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Lower-Price PS3 Mostly Upgradeable
jchenx writes "One of the biggest questions remaining after the Sony press conference and E3 last week was whether or not the core PS3 package could be upgraded to the premium one. It looks like that question has been answered. GI.biz reports that the core version can upgraded with WiFi and memory card adapters, as well as a higher capacity hard drive. However, HDMI output will be non-upgradeable."
Wi-Fi- Even if there was no sony specific adapter, you could always use an Ethernet bridge.
Card reader: I suppose it is nice to hear confirmation on this one. Still, it's not something I'd use that often.
Hard drive: Wasn't this announced to be removable a while ago? And if it's removable, you can be damn sure that Sony will let you spend more money than a hard drive actually costs to upgrade it.
HDMI: What's this about "mostly upgradable"? Maybe it's just me, but of the features on the $500 PS3 that're missing, this is by far the most important one. Granted, the studios don't seem to be using HDCP at the moment, but if they do eventually, you're screwed. Hello near SD resolution without buying a whole new player.
Without HDMI, you don't. And without reasonable pricing, you probably don't want a premium one either. :)
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
if you just went out and bought a HDTV without HDMI input and you dont plan to upgrade your expensive HDTV for at least another 5- 10 years.
I can buy the "core" PS3 for $500, then spend another $250 to upgrade!! YAY
Of course it can be upgraded to the premium version. There are two easy steps:
1. Sell the core unit on ebay.
2. Buy the premium version.
The PS3 price is insane.
It's not insane historically speaking (see the charts) but it's insane to price it at $500 or $600.
The Wii is rumored to come out at $200-$250, so that's two for the price of the minimal PS3. But to compare the PS3 to Xbox 360, we have can look at it's price percentage. Between min and max, PS3's percent difference is (600-500)/500 or approximately 20%. The Xbox 360 has a difference of (400-300)/300 which is 33%. What's the point of upgrading later when another 20% of the bill will get you the full thing? To me that sounds foolish. I can definitely see that working with the Xbox but not when you're talking about prices around $600. If I'm going to pay that much, might as well throw on another $100.
I'm not concerned if it's upgradable and, frakly, I won't be too concerned with the PS3 until I see what it can do. Can it do twice what the Wii or Xbox 360 can? That remains to be seen.
My work here is dung.
What does Sony hope to accomplish with this?
You constantly struggle for self improvement - and it shows.
Hooray for bad Engrish on fortune cookies
The truth here is that Sony has made a mis-step. First of all, they've got time to work on a better core system. However, if the only real thing driving the price from the core to the super-duper is the Blu-Ray Drive, then they should have exact same specs, but with no HDMI output.
:)) but Sony really is making some hardcore mistakes that will cost them in the long run in the gaming division.
I mean, I can understand that.
But to have other things crippled too? Lower hard drive (by that little amount of gig space) is not going to affect the price that much. And if you're losing near $400-500 per unit already, what's another $50?
But really, there's no excuse to not have the other bells and whistles, when WE KNOW that the reason for the cost justification is that HDMI output stuff. THAT'S the cost (well, at least 80% of it.) So I can justify that a little more. But the upgrades will likely be like the 360's where it will cost more to upgrade piece by piece than it would to buy the higher priced system. To have that, WITHOUT the ability to ever do HD graphics(which, IMO, is what next-gen is about, at least for Sony and MS), well, it's just sub-par.
I am NOT a fanboy of any of the three systems (actually I really liked the Turbo Grafix 16 back in the day
I don't think they're out of business by ANY stretch of the words, but between the loss of rumble (for a less than stellar motion sensor) in the controllers, the price, and the lack of TRUE functionality on the core system, they're going to piss a lot of loyal customers off, enough to check out other systems (or at least NOT buy the PS3).
oh, and by the time they ever start setting the ICT flag on blu-ray movies [if they ever decide to do such], players will be so cheap that youll probably have already bought a dedicated standalone blu-ray player anyways, so movie playback sans HDMI will probably never be a major issue for most ps3 owners.
