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Everyone Still Rumbling About PS3
To put things in perspective, the Curmudgeon Gamer has created graphs showing inflation-adjusted console costs. The PS3 is far from the most expensive console in history (that would be the Neo Geo, at almost $1000 adjusted price), but that hasn't stopped analysts, publishers, developers, and gamers from grumbling about it the week after E3. ABI Research has publicly stated that Sony may have 'hamstrung' itself with the console's high price. Publishers and developers are worried because (despite Sony's protests to the contrary), developers just don't have the kits to make the games. From the GameDaily article: "'A lot of developers have not gotten the kits,' said Sega of America president Simon Jeffrey while attending E3 last week. 'There certainly will not be a lot of titles available.' The result is that publishers that do want to take part in the PS3 launch will have to release games that don't fully take advantage of the power of the Cell processor, added Jeffrey."
Everyone Still Rumbling About PS3
Unfortunately, the PS3 is not going to be doing any rumbling of its own.
The fanboys will line up to buy it even at $600.
And it will hit $1000 on Ebay.
No suprises here.
A blog about stuff.
Could it be because Zonk likes games?
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Therefore, I will rent a PS3, and rent MGS4.
One weekend aught be more than enough.
Shaking. Get it right.
No thanks.
I like how Nintendo is trying to expand the market into new demographics. Meanwhile, Sony is sticking to the maladjusted 5%.
Don't need to spend a fortune to have some fun.
Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents.
Or because its the E3?
What the hell does inflation-adjusted have to do with consumer electronics? What a completely retarded justification.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Then maybe make a Zonk.com, submissions should drive stories.
Except for the 1st generation systems (Atari), no system that has cost as much as the PS3 has succeeded... even taking inflation into account.
That and he's got the $500 PS3 on there, comparing with the highend 360. He should really have the $600 PS3 on there.
I had every intention of purchasing this console. Now there's a snowball's chance in hell of that ever happening. Nintendo is going to be my camp for this generation of consoles now.
Because news for gamers IS stuff that matters!
Well this is interesting, I think the price concern is still justified considering the systems that beat it were the 3D0 and Neo-geo. Didn't everyone think those systems were ridiculously expsensive at the time, too? It would be more convincing if the PS1 and PS2 prices adjusted to inflation were in line with the PS3 price.
That chart doesn't really make me feel any better about the PS3's price, the only consoles more expensive on the adjusted chart are stuff like the Neo Geo (rich, niche market), the failed "multimedia" consoles like the CD-i, and the pre-1980 stuff that was ahead of its time. The only comparable (meaning, not niche) console that was more expensive than the PS3, even after adjusting price for inflation is the Saturn, which failed in the US.
It's not the most expensive, but it's nearly as much as the Sega Saturn, which wasn't all that successful. Really, the highest priced console so far that's done really well was the PS2 *, which is 40% cheaper than the low-end PS3. If it turns out that HDTV owners really should buy the high-end one instead, that makes the PS3 70% more expensive than high-priced successful consoles.
* except for first- and second-gen consoles, which were understandably expensive, since home electronics was a new market
Not written by me(quoted from the inquirer) but kinda funny:
Sony boardroom last June. Welsh wizard, Howard Stringer, is in the chair for the first time.
(ACT ONE)
The Sony boardroom. SONY EXECS seated. STRINGER pacing.
STRINGER. OK, moving onto the PS3... what is the easiest way for us to lose the ball on this one?
SONY EXEC ONE. Price, if we make it too expensive then Nintendo and Microsoft will screw us to the wall. Most people will not pay more than what the XBOX360 costs.
STRINGER. Great, anything else?
SONY EXEC TWO. We could delay it for ages until box Microsoft has established itself in the market. That would make it harder for us to claw back our lucrative European and American base.
STRINGER. Not bad, need a few more here.
SONY EXEC THREE. Well it is a bit tricky but we could make two versions of the PS3. One will have all the wi-fi gubbins and other bits that people want and will make it different from the XBOX360 and the Revolution. But make this version even more expensive than the base unit.
STRINGER. Nice thinking. It would also split our marketing budget between two similar products and the punters wouldn't know what we were selling.
SONY EXEC ONE. We could also make a really low key launch of all the details while our competitors are all over the games press like a hot rash.
STRINGER. Interesting how do we do that? There will be a lot of people interested in the PS3.
SONY EXEC ONE. We could go to E3, lock the demonstration models in a glass box and be evasive about crucial things like launch dates.
STRINGER. I like it... we will do all those things.
Sony Exec Two: Are you nuts?
STRINGER. No I am Welsh, we have a long history of being shafted by everyone from the Romans, the Normans, the English and the European Union but singing beautifully while it is done. I have no intention of winning against Microsoft or Nintendo. Now about what is happening with that Blu-Ray thingee. How are negotiations going with the HD-DVD crowd? µ
"far from the most expensive console in history." They say it like it's some sort of accomplishment or something.
What's next...a different study showing that the Sony Rootkit was "far from the most invasive rootkit in history?"
Whatever.
Who is behind all this anti-Sony astroturfing recently? Why do Slashfags love Nintendo and hate Sony? They're both run by gooks and take money away from Microsoft's excellent XBox.
Took me a minute to figure out what this thread was about. As a former owner of a TG-16, and given the context of this article, I thought it was about the game Air Zonk. Never mind. :-)
I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.
By pricing the PS3 so high, not only are they making the choice easier for next-gen gamers (PS3/Xbox360/Wii), but they are blowing their trump card in the next-gen format war.
It seems to me that a better move would have been to take a big(ger) loss on the consoles for the sake of saturating the market with Blu-Ray. Instead, they've set themselves up to lose both races.
I'd say that the Halcyon, even without adjusting financial numbers, would come out on the top.
Of course, it's probably just looking at systems which actually had more than a handful of games on it. Ah well.
The Neo-Geo (which if I remember correctly had CARTRIDGES that sold for almost 1000$ let alone the system itself... granted, it's been a long time and my youthful memory might be decieving me... and no, I'm not going to bother to take the time and look it up, someone else go do that and report back =) ) was that expensive for a couple of critical reasons.
1) It was a console that had technology far exceeding any capabilities available at the time. When Neo-Geo was selling to the elitist rich kids, the masses were just beginning to poke their heads into the SNES/Genesis market. A system of comparable power to the Neo Geo was at least... what? 4 years away? Possibly 5?
2) It was a console that was not marketed for the masses. Its advanced technology was marketed only to the few that could afford it. They felt that point (1) justified that marketing. Sony cannot claim that for the PS3, because no matter how many processors its core system is equivalent to, the end user is not going to see a dramatic difference between it and, say, the XBox 360. It's not like it was back then, when gamers who were used to 2D pixels suddenly had a system powerful enough to render 3D scenes. THAT was a significant jump... the jump between the Neo-Geo and its peers at the time was infinitely larger than the jump between Sony and its peers in technology.
If Sony wants to market to an exclusive lot, that's fine and entirely their perogative. But they won't sell many copies that way, and they're not going to make a lot of money that way. Where's SNK right now? I think last I heard they went bankrupt. Sony could learn from that example.
Of course, in order to actually appeal to an elite few, you have to offer them a truly elite product. They're going to need to beef up those system specs if they want to hit a market like that... and beef it up in such a way that an actual end user could visibly tell the difference in each and every licensed game they purchase.
-Vendal Thornheart
Neo Geo
3D0
PlayStation 3
CD-i
Sega Saturn
SONY, if you can pull this one off, you'll easily have the highest-priced success story in the history of video game consoles.
I don't think you can pull it off. $500-$600 is too much to pay for a video game console that, as far as I can tell, isn't doing that much of consequence to distinguish itself from the XBox 360 in the eyes of your average consumer.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The PS3 will cost a zillion dollars and not have any games or any online or any vents and the controller was stolen from the Nintendo 64 and the games will be stored on Betamax tapes and you really, really, really hate Sony.
We get it already that you hate Sony and hate the PS3, and everyone agrees with you. This is established. You don't really need to post more stories about it, especially not on the front page, unless there are actual new developments. Can we have some stories about games now?
The graphs show the PS3 is not the most expensive console in history by adjusted prices, sure. And the 3DO and neo-geo were huge flops. And yes, back in 1982 dollars, people paid more for the Atari 2600 and the intellivision.
But there are two elements missing here.
A) Total Sales at Price. How many Atari 2600s sold at a price point above the PS3's adjusted value? If the PS3 sold like that, would it be a success?
B) Relative price to PCs. There's a reason the last "successful" console priced (in adjusted value) above the PS3 was back in 1979. Computers were even more expensive: The Apple ][ was the game machine to beat (I know, I know, I had a Pet, thank you) in 1979, and in 82 it was the (much cheaper) Commodore 64.
For a console to be successful, it has to be cheap enough to be below the threshhold that people start looking at PCs. I know you guys are gonna argue that Console markets are different, and the PS3's über-cell architecture will run circles around a 3-gig dual core with a decent video card, but that's not how it's going to be viewed by consumers (or reality for that matter).
A bit of a defense for the Neo-Geo...
Neo-Geo like it's co-"competitor" the SNES, was arguably the console with the longest lifespan. It debuted in 1990 and the last game for it was released in 2004, a full four years after the original company (SNK) had declared bankruptcy. And some of the games that came out late in the system's life, including Metal Slug 3, King of Fighters '98, and Mark of the Wolves are some of the best games in their respective genres. Neo-Geo also had two main two systems: the AES (the regular Neo-Geo) and the MVS (the arcade system). Both of these were basically the same hardware, and software could run on either. Even if your favorite arcade game never reached the home system, with some soldering you could easily make a home-version of the game from the arcade one.
