all know how unpopular "masturbatory" forms of entertainment are...

Or you could buy it for the GAMES, you know

[Moraelin]

You know, no offense, I find the "buy Nintendo because it's priced reasonably" argument to be as bogus as "buy an XBox because it has a GF3" in it. We're not talking a lawnmower or a washing machine or whatever else that is fully self-contained and does something all by itself. We're talking a game console, which has one single use: to play games.

So here's a crazy idea: I'll buy a console for what games it has, not for the theoretical gigapixels per second (I don't play directly with the shader pipelines, I play with games that use those), nor because it's the cheapest (even something that costs only $100 is still just a wasted $100 if it doesn't also have games that interest me.)

_If_ the Revolution will have any games that interest me, sure, I'll buy one. But if not, not.

_If_ Sony's consoles again are the ones with 90% of the story driven RPGs, I'll go buy a Sony console again.

So far, I don't even like Nintendo's kinds of games, which were really the only ones that were exclusive to the N64 or GCN. Now I won't call them "bad" games or "kiddie" games, but they're just not in the genres I like. I know others like them. More power to them as far as I'm concerned. But I don't.

So unless Nintendo hires a new designer sometime soon, _I_ just can't see myself buying a Revolution, no matter at what price. On the other, hand, being a very happy and entertained owner of both the Playstation and PS2, I can easily see myself biting the bullet and forking over $500 for a PS3.

But again, I'll wait and see what games are available for them, and _then_ decide whether I buy either.