I'd still rather buy the cheaper and more innovative Wii, which I won't need to spend more money to upgrade.
"What's the point of upgrading later when another 20% of the bill will get you the full thing?"
The fact that "later" those upgrades will be cheaper.
When was the last time you paid for something you 'almost' got?
Maybe I'll 'almost' buy a PS3...
Here's to hoping that the lack of HDMI on the low-end model will keep content providers from ever implementing the ICT flag on movies. There's a slim chance that this move by Sony will keep that from happening.
This guy's the limit!
if you just went out and bought a HDTV without HDMI input and you dont plan to upgrade your expensive HDTV for at least another 5- 10 years.
I think it's more about the mental aspect of knowingly buying something you CAN'T upgrade later. Basically, future-proofing yourself. It's the same reason people buy all these bells and whistles for things like their car or various consumer gadgets, that they never really end up using. But at the time of purchase, they like to think that someday they will.
For only $100 more, you get a bunch of extra features that would probably cost over $100 if you added them on later. And you get a piece of functionality you can NEVER get. If you're already spending several hundred dollars for a console, what's another $100?
So the $500 system is seemingly becoming less and less of an option.
-- jchenx
Or does this come across as policy on the run? I recently heard they also announced they will support homebrew apps on the PS3 which is hard to swallow given their attitude on the PSP.
:-)
Of course, it's possible that they had planned this announcement to be timed now, but they kind of had the world's attention less than a week ago and they really could have done with some help deflecting heat from the price.
Sony's been treating their consumers like dicks for a while, and now they're being called on it. I know some people are sick of the anti-Sony feelings around the place, but I say let these rootkit-wielding, proprietary-hardware-with-DRM-making, RIAA-membership-holding arseholes shrivel up and die.
Could be just me though
What makes you think I can afford to upgrade the crappy PS3?
Logic: 1, Sony: 0
How much it costs at launch really makes almost no difference. If you want a better idea of its "real" price, we need to ask how much will it cost 13 months after launch.
I expect we'll have the exact opposite opinions then... Because, while the Wii will probably only come down by 20-30% (a drop of around $50), the PS3 will most likely plummet to half its original cost.
$600 for a game console... Sony apparently learned nothing from NeoGeo's lesson.
However, Sony's mistake does have one positive side... I'll probably finally get around to buying a PS2 in the near future, as the price of both the console and its games plummets (and start appearing in used CD stores for a pittance).
Well, that's great! Here I was concerned that we'd be dealing with paranoid movie executives who pushed hard for this kind of copy protection. I'm sure there will be no movies protected in this fashion and I'm absolutely willing to rely on their good and fair nature. And, what the heck! If they decide to implement that protection, I can just blow another stack of money on yet another Blu-Ray player. YAY!
DVI - HDCP works HDMI just adds sound to it. Also mulit our may be able to run hdcp
The real deal on this is not compared to a XBOX360 or a Wii, its when compared to a blu-ray player. The PS3 is $400 less than a blu-ray player, and its also a next-gen game player. I can see a lot of people who want to get a blu-ray player going for the PS3 instead, and then you have $400 to spend on games or movies.
These are debut prices.
You can buy a used PS1 now for ~$30 at a pawn shop--that is irrelevant as to what we are talking about.
Please grow up before you decide to post again.
It becomes even clearer when you compare opportunity costs. For the price of a PS3 and one game (~$660), you could buy a Wii and 10 games! (Charitably favoring the PS3 by assuming the Wii starts at $250 and has $40 games.) And to even notice the HDTV difference, you have to buy such a TV, which will cost you $1000, which could have bought 25 Wii games. (!) Yes, this ignores sales tax, but since it's an opportunity cost comparison, the conclusions hold regardless.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
What is making life difficult for consumers is people like you and the OP who have no fucking clue what they're talking about and spreading FUD. Without all the FUD, it would be easy(ier) for consumers to make a decision they would be happy about in the end.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
$600 for a game console... Sony apparently learned nothing from NeoGeo's lesson.