The price was always prohibitive, sadly. Old AES systems, even today, command a premium and most new games had an MSRP of $200-$300 each, if not more. Specific versions of old carts can go in the four figures.
Thankfully, the Neo-Geo lives on. There's still a very healthy market for it among collectors (see above), emulation of the hardware is almost arcade-perfect, and the most popular series (King of Fighters, Metal Slug) have been appearing as re-issues for more popular systems (Xbox, PS2, etc.).
Out of all the high-priced systems of the past, Neo-Geo was definitely the most popular and lasting, a credit to the game-centric (but ultimately unprofitable) ideology of its creators.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
... you can go out and grab over 100 spicy italian sandwiches from Subway. 2 layers of salami and Pepperoni topped off with 4 slices of american cheese. Put a little mayo on there, some lettuce, tomatoes, and black olives, and you've almost got yourself a sandwich. Next, have them cover the sandwich in salt and pepper, then spray some oil and vinegar over the top, wrap it up and there's dinner. I think we can all give thanks for a sandwich that good. mmmmm mmmmm
Could we have just one story about either the PS3 or the X-Box 360 that isn't stuffed without enthusiastic shills (mostly with UID's above 900,000) popping up to tell us how TOTALLY AWESOME the Nintendo Wii is going to be?
That would be just great. 'kay? Thanks.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I like Zonk's stories. He actually writes them. They are for the most part well written and thoughtful with decent spelling and grammer. That's about a million times more than most of the editors do around here ;-) If you don't like it, uncheck Zonk's box and you will never see them again. There may not be as many posts in his stories because they appeal to a narrower audience, but the posts in his stories are on average more on topic and insightful. I know dissing editors is something of a hobby around here, but admit it, you don't really have a beef with Zonk, you just want to hurt his feelings for the fun of it. Probably because you are jealous that he gets to make money from playing games. Well, more power too him! I'd do it if I got the chance.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Step back a minute and think about it. A few weeks ago, Nintendo announced the name "Wii". Everyone was doom and gloom for Nintendo, nothing but lamenting, ...but they were the talk of the town.
This week, Sony says "$500"! And everyone is doom and gloom. But they're the talk of the town.
From a marketing perspective, it's far better for people to be passionate in either direction (love or hate) about something than for them to be indifferent about it.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
For the conspiracy minded, there are a lot of negative stories floating around forums about the PS3, and Microsoft has been known to astroturf before... something to think about.
It's pretty funny to hear people complaining for example that the console is "really" $600 and not $500 (base model) because it lacks HDMI and therefore you'll not be able to play games in HD. Except that the 360 lacks an HDMI interface on ANY model...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Even if you don't adjust for inflation, the Neo Geo was more expensive than the reported price for the baseline PS3.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Perhaps it's because he is /.'s GAMING editor? Could that be why?
Most of the hype doesn't matter to me. If a platform supports Linux then it has appeal. If the PS3 runs Linux and lets me develop programs for the Cell with a high end OpenGL card to boot. I'll buy one. At $600 that's a steal.
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
The PS3 is far from the most expensive console in history (that would be the Neo Geo, at almost $1000 adjusted price), but that hasn't stopped analysts, publishers, developers, and gamers from grumbling about it the week after E3.
The market still relies on the dumb "9" prices (199, 149.90, 399, you know the drill).
Of course, we all know paying $600 is not different to $599, but they do it, and we're flooded with such prices, get tired and occasionally fall for it while doing quick comparisons.
And why they do it? Because it works. When you compare prices *fast*, you occasionally forget about the 9-s, such as when comparing XBOX's $399 and Playstation $599.
Noone is actually making a charts with inflation adjusted prices in his head. All it counts, is what first impression the digits makes...
Looking at these graphs I didn't realise that Nintendo has always released its new console at $200. It seems odd in all the speculation over the Wii's price, this is never mentioned.
Furthermore looking at the inflation adjusted model I have to say thanks to the big N for bringing us newer and better systems cheaper each time!
Sony can go jump in a lake.
-Ian
Another interesting statistic to note is that Nintendo's console's have become less and less expensive as time goes by, even though they're getting more and more powerful. Let's hope the trend continues and see a $200 Wii.
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
The PS3 is expensive. Adjusted to inflation or not, 600 is something that buys a fairly ok computer these days.
Most people who will want a PS3 already have a PS2. So the make or break point for PS3 sales will be whether there is a "must have" title for it. 600 isn't quite a price that makes players go "Ah well, let's buy it, they'll release a cool title for it soon". It's rather something that makes people think "Well, I'll hold it off 'til a cool title comes out, maybe it's also cheaper by then".
So what will be the seller or bomber for the PS3 is whether some company has the guts to squeeze out a killer title in the hope of this title convincing people they MUST HAVE a PS3. Because one thing's sure: If the PS3 doesn't initially sell, studios will hesitate to develop for it. Thus fewer titles come out. Thus fewer people buy it... and so on.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Maybe is the Dollar wasnt going down so fast, they wouldnt need to charge so many...
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
...and download lots of 'stuff' off piratebay?
Sera.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Also, let's check the front page:
Games: Everyone Still Rumbling About PS3
Posted by Zonk on Tue May 16, '06 02:04 PM
IT: Wireless Security Attacks and Defenses
Posted by Zonk on Tue May 16, '06 11:49 AM
Science: Baby Meets Big Brother For Science
Posted by Zonk on Tue May 16, '06 11:23 AM
IT: Microsoft to Become Mobile DRM Standard?
Posted by Zonk on Tue May 16, '06 10:38 AM
Your Rights Online: U.S. Supreme Court Deals a Blow to Patent Trolls
Posted by Zonk on Tue May 16, '06 09:39 AM
Linux: Microsoft Flirts with Open Source
Posted by Zonk on Tue May 16, '06 09:02 AM
Apple: Apple Unveils New Macbook
Posted by Zonk on Tue May 16, '06 08:23 AM
All of those were user submission except this one. Which is about Games, Zonk's editorial specialty.
I played through MGS for PSX and liked it a lot... and then a few years later I played and beat MGS2 but was disappointed. I don't understand what the great appeal is to the game.
Splinter Cell rocks MGS as far as gameplay is concerned. But can you explain why MGS is such a lucrative title?
Can we please stop strawman crap like "By infilation the Snes would be 5 billion zillion dollars! PS3 is just keeping the trend!" and instead stop being ignorant and take the entire culture into account here. You could say inflation goes up from the 90s till today but console prices are still in the same area (at least in the UK). This is because if figures go over £300-£400 then human nature kicks in and goes "Wow that's expensive!"
Back in the 80s (which most compare this to), people bought 1 console and maybe 5-6 games. They have Pacman, space invaders, Pong and a handful of more basic simple games. It was something to play after dinner for an hour with th ekids. See who could get the highest score in Pacman before the kids went to bed and the parents watched some TV.
In the current era because of the bullshit brand wars you need to buy 2-3 consoles to get all the games you want. If you don't have a PS2 you can't play Devil may cry, if you don't have a DS you can't play Mario kart. This just didn't happen back in the 80s.
The gaming culture has changed massively, it's like going "Oh the motor car era were you wore goggles and used hand signals to turn is exactly like todays traffic. Just yesterday I lost everything below the elbow because I tried to make a right turn on a main road!"
I like muppets.
The Neo Geo was not a console, I owned one. It was not marketed as a console, it was not *meant* to be a console. It was sold as a true arcade unit that had the ability to play all of the arcade titles without needing to buy individual cabinets.
The Neo Geo did exactly what it was supposed to do, be a 100% exact copy of the arcade unit, NOT a port or a very close remake.
For what it was the Neo Geo was a hell of a deal. A single arcade cabinet would have cost as much as the system and just one game, so after purchasing a few titles you had saved a considerable amount of money over individual stand alone units.
I will say that the Neo Geo would have been much better had it come as a stand up cabinet that allowed the games to be changed, for the money. But then it did not take up the space of a cabinet, so I guess that was the tradeoff.
In any event, this is not a fair comparison. The 3DO, fine, but not the Neo Geo. Everyone likes to use it as the comparison and it is so damn frustrating because it most certainly was not a console, not even close.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
No one is going to consider the adjusted cost of a console and how it stacks up to other in history.
...how many of us gaming enthusiasts owned a NeoGeo, or a 3DO? Now what about the general public?
You probably shouldn't click this.
Sony would rather lose $1 billion in actual lost sales than have $1 million of thier content pirated.
That's the choice they made, and the result they're seeing.
How ALL of Nintendo's consoles, from the very first one, sold for $200. The Wii might be the first to sell for a bit more, but still, that kind of fortitude is impressive.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
The USD isn't quite in a nose dive. It did lose some value compared to Yen or Euro in the last few years, but we're talking a few percent here.
So currency devaluation is, at best, 5-6 percent of the price tag.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sony should be worried. And Ill tell you why.
I talked to the guys down in shipping about this stuff. I said "Nintendo Wii," and they laughed and said it was a dumb name.. Then I showed them a pic from the new Madden game, and footage of miyamoto running around on stage playing tennis, and got a "NO WAY! THATS FUCKING AWESOME! HOLY SHIT!" and other such statements.
Then one of the guys mentioned the new playstation. And I just said "its six hundred bucks" and they all said "FUCK THAT.. well, how much is this other thing?" I said I wasnt sure, but probably 200 or 250 bucks, and they said "damn man, i gotta GET ME ONE-A THOSE!!!"