Sony learned that systems with $200 games don't sell. However, Sony learned from Microsoft that $60 games on disc and $15 games online do sell. Sony also learned from xbox-linux.org that Linux sells: "Get a PS3 for less than the price of an Xbox 360 and a Linux-based set-top PC."
Someone can still just go out a buy a HDTV without an HDMI input? I havent seen one in a while. Even if they are still common, the type of people that would buy a new HDTV without an HDMI input these days are probably not the type to care about a PS3 one way or the other.
Heck I just bought a HDTV a month ago. It was by no means a high-end model (run-o-the-mill lcd rear projection) and it has 2 HDMI inputs. None of the TV's I looked at had no HDMI inputs.
Note: If you were referring to people that "just went out and bought a HDTV" a couple years ago, then I agree that they probably won't care about no HDMI on a PS3. These people can always wait and get the "premium" PS3 after their core version dies (which will likely be 2 years based on my experience with 1st production run sony consoles...).
I guess I am missing something but why would HDMI not be upgradable. The standard XBOX 360 came with plain A/V cables that can be upgradable to component cables. I would assume that sony just like every other console has a special connection on the back where you have to buy a special approved cable that can have A/V, component or HDMI output.
I think some people are confused about HDMI here. You do NOT need an HDMI cable/connection to view high def (1080p). You can get high def with component video as well, which supports up to 1080p resolution. Both PS3 versions will have component out (AFAIK). From what I've read and seen, a high def signal looks the same in HDMI or component.
In regards to the PS3, you should only care about HDMI if a) that's the only input your TV supports (mine has 1 HDMI, 2 component) or b) you're concerned about buying a DRM burdened Blu-Ray movie that only allows a HDMI connection.
20Gb hard drives? Are we back in 2001? I wouldn't be surprised if the base PS3's '20Gb' drive is actually exactly the same as the non-crippled PS3's 60Gb, just with two platters disabled...
You must think in Russian.
Yay! The upgrade is almost not broken!
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
So basically they'll take off all the interesting stuff, and then make you buy it later? Let's hope Sony doesn't start selling cars... they'd probably sell them for $2000 new, engine, seats, transmission, and wheels extra.
stuff |
I guess I am missing something but why would HDMI not be upgradable. The standard XBOX 360 came with plain A/V cables that can be upgradable to component cables. I would assume that sony just like every other console has a special connection on the back where you have to buy a special approved cable that can have A/V, component or HDMI output.
Apples and oranges.
Component, RCA or VGA are all analog video connections.
DVI or HDMI are digital video connections.
You can convert from analog to analog pretty easy. You can convert from digital to digital pretty easy. You can get a cheap cable that converts from VGA to Component. You can get a cheap cable that converts from DVI to HDMI.
However, converting from analog to digital is an entirely different and very difficult matter. Go looking for a converter box that converts from component to DVI or from component to HDMI and you're going to be paying near a hundred dollars, and you may have to sacrifice picture quality.
The PS3, according to the SCEJ spec sheet published during E3, has a special "A/V Multi Out" connector on the back. You apparently plug a component video dongle into there. If Sony had wired the "A/V Multi Out" to provide digital data in addition to analog, you could plug in a dongle that converts to HDMI really cheap and be on your way. But they apparently didn't do this, and apparently they only provide analog. So you can get a cheap converter to component or RCA or VGA or whatever... but if you want a converter to HDMI or DVI, you are screwed forever, you have to go and spend another $600 on the HDMI output version of the PS3.
Similarly, it's going to be really cheap to upgrade that XBox 360 to component, because that's analog to analog. But the XBox 360 doesn't offer digital out, so you're not going to be able to upgrade it to DVI or HDMI without buying an entire new XBox 360 (assuming an XBox 360 with DVI or HDMI output even exists, which it doesn't.)