These guys are my tap on the norms. Nice guys. Dim, but nice. Talks like this are very enlightening, and if they reject the new playstation, sony will fail fail fail.
Im sure the ps3 will sell out on release, sure, but Nintendo has got it MADE this coming generation.
I enjoy gaming and consoles are a really convenient way to do it. However, I don't see why I would want to spend US$800 to play a few new games. Now, I know the base price isn't US$800, but I also have to pay 7% in sales tax when I buy the thing, and then I have to buy a game or two, which may run up to $150 bucks. Now I am at US$800.
While the graphics on newer games are really great, I haven't seen any really innovative games. If I like a specific genre, I can go find dozens of older games that are highly rated, even if their graphics aren't the best. In fact, in a lot of games, the quality of the graphics doesn't even matter. I don't need a photo-realistic Mario or Master Chief, or a photo-realistic pile of rubble. Are they nice to have? Sure. But how often do you get a chance to stop and admire the scenery in a game? If I want nice scenery, I'll go outside and see all sorts of great graphics.
Only Nintendo has me interested in their new console. I don't like the Wii name, but who cares? It's for playing games. I don't care if they named it the Ugly Fuzzbutt, it will still play the same way and I can name it George. What I like is the new way to play games, and the interesting games that seem to be coming that utilize the Wii-mote. I don't want another flagship FPS or racing game. While I like those genres, I can play a hundred different types all the way from Wolfenstein 3-D to Halo, without new hardware and for about $US10 a game (bargain bin rocks!).
So, sorry Sony. I loved the PS2, but I am going to pass on the PS3.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
But I have to say that this is the first time I have seen anything about the PS3 in a negative light that didn't have the first 100 posts contain at least 50% of Sony fanbois trying to justify the (price, technology, blu-ray, etc.)
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel...
The Official Microsoft Marketing Plan.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
I wonder how much the hacked version of the PS3 will go for?
The problem IS NOT the price of the console in a vacuum.
It's the fact that the console is nearly double the price of it's two competitor products.
It's the fact that you're pretty much going to see ports of the same games on every console.
It's the fact that the console is an absolute BITCH to program for.
It's the fact that Sony is NOT getting the developer kits out fast enough.
It's the fact that the main competitor, the XBox, will have been out nearly a year at the time the PS3 debuts, and will have had that much lead time to lock some solid titles into it's roster. Titles that take excellent advantage of the platform. Most of what will debut with Sony will be little more than technology demos or games that don't take advantage of the platform.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The price of computing has dropped, and consumers are accustomed to this.
The PS3 is far from the most expensive console in history (that would be the Neo Geo, at almost $1000 adjusted price) but that hasn't stopped analysts, publishers, developers, and gamers from grumbling about it the week after E3.
Well, when you put it like that... I guess I won't be buying a NeoGeo either!
Of course that comparison hasn't stopped people from complaining. Nobody cares about a favorable comparison against a ridiculously overpriced console that never saw any mainstream (i.e. not arcade) success. What we care about is comparisons against the relevent competition, or comparisons against what we can afford.
It's like debunking the rise of authoritarianism in America by saying China is worse. "Better than China" isn't something I want to be bragging about. Or Bill Clinton improving the education system in Arkansas from 50th to 49th. Um, good job?
I think it's interesting that Sony is pushing their console into a price realm that hasn't been breached by a commercially successfull console since before the PC revolution.
The enemies of Democracy are
You forgot one: Betamax: "Far from the worst flop in history."
The PS3 is far from the most expensive console in history (that would be the Neo Geo, at almost $1000 adjusted price), but that hasn't stopped analysts, publishers, developers, and gamers from grumbling about it the week after E3.
That comment would have made more sense if the Neo Geo had been the sort of monster hit that Sony needs with the PS/3. If the PS/3 only achieves Neo Geo like sales that will be very bad for Sony and PS/3 developers. The developers are right to be complaining and very concerned.
it's good to see sony playing in the same league as the sega saturn, and the cd-i. consoles that we have all owned and appreciated. bastions of popular gaming culture.
Raise your hands if you had a NeoGeo. Anyone, Bueller? If you had one, you're probably a VP at Daddy's company right now, not reading Slashdot.
Different system. Different time. "Adjusted price" for electronics is a joke.
When the NeoGeo came out, pre-teen kids like myself drooled over its coolness, but knew Pop would never allow such an exorbitant amount for a video game machine. Of course, if it were for the computer, that's a different story - because "Dad, it's for school!"
Nowadays, the target for PS3 is well-financed college grads, bachelors, or college students who'll just charge it to the old student loan, or the rich kids. 3 out of 4 weren't raised by video games in the NeoGeo's time.
We don't even have an HD television, and I know only 1 person who does, and he doesn't have HD service. I'll probably get one when my current TV dies or is won't work because the government thinks I need HD to be a good American. The olde faithful tube can last decades, you know. As far as I'm concerned, Donald Trump's pores can remain an unseen mystery.
Personally, $600 for a console is an outlandish sum in my household, and if my boy asked for one, I'd tell him he's nuts and he'd better get a job (thankfully he's only 2). Of course, if it's for the computer, that's a different story... hehe.
This is not a really fair comparison as the Neo Geo was not originally intended to be a home machine and the price insured that it did not become a popular game console. The Neo Geo console cost $650 with one game, memory card, and controllers; additional games cost $200 EACH. On the other hand, Sony is REALLY hoping that the PS3 becomes a popular game console and Blue-Ray video player.
I wonder how many PS3 owners will actually play Blue-Ray disks using their PS3. The original X-Box and the PS2 both had DVD player remotes available, very few people actually used their X-Boxes or PS2's as DVD players.
Now, call me crazy, but I think it's rather probable that one of these games will turn out to live up to its potential and qualify as a "must own". Just possibly. It's also possible, since the games I list above are generally in distinct genres, more than one of them may be "must have" titles which appeal to different groups. And it's even possible that someone may choose to buy a PS3 to play a game that isn't technically exclusive (such as Madden or GTA4) if they consider GTA4 a must-have and something like MGS4 a kinda-want, but don't already have anything that can play GTA4.
Now, given, the items in this list generally aren't launch titles, but the reality of modern game design is that bestseller games take a couple years to make and a next-gen system cannot possibly have a truly system-showcase game at launch. The only people who are going to be able in this new generation to have really system-showcase, system-selling, blockbuster titles right out of the gate at launch time is Nintendo, due to shrewd tactics in creating a game system that can effectively reuse the Gamecube resources they already have. Besides the Nintendo, the other systems are probably not worth buying for the first year or so after launch anyway.
went out and laid down $300+ so that they could play Half-Life 2 when it came out? I know a few. I also know people who basically built new machines for Doom 3.
Sony will launch at $599 and sell out. And then there will be a shortage for a while, and then the top end console will be at the price point of the lower end one, and the lower end disappears. The controllers will have their Dual Shock back by then too. Everybody gets what they want. People get in on the bleeding edge, others get to feel good about saving $100 later.
And including FUD from SEGA America's president? Yeah, that's credible. Bill Gates said that Linux is dead too, so it must be true.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8913084255 008000794&q=ballmer
Didn't these very same boards light up with wild ideas that the XBox 360 was underpriced at launch and that supply/demand would dictate that Microsoft charge more for the system based on the going rate from resellers on Ebay?
My take on the price: Sony priced it high because they knew they would not be able to meet initial demand had they priced it lower. They might as well make a lot of money on the few systems they'll be able to ship. My prediction: a sizeable price drop after they system has been out for less than six months.
There is not a single successful system on that graph that is inline with teh PS3. The neo-geo was insanely overpriced when it came out and was a flop. However, the most important point is how it compares to it's compeitors, and again it's way overpriced.
Now I'm simply curious to see if the wii or 360 will win this round of the console battle.
...than a Dell Optiplex GX520 does today.
So, what exactly is the point?
In 1962 an IBM 7094 cost $3,134,500.
Does that mean that $19,356,198.10 is a reasonable price to pay for a Dell Optiplex GX520 today?
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Forgive me if I'm incorrect here, but the 7-core cell processor that is shipping in the PS3 has a thoeretical max performance of 218 GFLOPS according to Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_gam e_consoles_(seventh_generation))
/hell/ said the PS3 was expensive?
Now the 500th fastest computer in the world has a speed of 1645 GFLOPS (http://www.top500.org/lists/2005/11/basic/5)
So essentially, all I would have to do is purchase eight PS3 systems for 5000 bucks, beowulf cluster, and I'll have one of the 500 fastest computers in the world.... And that's not even counting the GPU. Not to mention the fact that the hardware is built for Linux and requires NO hacking.
Who the
...compared to how much most of you suckers will pay for it on E-Bay. I want to just say "Thank You" ahead of time to everyone that will make me rich by buying this console system at an even more inflated price when I throw mine up there.
Personally, I think it's because we all secretly admire how Snake manages to be cool in spite of a mullet and a little math teacher mustache.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
People here are focusing only on Sony's game-based business unit.
Sony's sales in EVERYTHING has been slipping and they desperately need the PS3 to be a hit.
Pricing this high shows investors and market analysts they are on the ropes and launching one last haymaker.
As a side note, how many development firms will agree to PS3 exclusive games if they have only a minor market-share?
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
Yes, we get it, its not the most expensive console ever because Atari in 1979 was actually blah blah blah.
Except....
Electronics have been reducing in price for the past 30 years. A top-of-the-line Mac in 1984 sold for $10,000. What's the inflation-adjusted price of $10,000 in 1984?
If Apple released a mac today that cost $12,000 and aimed it at the general market, they'd be the laughingstock of the industry, and nobody would be making goddamn graphs saying that "Well, in 1984, computers were actually more expensive than Apple's offering."
It is an outrageously priced console. Now. In 2006. With a possible, unproven, undemonstrated advantage over existing hardware.
They are going to have to fight with even cheaper systems. I mean ok so right now with 360 prices it doesn't seem unreasonable. More expensive yes, but only like $100. However you can pretty much bank on the fact that MS will drop the price of the 360 around the PS3 launch. Also around that time the Revolution will be launching, and I'd be amazed if it's more than $250. So now all of a sudden you are in the $200+ more expensive range and, as you said, not enough to distinguish it.
/. a while back they talked about how HDDVD/Blu-ray are going to only do real HD over encypted digital links, the analogue outs will be limited. Well, that being the case, you'll get HD gaming out of the $500 PS3, but not HD movies, removing one of Sony's bigger talking points as to why to get one.
If they think Blu-ray will drive it, I think they are deluding themselves. I do know one person who wants one for that reason, he's psyched about HD videos. However far more people, myself included, don't really care. I have an HDTV, nice surround setup and so on, and I have HD cable so I've seen real HD. It's quite cool, PBS and Discovery espically, however it's not as amazing as you might expect as compared to DVD. It's a major step up over broad cast TV, but not such a step up over DVD. It IS better, don't get me wrong, but not enough that I really care. It's certianly not going to make me get a PS3. If I get a PS3, it'll be based off of videogame merits, the Blu-ray feature just isn't enough for me to care.
Also, the Blu-ray feature is rather moot on the $500 model. Since it lacks HDMI/DVI output it cannot do HD Blu-ray. If you remember on
i.e. the ps2. Something everyone takes for granted is that Sony'll drop the ps2 as soon as the ps3 hits. They can (and will) sell ps2s to people not willing to shell out $600 bucks until they can redesign the ps3 and make it cheaper.
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Sony did, when they released the price.
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Instead of a small amount of highly subsidised systems selling out we will have a small amount of not-so-subsidised systems selling out. Sony won't take a massive subsidy hit and early adopters might have a better chance at actually getting a console at launch. The people who want the console will get it but they wont necessarily have to go through as many middlemen to track one down (ebayers may be less enthused with the bigger upfront payout and bigger risk). Mark my words. Come October people will want this thing bad (as usual). Come Christmas it'll be worse.
I notice the graphs only show PS3 and xBox360, not the (price not set) Wii, but I do know that the dev kits for the Wii are way cheaper (think it's around $2000) compared to xBox360 and PS3 (both in the $xx,xxx range). In addition, we can expect the Wii to retail around the $300 price point or so.
Perhaps this is why we have high resistance levels to the PS3, and why the Nintendo Wii did so well at E3? Not just cheaper dev costs, but the existance of many fun games that people could just do and not sink too much money into development.
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unfortunately, the article ignores the price of the games. factor in the cost of the games, they arguably cost much more than the console.
in my opinion, the success of a game console hinges as much on the cost and availability of games as well as the console.
what i'd like to see is a development cost comparison of games for the different consoles and a comparison of the average retail cost of the games for the different consoles.
as i understand it, the reason why sony was able to break into game consoles was that the original playstation was not only competitive with sega and nintendo (remember that at that point, sony had virtually zero experience selling game computers) but was very simple and cheap to develop for. sony even offered a development platform for hobbyists. hobby programmers were responsible for a number of significant games on the original playstation (i think parrapa the rapper was one of these). paradoxically, sony, microsoft, and nintendo have been making a habit out of making it hard and expensive to develop console games so as to force developers to be exclusive to one or another platform.
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All fixed.
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I can't speak to all of the prices on the list, but the prices for the Saturn and Dreamcast at least are out of whack. I bought both consoles the day they came out, and both set me back $300 before tax. The Saturn was $300 at launch, in california at least, as was the Dreamcast, not $400/$200 as suggested in the chart... then again that was in california, I can't speak to all states...
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I don't think anyone's claiming that the Neo-Geo was a bad system.
It is "bad" in the sense that SNK lost enough money to go out of business with it.
That's the issue: Very, very few people want to buy a $500 PS3, and even fewer want to buy a $600 one. Very, very few developers want to spend extra money to develop for the PS3's new features. And Sony is losing very, very much money on each console sold.
What's more, these problems all support each other: Very few people wanting to buy the console means fewer developers wanting to develop for it; fewer developers wanting to develop for it means fewer people want to buy the console. Fewer people buying consoles means fewer people buying games, and fewer developers developing games means fewer games for people to buy; the lack of game sales makes the losses Sony takes on each PS3 worse, which extends the length of time Sony has to keep the price high, which keeps this bad situation going for a longer and longer time.
That's why SNK is no longer in business, and why the Neo-Geo was a "bad" machine. SNK died on account of an infection of creepitis featuritis, which is sort of the AIDS of the tech industry, since it attacks the very systems that are supposed to keep you healthy.
...I think the have set the correct price. Why ? I think they are betting on the agging gamer population (the one more likely to be attracted to a consle with a blue ray device to watch film too). And thus for a gamer forking 500-00$ isn't that much. Think of it, if the market was 5 years ago 16-25, now additionally to the kids coming in recent years to gaming age, those old gamer are now 21-30, an age where you have purchasing power...And the dad of that 8-12 years old kid will also likely be a gamer of 26-36 year old...
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Instead of comparing the costs of PSONE -> PS2 -> PS3 (estimated) to inflation, how about a comparison to something we can really relate to -- gasoline over the same period. After all, the higher the price of gas, the more we want to sit home and play our video games.
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I wonder how many PS3 owners will actually play Blue-Ray disks using their PS3. The original X-Box and the PS2 both had DVD player remotes available, very few people actually used their X-Boxes or PS2's as DVD players.
I passed on the purchase of an X-Box when it first came out because I couldn't afford it. However, I got into Halo at a friend's house and started renting an X-Box on weekends so that I could play the game. When Halo 2 was announced, I decided that I'd stop pissing my money away on rentals and finally buy the console and the game. Bad move. The single-player game was ridiculously short and if you want to play to the end of the plot, you'll have to buy yet another console. To get any kind of decent multiplayer action, you have to sign up for X-Box live. Add to that the fact that everyone had gotten spoiled by playing Halo on their PC and no longer has the patience to crowd four people to a TV screen... And of course the X-Box doesn't support a lot of the other games I wanted to play -- they required a PS2. What a waste of money.
Of course, I realized all this within a week of purchasing the console. However, since I had opened the package and everywhere these days has an "oh noes, teh piracy!" outlook on software/hardware bundles, I couldn't return it. So I bought a remote and used the X-Box to replace my aging DVD player.
With all of the complaints about lack of titles and how hard it is to develop games for the PS3, I'd say it's a damned good thing that it will have a Blu-Ray disc (and, I assume, normal DVD) player. That way, once people realize how ripped off they've been and can't return the system, they can at least get some use out of it.
Okay, you're just being silly here. You should know by now, that this is /. and facts are meaningless here. They can be used to prove anything! However, as our Lord and Savior, Steven Colbert, has taught us, it's not what is true, it's what FEELS true. And it FEELS like Zonk posts 50 of his own stories, all on gaming, per day.
Next time you want to argue with fanboys and trolls, you should probably do your homework. =)
You can do 1080p over component, and some commercial TV's do this today.
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Does it run Linux?
I'm guessing that $200 of the cost is for the blu-ray drive. Considering how much blu ray drives are going for, $200 is a steal.
It looks like no one here (including myself) wants a blu ray player.
The neogeo was never a mainstream console. It was the internals of an actual arcade system. It used giant carts that cost a lot to produce. Games were typically in the $300+ range, each. But given that this was an arcade game, you might actually save money vs dropping in quarters.
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Fron what I can see from this, Sony's console is headed for the disaster that Sega had before it. It is more expensive than the xbax as the Saturn was to the PS 1. The lack of an SDK and possibly games was also a problem that seems to be a parallel with Sega's failed console. Of course, it won't be as cataclismic as it was for Sega, but it still spells disaster for Sony.
It is the owner that crashes the system. If you are enough of an idiot to put 50 background processes in Windows you sho
For Christ's sake, it's only two hundred dollars. TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS! Do you hear me?
.. shit man I gotta save for some petrol this week man .."
.. what is the average income of Slashdotters? Because I just can't believe this is so controversial. Sure, $600 is more than the PS2. You're getting a lot more too, right? It's got all kinds of cool stuff, and even if it didn't, who cares! It's only two hundred freaking dollars!
.. and get this, you'll get those TWO HUNDREDS DOLLARS back every single week of the year!
IT"S ONLY TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS!
I mean seriously. Usually I visit slashdot thinking I'm in the company of fairly well-educated, well-paid professionals, the kind of people I can respect enough - as a default - to even bother reading the thoughts of. But all this whining makes me wonder if it's not some kind of welfare support board: "Geez man, I really wanted a KFC chicken burger for dinner man, but if I get the Maccas one I can use this voucher and get free fried
I mean what the hell are all these comments about? It's two hundred freaking dollars more than the XBOX360. Now I wouldn't use hundred dollar notes to light my cigarette or something but for something like investing in next gen technology it's barely a factor. I took my lady friend out for dinner on the weekend and the bill was way over two hundred dollars - and I considered it money well spent. I buy Macs that are a thousand bucks above their PC equivalents and think it's money well spent. I just don't get all this concern, I really, honestly, don't.