The really bizarre and crazy thing here is that Sony can't possibly be saving all that much money by doing this. It isn't that putting HDMI output on the cheap PS3, or putting digital information into the A/V multi out output that's already there, would be all that difficult. The only reason why all those analog-to-digital converters are so expensive is because they actually have to convert analog to digital, which is not a trivial act. When Sony is designing the PS3, though, they don't have to convert anything to anything. They've already got digital inside the box, and they actually have to convert it to analog before they can pump it out to the component video. Considering how easy it would have been to provide some mechanism that would allow a $500 PS3 to be upgraded to digital video output later (thus turning the $500 PS3 from the "broken version" into just the version that's missing a couple of bells and whistles) it's mind-boggling they are choosing to screw over their customers this way.
personally, there are about ten devices in my house that play dvds. however, i only use my "dedicated" DVD player to watch movies on.
/will/ become commonplace and take a steep drop in price pretty soon.
with sony, Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, TDK and Thomson jumping on board with Blu-ray. its likely that the next computer you buy will probably come with a blu-ray player. sony, dell and hp alone account for how much of the computer sales market? these drives
all i mean is that in the next two years, youll have moved on from your ps3 blu-ray player. the ps3 will be dedicated to games mainly. just like was the case with the ps2, in less than two years time people will come to care less about the ps3s movie playing functionality as they start to acquire other machines that are capable of playing blu ray movies.
in 1985 the NES was 200$, you fail.
Actually I too remember getting a NES around christmas or shortly there after (definately within 6-8 months of launch) for about $80. I even remember a huge promotion about the $80 price tag. If it debuted for $200 when and why did the price take such a drastic nose dive?
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"And may your days be long upon the earth."
No HDMI does not mean no HD video. You can play HD quality video on a low end PS3 just fine, in fact it's what every X-Box360 owner will be doing because X-Box360 has no HDMI (or DVI for that matter) at all.
maybe the store was running a sale. MSRP the S stands for Suggested. In 1985 until at least a year after launch(i'm talking the limited NYC launch in 85) the msrp was 200$.
Microsoft did the same with the XBox 360, withholding things from the "Core" model to make people buy the regular model. At least all PS3s have a harddrive which will encourage games to make use of it.
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
What a lot of people seem to overlook when they're trashing the high price point of the PS3 is that it will be a fully functional Blu-Ray player too! Sure, the 360 is $200 cheaper but how much do you think that HD-DVD player they're promising is going to cost? Mark my words it won't be a penny below $200. Microsoft is just setting everyone up for a one-two punch: Now: "$400 for a 360 isn't bad... I think I'll buy it." Next Christmas: "$300 for an HD-DVD drive Xbox add-on isn't bad... I think I'll buy it." Ask yourself this: Would you buy a PS3 for $300? Would you buy a Blu-Ray player for $300? If the answer to the above two questions is "yes" and your a fan of convergence then you (like me) are getting a bargain! As for the Wii... I paid $100 for my force FX lightsaber, you'd better believe I'll pay $250 for a Wii and the first LucasArts game to be released for it (maybe second if they get that Indy Jones one working).
Schrödinger's Computer: You can't know if your data is corrupt until you read it.
Let me just point out that I am an early adopter of HDTV and my set is rear-projection with no HDMI inputs. It does however have a DVI input. It is very easy and fairly inexpensive to get a HDMI to DVI coupler.
James Taylor
(No, I'm not related. However, I am on the no-fly list)
All this power crazy hardware so blood has more of a shine, pot marks can be seen on the human face, and super realistic smoke coming out of Snake's cigarette..? I'll go for Wii - at least Nintendo is aiming to wake up this 'same ol' market with innovation, and putting emphasis back on fun instead of graphics that "pwn".
I think a better question would be, "Why did SONY bother to include Blu-Ray?"
Everyone keeps assuming that its because they want it to be the next "killer" format. I think thats just half the equation. As another poster mentioned, Blu-Ray drives will probably drop enough within a "reasonable" time-frame, so people will own a dedicated Blu-Ray viewer (to go with their new HDTV).
Perhaps SONY just wanted to put the biggest honking capacity they could for their disks, along with the ability to make burning backups difficult (and perhaps expensive for bootleggers?). With those thoughts in mind, it makes sense for them to get behind the format that they are supporting, not HD-DVD, or some other 'one-off' standard of their own.