When you buy a console the initial purchase price doesn't matter at all anyway. It's the cost of the games which gets you, it's like razor blades or printer cartridges. Who cares if the PS3 is $600? or even $800? You'll spend more than that on games! Right? If history is any guide, the Xbox will have 1 or maybe 2 games I'm interested in, and the PS3 will have 20. Yeah, I like FF and MGS and the japanese games. The Xbox isn't even worth thinking about as far as I'm concerned and anyway who cares about two hundred dollars??!
Seriously
And for anyone who still thinks that $200 is just impossible, here's a tip. Stop reading slashdot, and go pick up a training manual, and maybe by the time the PS3 is released you'll be able to have gotten a slightly better job - maybe $40k instead of $30k
As something of a Mac fanboy and not much of a gamer, I don't normally wade into these discussions, but the Wii has intrigued me, and the favourable view that most seem to take of Nintendo is rather reassuring - as Nintendo seems like the nice guy that ought to win, after all...
:|
Anyway, the two graphs struck me as being a pretty poor effort on the part of a Sony fanboy to justify the gargantuan asking price of the PS3. That this was his sole intention is obvious from the fact that originally he did not even include the $600 price in his calculation, preferring to list only the crippled $500 model. At this juncture, some will point out that this was not unfair, as he did the same for the XBox 360, but remember that the missing features in the "crippled" XBox 360 are available separately, whereas the PS3 ones (i.e. like HDTV output) are not. Similar types also try to point out that the PS3 is the only true next-generation console, as the XBox 360 does not feature an HD-DVD drive by default - rather it requires an upgrade. Again, it should be obvious that this is a pretty spurious argument. Make no mistake about it - the only thing that really matters is the initial price, and with it set so high, this will prove a major deterrent.
So basically, it's a $600 console. When you look at that on the graph, whether adjusted for inflation or not, it is clear that it is a seriously pricey piece of kit. In fact, perversely, what the graph does show is that it is extremely likely that the PS3 will fail. Perhaps not horribly, because Sony has a significant fanbase upon which it can count for at least a reasonable showing at launch, but it will not sell well. It can't do - it is simply far too expensive.
In any case, the "inflation adjustment" argument is entirely bogus - it is, as I suggest above, nothing more than an attempt to "spin" the eminently undesirable $600 price tag into something slightly more palatable. What is far more important is the absolute cost difference between the PS3, the XBox 360 and the Wii, because at the end of the day, all three are - to most people anyway - just games consoles. The non-technical - parents, for example - will not be able to understand why whilst Nintendo's offering is $249 and Microsoft's a not insubstantial $399, Sony are asking $599 for their behemoth. It simply will not sell because of that. I can readily conceive of situations where children will ask for a PS3 for Christmas but be given a Wii or, at a stretch, an XBox 360, by budget-conscious parents who have looked that the prices of all three. They will doubtless be impressed by the all-round family appeal of the Wii.*
So Sony is pretty much preparing itself an enormous turkey - a flop of 3DO-esque proportions that this already beleaguered company really does not need at the present moment. In its desire to dominate the next generation format wars (i.e. by BluRay licensing), it is seeking to use the PS3 as a tool to promote the BluRay format. In this it will fail (for reasons eloquently explained here), and with a bit of luck, the champion of proprietary formats (witness Betamax, MD, UMD, MemoryStick...) and rootkits for all will implode under the weight of its own foolish arrogance.
May it bother us no more.
iqu
(* Nintendo have been particularly clever here, I think. There is much concern amongst a certain type of parent that kids are spending too much time in isolation, shut away in their rooms, shunning contact with the outside world.** Most of the current generation of video games encourage this - consider that Halo and GTA are not really the type of games that you might conceivably play with your own mother. But Mario is different. Mario is fun. The parents of the current generation of teenagers remember Mario if they had an old Game & Watch back in their younger days, and this, coupled again with the enormous price difference, can only work in Ni
Now for the 360 this isn't an issue because it isn't a next-gen DVD player and thus is irrelevant.
Excpet that the HD-DVD drive (external USB drive) is to be shipping for the 360 soon, with the sole purpose of playing movies.
In fact the 360 (both versions) does support HDMI, its just that the HDMI cable isn't included. My guess is it will come with the optional HD-DVD player when that is released or for that matter you can buy it now at many places on the web (the 360 HMDI cable not the HD-DVD player).
Where have you read that the 360 supports DHCP? It's easy to get the signal out to an HDMI cable, the trick is encrypting it inside the box before it ever goes out. If the HDMI cables out now are basically just component to HDMI connectors, then the 360 will still run into trouble if the ITC flag is ever enabled in media.
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The article was right on.. Noone will justify the extra expense in comparison to first generation Blue-Ray DVD players. 99% of the market will ignore the first generation BR DVD players, waiting for the standard price drop as manufacturing/components improve.
I am very much into HDTV, but I wouldn't consider buying a $600+ player (just as I did not buy the first generation CD or DVD players).
I'm not really much of a gamer (I don't have an XBox 360), but from what I've seen of the 'Wii', I would pick one of them up for $200, just to check it out.
Sorry if that bothered you. I thought code meant something different...
It is the owner that crashes the system. If you are enough of an idiot to put 50 background processes in Windows you sho
#1 you also forgot to mention the obscenely priced 3DO as wel, which contributed to the success of the original playstation. That too would be nearly $1k with "inflation".
#2 I don't believe in the application of "inflation" to such systems. If anything the power should remain constant at constant/decreasing price, or power improve at constant/decreasing cost. e.g. a PS2 is now available for what? $100-$150, not the $348 and change quoted by their little inflationary fantasy
Just bringing that up tells me that you are one of the "conspiracy minded."
No, I just really enjoy a fine game of Devils Advocate.
I don't think you can properly identify "astroturfing" if the issue is real. Sony's PS3 announced prices ARE high and people ARE unhappy about the situation. One could be a huge Sony fanboy and still be pissy about paying $100 more than the non-crippled Xbox 360.
Except that the persistant meme is that the console is $600 when it's really $500. Still expensive, why the greatly widespread overinflation of this figure?
2) This is the Interweb. Posters on the Interweb - including Slashdot - are usually like Mikey. They hate everything.
Yes but with the anti-Sony stuff the posters are remarkable "on message" if you will. When everyone starts using the same terminology very suddenly it makes you wonder where that is coming from.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A cable is one thing but can you find any documentation showing the 360 includes DHCP support? Without it it will not matter that you can hook an HDMI cable to the 360... I can hook an HDMI cable to my computer as well but that doesn't mean it has DHCP support, and the video will go over an unencrypted DVI feed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Maybe I'm just getting old, but when the PS2 first came out, weren't its competitors and detractors talking about how it was a difficult system to design for in comparison to the Dreamcast? I'm not sure that having a steep learning curve is stopping anyone here.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
One thing that Neo Geo did right, and I wish others had picked up on, was you could purchase the system with pretty much any game SNK made. (I picked King of the Monsters and Art of Fighting.) To some extent, that was probably necessary, given the price of cartriges, but I wish modern consoles had followed suit.
Well, MGS2 is often considered the least popular MGS game, but in general, I like it because it's a little more fast-paced (gameplay wise, obviously. Story wise, not so much) compared to Splinter Cell. Sort of like a Cyber Punk's dream. It's more fantasy based, too.
That's not to say that I don't love Splinter Cell, too, just that they're very different types of stealth games. I've beaten 1-3 of both and somehow manage to avoid prefering one over the other.
The PS3 is an impressive chunk of hardware, few would disagree. And the announced price is very high. Potential customers are gong to have a hard time understanding why they would want a console with a big harddrive, multiple processors, multiple cardslots, WiFi, HighDef and BluRay. They might know vaguely why these pieces are cool individually but (as Steve Jobs once famously said), its very hard to explain to customers a groundbreaking idea if they've never seen anything like it before.
What Sony needs is an iLife for PS3. It needs to be a PVR. It needs to be a photo editor connected to the web. It needs a video chat application. It needs a very polished iTunes-type storefront. All these things.
It seems to me that where Sony is making the mistake is not necessarily in how they have built and priced the PS3, but rather in articulating the long term vision that Sony has in mind. Microsoft has been very good at this. Nintendo has sucked, but the Wii controller is so whizzy that people forget about that.
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Sony has too much invested in this launch. AND, they are now about a year behind Microsoft AND Nintendo is about ready to launch their next system.
Oh no, Sony has to release in time for the Christmas buying season or their goose is cooked. If they do not, everyone who WOULD have bought a PS3 for gaming will have bought an XBox 360 or a Wii.
The failure of PS3 would not affect Blu-Ray. The success of both Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD will not be determined on the console market where DVD is already saturated and consumers have already spent real ??? on the switch from VHS to DVD. The real battle will be in secondary backup storage for PCs. This is where Blu-Ray has the lead due to their increased storge capacity.
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I must say it's pretty laughable when you see those graphs and then PS3 fanboys going "Finally someone did this! This shows that the PS3 is alright and bla bla bla"...
Who cares about the console cost history?
What matters is if it's competitively worth the cost today compared to other consoles and PC's alike, not to mention if you have the money to spend on it in the first place.
Think, fanboys, think!
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Lets not forget that this generation of Dads are the first ones who played video games. These 30 something dads once scurried down to arcades and dropped quarters into Pac-Man. They were the first generation that played on home Atari systems.
You can be sure that these dads will be putting PS3s underneath the tree for Christmas. But don't forget that they will be playing the games too!!!!
Oh yeah
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Yes, it's more expensive than the XBox360 and will almost certainly cost more than the Wii, but face it: game consoles are luxury items and luxury items don't usually follow the same rules of supply and demand that non-luxury items do. If they did, why would anyone in their right mind buy a Hummer H2 when it's almost exactly the same as a similarly-sized GMC? Or a $200 pair of running shoes that are indistinguishable from a set that goes for $50? Or an iPod. Or Revo sunglasses. Or anything that's "more expensive than it needs to be."
Sony is used to this. Trinitron TVs have always been more expensive than their competitors. Their digital cameras, which also tend to be more expensive than most of the competition, are second only to Canon in sales (per IDC). Sony's customers have always appeared to be comfortable with Sony's prices and I don't see that changing with the PS3.
We just saw a Toshiba HD Disk Player debut at $500 (and it apparently sucks in general, though renders well - this is from a different review).
Yes, the $599 USD price is a lot in one bang, but I think most first adopters see the reality that they're getting two systems. Two first generation systesms, a $500 Blu-Ray disk player, and a $99 next gen console. (You can move the numbers about to taste.)
If you're a scrimping College kid, then yes, this system is a little pricey for you, but I think many will pony up.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
Crutchfield has a side by side comparison between the two first generation HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players, along with price here.
HD-DVD: The Toshiba HDA1 costs $499, and Toshiba HDXA1 $799.
Blu-Ray: The Samsung BDP-1000 and the Sony BDP-S1 are both $999.
The buy-in for Blu-Ray is significantly more expensive. If you must go Blu-Ray then the PS3 at $599 is the cheapest alternative.
Work with me here and picture this:
It's launch day for the PS3, the few die-hards are waiting for it, the store's doors open to a huge display...
PS3 $450!
Sony is suddenly a wonderful company for managing to bring us $599 worth of console for "only" $450. It's a long-shot, but it could be genius if they managed it...
Sorry Kenny, we can't afford a PS3 like the Cartmans. We'll have to make due with a PS2 now discounted to $100.
As long as they can still make $$$ on it, Sony will still sell it. When PS2 came out, Sony was not content with just selling the PS3, they actually shrunk the thing and sold LCD screens for it.
Sony now has the PSP, so I don't expect to see any LCD screens for the PS2. But I do expect to see the PS2 for sale for another 2-3 years. The PS2 could not possibly compete with the PS3 for $$$. The only possible competition would be with PSP buying.
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First off... some people do not want a game console. I am sure you know the type: They think games are silly and won't consider anything that might be related.
Second, there are some nice features in dedicated players:
Front panel display
Backlit remote
high quality upscaling of DVD content
high quality scaling to formats other than the discs native format.
lower physical noise levels
lower signal to noise ratio
more picture adjustments/calibration settings.
Basically the PS 3 will be great when your Blue Ray content matches your TV's native resolution. Unfortunately that will be very rare.
A lot of Blue Ray movies will be 1920x1080p on disc. Will your TV handle that ? If you have a TV that is 1366x768 progressive, like most people who have HDTV's, every movie you watch will be scaled, as that resolution doesn't correspond to ANY HD or SD format.
The scaler in the PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360 is pitiful. A $50 USD DVD player outperforms all of them with standard DVD. There is no reason to expect any better from the PS3.
Unless you have one of the new Grand Wega's or the other 1080p TV's most Blue Ray content will look noticeable worse than a dedicated player. Even if you do have such a TV Blue Ray content that is 720p on disc will look worse than any dedicated player.
Now- I happen to be buying both a 1080p TV and a PS3 sometime this year. (probably both together in the fall.) This is less of an issue. I do however expect to get a dedicated Blue Ray/HD-DVD combination player once they fall under $300 USD.
You could also buy a higher end A/V amplifier, many of which include high quality image scaling hardware.
The point is that you do actually get something for your money. (Provided of course that you are shopping intelligently.)
By the holiday shopping season (ugh.. pains me to type that.) we may see a couple of low end blue ray and HD-DVD players, but I don't think so. All the manufacturers are looking forward to the high margin early adopter money too much. Still, despite my opinion, don't rule it out.
Expect to see a huge raft of cheaper Blue-Ray players after the holiday season.
In fact- if the PS3 doesn't sell well enough expect to see a PS2.5 or somesuch. basically a PS3 with a DVD instead of Blue-Ray. It would play PS2 games at enhanced resolution (like you see with Halo 2 on Xbox 360) and PS3 games that fit on DVD media. It will be very aggressively priced- probably debuting competitive with a price reduced Xbox 360. (Yeah I expect MSFT to drop the price after the holidays, like say in February 2007.)
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
because it doesn't account for what a system can do. Look at PCs for instance. The old IBM PCs sold for over $3000 back in the 80s depending on your system and what it did. Also, add in what today's faster (and cheaper even without inflation) computers can do and it really is amazing. The interesting thing to me is that the console market does get more expensive (leaving out inflation) when these things should be either staying the same or getting cheaper.
For consoles though, there should be another graph representing fun to compare against inflation as console power is less important than the games it runs (unlike a PC).
whether to pre-order the PS3. There is enough time before launch to save up the cash. If I don't (get enough cash) I can always bow out of the pre-order and get the $50 bucks that is put down. I have not pre-ordered yet as the stores where I shop aren't taking pre-orders quiet yet.
Quiet frankly I'm not too surprised. I had a strong guess that the price point would be around $500 (US). Future consoles aren't going to go down in price, they're going to go up. You are a fool to believe that the more bleeding edge tech that comes in these things is going to come cheap.
For instance look at gaming video cards for the PC. The more advance they get the more expensive they are becoming when they first come out. As it has been all the people wanting to be first in line and on the bleeding edge will suck up the cost for the rest of the populace. After they've paid back to the company what it was losing then they normally drop the price. I remember when the latest graphics cards were around $200(US). Now bleeding edge cards cost around $500(US). Oh wow look at that $500 bucks just for a video card. Now compare this to the PS3 that is going to be a full system. If you were to build a PC that would be anything near the PS3 then you would be plopping down over $1k for sure.
Granted Blue-ray did up the cost on the system by a lot. Say $200(US). So with that in mind the system should cost somewhere around $300(US) for the core system. And the argument that was suggesting Sony shot themselves in the foot with the Blue-ray was interesting. I belive it made a good point. Which is why I'm still shaky about pre-ordering. But that is assuming all the stand alone Blue-ray players are going to be above the $500/$600(US) mark. And why is this any different from MS offerring a HD-DVD drive for the xbox for a price that is also cheaper than an HD-DVD player?
I believe in the end gamers will choose based on the games that come out for each console. And from what I've seen of the E3 information PS3 looks to be a winner in that area. There were maybe a total of 3 games that looked like complete winners for the Xbox 360, whereas I saw about 5 games for the PS3. And it seems some games you can actually get for the PC; Halo? As I recall a port of Halo2 is supposed to come to the PC unless they've decided to nix that idea. Xbox's ability to play some Xbox titles is a step in the right direction. Although they require a downloaded emulator.
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
The second link is a mess of terms, the article writer does not well understand what is going on - basically the sumamry is that they infer from the presence of Microsoft XBOx team at the Intel developer forums that the 360 would support HDCP.
However the first link you provide would seem to offer absolute proof that the 360 does not support HDCP at all, basically only analog signals such as VGA. These can be adapted as I've noted to HDMI but it's not a protected path as far as DRM video is concerned.
HD-DVD is following suit with SOny in not turning on the "low-res" flag for any intiial media sold (they both use the same copy protection with the same flag) and so it will not matter for HD-DVD playback - but Microsoft as I noted got away with nary a peep of complaint whereas with SOny it's the end of the world that everyone "has" to buy the $600 model because it has HDCP.
Here's my take - everyone should make it a point to buy the $500 model, because that locks in the market to a de-facto use of analog HD signals instead of HDMI. That could help kill HDCP before it ever really gets off the ground. So basically the world should just ignore the $600 model.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Provided that manufacturers want to add HD-DVD decoding (MPEG-4) and software for file system reading (potential copyright issues here)
I would not bet that blu-ray players would be capable of reading HD-DVD on the initial release. This would give HD-DVD content an advantage of being "universally readable" and a default "lingua franca" paradoxically sink the more capable Blu-Ray players. I suspect that HD-DVD support is something that Sony would allow only after they had "won" the Hi-Def optical format war.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
It's not an "overinflation." It's the actual [announced] cost of the actual console with its full slate of features.
But not features that are required for game or movie support. If you want to play games or watch movies either model will work as well as the other. So why have everyone list the price with excess features that are not required for the core needs of the audience? If you want to hook up a CF card from a camera even that is supported via the lower end model, you'd just need an external reader. But how many people will really do that? Why ignore the presence of a $500 console when the features the $600 are irrelevant to 80%+ of system buyers? Even as an uber tech geek I personally can see no need to buy the more expensive model.
The $500 console can drive a display at 1080p via component cables. So why say that you really have to pay $600 when it's not required to do just that?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If they enable the flag and it does not support HDCP, then they'll be in the same boat as the people who buy the $499 priced PS3.
Yes they will, so why do you hear no complaining about this aspect of the 360? The lack of HDMI has been a HUGE deal in complaints about the PS3 and people claim the console price is $600 because the $500 version is unpurchasable, while the 360 just kind of sits there whistling, hoping no-one notices it has the exact same feature set as the version of the PS3 that people claim is not buyable.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It hooked to your TV. It took cartridges.
It was and is a console.
You might be able to argue a Super Gun (JAMMA to TV adapter) wasn't a console.