Yes, playing Blu-Ray disks is a nice "bonus" for some people, but I'm really starting to wonder if it is really the reason that they chose the format.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
$500 for the *basic* machine, and then the ability to individually upgrade it, presumably at a total higher cost than getting the $600 model is just not attractive to me as a consumer. A ton of reasons to get the PS3 are in the premium machine, and by gutting them out to save a $100 makes the lower end one look like crap.
Sony made a fatal error here. Allow me to illustrate using cars as the analogy.
Wii is the Honda.
Xbox 360 is the Lexus.
PS3 is the BMW.
Each targets a different audience, which is most clearly defined as you go lower (Wii) or higher (PS3). The type of consumer that can afford a PS3 is much less common that the type that can afford the Wii, just like with cars. Sony, in an attempt to compensate for their lower end model (a 3 series BMW), offers upgrades that will make it functioanlly the same as its higher model (a 7 series BMW). Unfortunately, the people that CARE about money aren't the type to want to buy the BMW in the first place, let alone dump MORE money on it to upgrade it. When's the last time you saw some guy driving around a tricked out BMW?
As it stands, the high end Xbox 360 is BETTER than the crap version PS3 since it includes a hard drive, has wireless controller support, has a large and established Xbox Live community, etc. So why is it a consumer is going to choose PS3? Brand loyalty? Banking on that alone is a tough sell, Sony execs. If you're coming late to the market and using HARDWARE as your most intesely marketed difference, you either give us better hardware for the same or lower price, or you start changing your pitch.
No shite. I wonder, though, why people are assuming that Blu-Ray is going to be the HD format of choice. HD-DVD players cost half as much as Blu-Ray players and the prices of HD-DVD players are going to go down MUCH faster than the prices of the two PS3 models (unless Sony decides to take a monstrous loss on those units). Even if Blu-Ray standalone players go down in price at the same rate as HD-DVD players, that would mean a $300 HD-DVD player would be competing against a $600 Blu-Ray player, $200 versus $400, etc. Assuming home movie watchers have an interest in an HD format, I just don't see how Blu-Ray can stay relevant without big price cuts, PS3 or not...
As for your list of companies, well, at least one of those you got wrong (Thomson/RCA has an HD-DVD product coming out next week) and others (like LG) will be producing HD-DVD hardware as well.
Customer: This was a waste of money!
1) Sells the PS3 on ebay.
2) Buys a Revolution and a Xbox360 instead.
a) Buys a Revolution and goes back to playing WoW.
The studios won't be using ICT initially because they don't want to piss off the only people who will be interested in the "next gen" DVDs to begin with, the early adopters. The people who bought early HDTVs are also likely candidates to purchase early HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players.
That is true, but the part you are missing is that later on people will still have the same PS3's and 360's even if they upgrade the TV's to units that support HDMI.
Furthermore, what you will see happen as a result of a wide market of non HDMI capible consoles with a market easer for higher resolution displays is cheap HDTV units that are made even cheaper by leaving out HDMI, thus extending the HDMI-free percentage of the market almost indefinatley.
In that way the lack of HDMI on many PS3's and ALL 360s (they have no digital output capability at all, the HDMI cables will not be using HDCP from the box) will force an erosion of the HDMI standard to the point where there never will be a time where the studios can turn on the ICT flag without loosing 80% of the market.
Lastly, the studios will see no need to turn this on as long as sales are good, so the sucess of either format ensures the continued non-ITC use of the format.
You do NOT need an HDMI cable/connection to view high def (1080p).
Your statement is not actually correct. You should continue reading Wikipedia but maybe this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP article instead.
Or to get all the information together here is a nice summary on DRM Blog.
You will need HDMI in the not too distant future to be able to watch High Def. The movie houses are not going to let you watch 1080p on analog, unprotected outputs.
No HDMI does not mean no HD video.
Congratulations on successfully changing the subject. It seems to have won over at least one moderator. Look: When people say "it can't do digital output" or "it can't do HDCP output", saying "but it can do HD video!" doesn't matter. We are not talking about whether or not it can do HD video! We already know it can do HD video. Nobody cares.
in fact it's what every X-Box360 owner will be doing
Who, exactly, claimed that the XBox 360 was anything but broken itself?