But Neo-Geo? It was.
And it was a ripoff. It had a 16MHz 68000, and an 8 MHz Z80 in it. That's the same hardware as a Genesis, which cost $150.
Was Dreamcast not a console because it used the Naomi hardware, which was the same as some of Segas arcade machines?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Sony pres: "Ok guys lets REALLY push this Blu-Ray format on the PS3"
PS3 exec: "No worries we have two models..a non HDMI version and a full HDMI version. But both will have Blu-Ray"
Sony pres: "So what's the lower one gonna use Blu-Ray for if it cant output HDMI? Or is that just our 'catch all' for the PS3?"
PS3 exec: (nervously looks around the room) "Keep it down...keep it down"
I mean why push the storage and video res of Blu-Ray and then sell a model that cant use the video res?
Put a damn DVD in the cheaper one,u losers!
The Neo Geo was not a console
The NeoGeo was most certainly a console. It came in a small form factor, with interchangable cartridges, independant controllers attached with long cables, and was designed to be plugged into a television set. It was the very definition of a video game console, just more expensive. It was marketed as a console, targetted at the wealthy ("play the hottest arcade games at home!", etc). The machine itself was entirely inappropriate as an arcade unit - the controllers alone would have broken given a few weeks in your average arcade. Plus, the whole television thing. It would have looked pretty 1972 to have your arcade running off TVs.
I will say that the Neo Geo would have been much better had it come as a stand up cabinet that allowed the games to be changed, for the money
This happened. It was called the MVS. But if you didn't want to buy a cabinet, you bought the NeoGeo - a home gaming console system.
In short, you either don't know what the hell you are talking about, or you don't understand what a video game console (or arcade game, for that matter) is.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Slashdot has, in my eyes as a reader since '98, been on the move lately. New features, Taco talks about what's going on more, design contest, the Penis Bird and GNAA have been scarce ... and the Eds have picked up the quality a bit.
... have you forgotten MICHAEL ?!!? Quite possibly the most divisive, little snot-nosed know-it-all-but-not-really editor EVER. Jesus. Zonk, who can write properly and doesn't toss in snide, little look-at-my-opinion comments in his posts, is a breath of fresh air.
To any one bitching about Zonk
Depends. When I told my friend about the lack of HDMI on the PS3 at 500$, he said, "So what? I don't have an HDTV." That's the kind of person who is not going to bother with Blu-Ray either, since it is not going to give him better looking movies anyway, since he lacks an HDTV. I think that is going to be quite a few people, rendering the blu-ray drive pretty much useless.
Yeah, the more I've looked into it the more it seems you may be right about the 360 not natively supporting it (would have sworn I saw that somewhere). Anyway, I can understand why Sony would get a lot more grief than MS. Sony is forcing you to buy they're next-gen DVD to get thier console. This ups your cost for something you may not even get the full use of in the case of the base model. At least MS has this as an option extra (which I'd guess nobody cares about and very few will buy).
I can understand people being unhappy with it being kind of expensive, and wishing it had a non-HD player included...
But the way I think about that is that I do get value as a gamer for the extra money spent. Game content can be much larger and include more extra material like the making-of videos they sometimes include in games or DVD's that ship with limited editions of games.
And I personally am interested in HD video as I know how good it can look, for me it's important the stupid format war end as soon as possible and from that angle I'm glad Sony included the Blu-Ray player in every unit as I think it will win them the war from sheer force of numbers. That will lower costs rapidly while still giving gamers the benefit of the larger storage and more robust media (I don't know if the 360 games come with that anti-scratch coating Blu-Ray discs will include but I am looking forward to discs that are a lot harder to scratch).
So people thinking of the unit as expensive now should realize that if they just wait a year or so it'll be much cheaper but all game developers can take advantage of this feature because all units included it (just like the HD, wierd that Microsoft and Sony have flipped on universal inclusion).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I personally don't have an HDTV yet, but it's on my list for this year or next. I'd still expect PS3 content to look better on my regular TV (42" Sony Rear Projection) than PS2 content does now...but I'm a programmer, not a TV engineer, so I don't know if that's a realistic expectation. Regardless, the PS3 will be cheaper than the HDTV, so I think it'll be easier to buy first (YMMV).
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
I don't think anyone is contesting that the PS3 is worth the $599 Sony is charging. Most are just saying it's a lot of money. It's a matter of scale. Just compare the price to how much its target consumer makes in salaries.
I understand why they did it this way instead of making the parts like the blu-ray drive and harddisk optional (to establish certain standards by which developers can develop). It doesn't make it less painful to shell out that money.
I just wish Sony handled their PR a lot better.
Awful post... At least when I pull numbers out of my ass I know where they came from...
'There certainly will not be a lot of titles available.' The result is that publishers that do want to take part in the PS3 launch will have to release games that don't fully take advantage of the power of the Cell processor, added Jeffrey."
That will make it, like, the same as any console launch ever!
I posted this in one of the video game threads earlier today. That'll teach me not to post a story idea. I'm reposting the post here because some of the comments I thought were entertaining in the post. .....Post....
I particularly liked the link to the calculator. Back then 30 bucks for Pac Man for the 2600 when it came out seemed steep at the time. According to the USDL it was equal to 72.74 today.
To date - with inflation taken into account the top 5 consoles for price in today's dollars were
Neo Geo at 993.65,(pretty obvious - but the carts were even more insane at 150.00 - 230.00 in 2006 dollars ea.)
The 3DO at 967.89 (but hey - it played CDmovies too. Wave of the future BABY!)
The Intellivision at 825.62 (ever wondered why George Plimpton was hawking it - same demographic),
The Atari VCS / 2600 at 659.41 (a particularly hard sell for 1977 what with all the money going to buy Coke and bad leisurewear - and that was just the Atari employees),
And lastly the Atari 5200 priced to move in 2006 dollars at 683.52 which was comparable for your run of the mill repackaged Atari 400 computer (again - hard to sell with all the Wall Street traders spending their entertainment dollars on Coke and 800 dollar CD players)
Okay now let me get this straight. Sony was the company that was smart and built a console that had all the economies of scale working for it. The design allowed for combining components as technology improved giving it the ability to cut manufacturing costs. Sony could add functionality via add-ons such as ones for networking and hard drive. Microsoft packed all that functionality into a box giving it better specs than the competition, but less chance of making up major ground for manufacturing cost and hence dooming them to little chance of profitability due to the decreases in sales price to stay even with the competition. And now they've switched???? This is all just so confusing
LOL, I was thinking the same thing.
Why doesn't SONY combat this issue by offering mail in rebates on Video Games, or (more likely) movies? Wouldn't that spur sales if I knew I'd get 1 free game or maybe a free BVD Movie?
How about the first 3 BVD movies you buy you can mail in a rebate for $15 each? Rebates are great because not everyone does it after they buy at the cheaper post-rebate price.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
If you look at the absolute costs for consoles they list the NES at $200. IIRC only the version bundled with the robot cost that much. Almost everyone bought the much cheaper standalone console, which was more like $100.
I don't know about Splinter Cell, because I've never played it. Is it relevant, does it have interesting things to think about, does it address the player, is it fun? If so, you've got a Splinter Cell fan waiting to happen here.
Sony is NOT that damned stupid to make the launch price so high as that - my bet is they'll announce a "sudden launch price drop" anywhere from a few weeks to a month before the actual in-store launch of the console - that way, people will think "Oh its not that expensive, maybe now I'll buy one" since any mention of lowering prices will make joe sixpack think they are getting a good deal, and the people that woulda bought one anyway will be extra sure to buy one since they have more than the launch cost saved up - it sounds expensive when you dont have the money, but if you have more than enough saved up, it becomes more tempting...
The result is that publishers that do want to take part in the PS3 launch will have to release games that don't fully take advantage of the power of the Cell processor, added Jeffrey."
Last time I checked, games at launch never make full use of the system. Just look at PSone, N64, Gamecube or the PS2. The graphics in games have always improved dramatically over time. It would be hard to believe that "God of War" (an amazingly beautiful/awesome game) could even be possible on the PS2 when you compare it to a launch title like "Street Fighter EX3". You'd guess it was two completely different systems.
Even looking at the Xbox 360 launch, we better hope that it's games aren't making full use of it's processors. 3/4 the games just look like 720p ports of PS2/Xbox games (anyone seen King Kong, Fight Night, NHL, Madden?). Call Of Duty is just a basic HD port of a PC game. It's not looking like developers spent much time on most those games either... Because they didn't have time to come to grips with the hardware either.
That's the charm of consoles. As developers learn to use the hardware better, your games continue to get better and better. Consoles age well. Contrast this to a PC, where your games only get better, if you upgrade your hardware to play them.
I for one am tired of the Sony bashing
I score 4 for the "First the rootkit, now a $600 console" crowd
Just ahead "Sony wants everything to be proprietary"
In last place, "who has money for a $3000 TV and a $600 PS3?"
I don't usually defend Sony, but here goes: Why isn't anyone talking about the games? Sony has a bunch of developers working furiously on some great games. And lots of developers are supporting Sony because they beat the pants off XBox and Gamecube last round. The games will be there. Yes, they will be "first generation" PS3 games (by definition), but those developers have had plenty of time to groom their creations. I expect some great games, and people that will just have to sell what it takes to buy it. (not me - I have plenty of XBox games to finish)
One thing that everyone is forgetting is the total REAL cost of getting the damn thing (ps3) out the door. Obviously you would want to have at least one game and one extra controller. Let's just round it off at $100 for the two, which is about right. So we are now up to $700, before tax. Most states, including local, are around 8% on average, if not more, but lets round that down, which adds another $50 or so bucks to the pricetag. This bumps the price up to $750 out the door; $650 if you buy the useless cheaper one. That's a lot of freakin' change, man!
If gas jumps up because of Iran, Hurricanes, mutant clowns, then $750 bucks on a game system that really is only a hair better than it's primary competitor is looking very unattractive come Christmas. That is if Sony actually makes it out the gate this Christmas, which personally, I am having less faith in every day.
The Wii/360 combo is actually sounding better as the days go by.
Nintendo is certain to release the Wii at $199 and if the core price for the 360 drops to $249 (which would be the smartest more ever by M$) there is absolutely no way that Sony could ever gain enough marketshare to be anything but number three. The only people buying the PS3 at that point would be the Japanese, the hard core Sony nuts, the Final Fantasy XIVVIXXI nuts, and rich people who own really expensive home theater systems.
I predict that the PS3 will sell for about $2,500, or more on ebay the day it's released and pretty much stay that way for a long time. In fact, it's going to be a huge joke; only rock stars and the insanely rich will be able to afford it. The PS3 will become a status symbol. One thing is certain, history does repeat itself and last time around with the PS2, it took Sony 18 months to finally catch up with demand. To Sony's chagrin, this time it has serious competition already dug in and by the time Sony ramps up production to meet demand the next gen war will already be onto the next-next gen war. That's assuming that there will be demand for a $750 system.
Sony is strangling the golden goose because it wants it to lay platinum, gold and uranium eggs. Sony's goals for the PS3 are too great. It wants to be the magic black box that all consumer electronic manufacturers have dreamed of. Unfortunately, it's arriving about four years too soon. The smartest thing that Sony could do is drop Blu-Ray, forget about it, parnter up with HD DVD and call it a day and then chalk it up to another blunder and release the PS3 with a dvd drive and sell it for $299.
Personally, I can emphasize when the President of Sony says that the PS3 is probably "too cheap". The PS3 is an amazing piece of hardware for $600. It defines state of the art. Plus, it most likely is costing Sony at LEAST $800 to make the PS3, but the consumer does not care about such things.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Woah. Am I the only one that is surprised that people were paying more for an Atari than they will be for a PS3? Atari owners must have really had to "put back" to buy one. Interesting article op. It really puts inflation into perspective.
Now i don't know how the US calculates its inflation rates but in the UK the inflation rates are calculated on a weighted basket of goods with gaming/leisure puchases weighted at less then 5% of the whole basket.
Inflation rates are designed to measure movement of prices throughout the whole economy. When you look at the cost of technical goods i'm sure they won't follow the global trend increasing price. As the bank of england comment:
So overall your 500 pounds (or dollars) will buy you less now that it did 10 years ago, but it will buy you More computer than it did 10 years ago!Your tite is:
Meet the Sony Apologist (and why Sony will fail)
And then you go on to say:
As something of a Mac fanboy and not much of a gamer...
Oh that is a good one! Yeah, that is the part where people can safely stop reading your comment.
Seriously, you slashbots said the same shit regarding Microsoft and their Xbox. And just look at how "right" you guys were! Heck, I think similar claims were made with regard to the Xbox360 and its price...
Face it, as much as people like to make Sony out to be the next "EVIL" Microsoft & that Sony is at deaths end, a lot of what you guys would love to happen isn't going to happen.
Not a "Sony Apologist", I think the lies they pulled with regard to the PS3 at last years E3 was retarded(oops goodbye another HDMI port, remove some more ports, make 2 diffrent versions, etc) and I don't buy much of their coperate PR bullshit(i.e. stressing PSP shipped numbers, "innovating" their controller by ripping off the Wii, etc). But I did enjoy the games they had, so I guess I will maybe get one 3-4 years down the line when the price drops, the must own games get released, and all the bugs get worked out. Then again, maybe I will get out of video games, I do NOT like the way CONSOLE games are going the way of Steam-like-services, iTunes-like-services, and "pay for stuff we left out on purpose" route.... Plus during the PS3 confrences they stressed the "livejournal/myspace" angle...
"'A lot of developers have not gotten the kits,' said Sega
Yeah sure, because Sega know exactly how many dev kits third party developers have at any one time. In fact, they have unfetted access to all studios around the world. __rolls eyes__. Define "many" Sega.. I can tell you this isn't the case right now, studios have final dev kits.
"It's just Sega talking out of their arse because they, and their partner studios, are probably going to miss launch with the PS3. -- Me"
But seriously, this is Sega speculating, much like my statement above is...
Look at all those shills! Nintendo sure knows how to do astroturfing!
Clever signature text goes here.
SONY's P3 Pricing Prompts Call for Nationalized Game Industry
LOS ANGELES, CA- At last week's E3 tradeshow, SONY executives proudly announced that their feature-packed Playstation3 game console would be priced at around $600 when it finally hits stores later this year. At twice the cost of Microsoft's XBox 360 and nearly three times that of Nintento's Wii, some worry that SONY's pricing target might push many gamers out of the market and create a stratified social system of the game-haves and the game-have-nots.
"A price tag is just a bit of paper- with a very, very large number printed on it," said Ken Kutaragi, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. "All it just means is that the P3 is twice as good as that stinky Xbox. And who wants to buy a Microsoft console, anyway? Those greedy jerks don't care about their customers at all."
Sensing a need for a bold large-scale solution, Senator Hillary Clinton (D. New York) has championed a new approach: nationalizing the consumer electronics industry.
"For our nation to succeed in the new millennium, we must find a way to control the skyrocketing cost of videogames," said Clinton at a recent rally. "Sure, critics will say that such a move would stifle innovation, but are you willing to tell a low-income child that they can't play Madden 2007 HD just because their dad never went to college?"
+5 Insightful?!? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
If you're a scrimping College kid, then yes, this system is a little pricey for you, but I think many will pony up.
Yeah, but think of what the video game industry's target audience is. Sony should be going after those College kids. College was the period where myself and a bunch of friends actually saw a renewed interest in video games. We had the time and the ambition to play them, and dorm life just generally seems to lend itself to a lot of video game playing. When I bought my PS2 in college, I hadn't bought a new games system in about 9 years. In our apartment, at one point, we had a PS2, XBox, Game Cube, Dreamcast, PS1(PSX?), NES, SNES, Genesis, TG16, NG4, and Saturn all hooked up to the TV. (We also had an extra computer for the occasional LAN game.) On occasion, when we didn't feel like going out or didn't have the money to go out, we'd just buy a case of beer and sit around and play games all night. (Our occasional virtual fishing trips via the DC were always fun.)
Getting back on track, now that I've graduated college, the NES and Atari 2600 haven't come out of their boxes. I've moved twice and both times the only system I've (eventually) hooked up has been the PS2. I finally just bought an XBox along with some friends, with us planning to play Halo online - we're lucky if we can work our schedules out once a month to get together. I've got a stack of games that I've played, maybe once, and another couple of games that have never been taken out of their shrinkwrapped packages. The truth of the matter is, once you factor in travel time, I spend anywhere from 11 to 12 hours each day away for work. Combine that with a somewhat active and healthy social life, that means that myself and the majority of my friends don't spend nearly as much time playing games and don't spend nearly as much money on games as we used to.
Anyway, my point is, if Sony isn't trying to market their PS3 to the 18 - 24 year old male -- a demographic that isn't very likely to have an HDTV with HDMI, but from what I understand still the primary gamer demographic -- then exactly who are they marketing to? Out of all of my friends that are right around my age, I know exactly one person with an HDTV with HDMI input. And even he thinks the PS3 is overpriced.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
I too love my PS2, though I don't play it that much any more...my 10 year-old Son fires it up every couple of weeks. However, I will very likely buy the Wii this Xmas, and the PS3 sometime next year (after prices and features etc. have settled).
The big component of the PS3 that I've yet to see any details on (maybe I should have kept the 3 hour long episodes of daily E3 updates from G4...they were just so boring inbetween actual info/news) is the home media capabilities. I've had TiVos for many years now (and bought a media center (networked DivX player etc.) late last year), but I was looking forward to Sony's take. I'd hopped they'd provide access to their vast video library over the internet connection (at some reasonable price), and possibly add new content/features to regular TV viewing.
Does anyone have any info on the media center capabilities the PS3 is supposed to have?
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
Even if their initial demographic is technofiles, I still don't understand that logic. Who bought the XBox 360 at launch? Gamers. The tecnofile most likely isn't going to care enough about a gaming machine enough to go stand in line at Best Buy at 9:00PM the day before launch. (Ignoring the fact that he may have bought one on eBay for twice the price.) I'm sure the technofile has one now, but for the most part, I think that only gamers really cared about getting the 360 at launch.
Then in the other corner, you have the Wii: the system that everybody seems to be after this time around. Personally, I plan to get one, mostly becuase I can play all of my favorite old NES, SNES, etc. games without having to dig the systems out, clean the contacts again, etc. The system hasn't even come out yet, and I'd say that about 75% of the casual gamers out there seem to have made plans to purchase it. It looks to me like Sony's two rivals already have a pretty strong hold on the market, and Sony doesn't have any plans to break that hold. I know that at $600 I won't be able to buy it. Once you throw in a couple of games, the requisite second controller, and taxes, you're fast approaching $800. That's not exactly chump change to most people. Heck, that's my car note for 3 months. That's more than one month's rent for me. I'll admit that I'm probably not a technofile, but I am still a casual gamer, and I can say with certainty that I would buy a PS3 if the price were $400 or less.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.