Just because the XBox 360 is crippled, doesn't make the PS3 any less crippled.
Meanwhile, the PS3 has greater capabilities than the XBox 360, and thus has greater needs. People will be doing things with PS3s they can't do with an XBox 360, like play HDCP-crippled videos, or play games at 1080p, or run a desktop operating system (Linux). For some of these, at some point, you need the digital video output that the XBox 360 and the $500 PS3 have been crippled by lacking. Since you won't be playing HDCP videos on the XBox 360, you won't notice that it's crippled, you won't have any obvious chance to tell that the digital output is missing. Since you might at some point be watching an HDCP video on a PS3, you will notice it's missing. And once you notice, you'll immediately find that it's $500 too late to upgrade.
It seems that these companies been over charging ous whit all type of bells and wisels that arent indespensable like wireless controlers or hard drive cause the wont include a media reader ... we should be on strike as a wake up call Sony is chocking on its over confident that we are their lap dogs and will play what ever just to play it i say don't buy it make them lower their price
All Nintendo, Sega, XBOX, and Sony systems do not carry MSRP's, they have MAP - Minimum Advertised Price. Thats why Best Buy doesn't run sales on them, thats why no one runs sales on them - until they get the go ahead from the manufacturer.
I think what everyone is forgetting about (or dismissing) is the difference in software titles provided for Sony's consoles. We've got *many* titles that are only released for certain consoles. For example, you've got Ninja Gaiden fo MS, Mario titles for Nintendo, and Final Fantasy (the real ones) for Sony. Now, I might just be a "Final Fantasy freak," but if I have to pay $500/$600 to play my favorite games, then that's what it is. Until software titles are not monopolized by each company, there will *ALWAYS* be people clamoring for a certain console, despite the price.
As having received a NES for christmas in 1985 during the NY test market thing, $200 was the price because you got the system, R.O.B., a light gun, and the Duck Hunt/Gyromite combo game pak. This was done to position it as a "toy" and not a "game system" like the recent failures Atari, Intellivision, and Colecovison.
At the time I was used to Atari 2600 games that just went into the cartridge slot. The instruction book did not explain how to *push the cartridge down* after inserting it in the bay. So it went back to the store, with a lot of other returns from similarly confused owners.
The nationwide launch fixed this, with pictures in the owner's manual. I got mom to drive 2 hours to the nearest Toys R Us in 1987 to get one. Super Mario Brothers was a slightly better pack in than Duck Hunt/Gyromite.
R.O.B. only had one other game for it (something with stacking) and the light gun had a total of four first party games -- Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, Gumshoe, and some wild west quick draw thing.
The wiimote may be another R.O.B. -- that standard-looking "accessory" controller may make it obsolete, but who knows?
IT was a home system with perfect arcade replicas. Not ports but exact same hardware... They weren't going for a mainstream console for every home like sega and nintendo. Otherwise their system wouldn't have been priced upwards to $800 with $200+ dollar cartridges. Yeah you could by a supernintendo with the price of one neo geo game.
With inflation stats it'd look even more pricy with today's dollars.
I don't think they intended to compete in the same market.
Hmmm... Pie...
Well, that's easy. It will play (insert infinite number here) more High Definition movies than any other console out of the box. Love it or hate it, this is an integral part of the HD movement. by having an HD capable delivery platform, HD will take off. HD sets will fall in price, and so will the cost for movies with volume.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
I really would prefer to see Sony succeed, rather than roll over and give microsoft another monopoly.
But the management of this company is out of touch. Rather than use it's content division to help HW sales, it uses it, to poison the brand (DRM rootkits).
Next up it wants to use it's new game machine as a trojan horse for Blu-Ray. Good plan. Too bad they totally messed it up, but over pricing it and importantly not including digital video outputs (DVI/HDMI) at all, let alone not having HDCP to protect us from that ICT garbage.
Is there a Sony HD set that doesn't have HDMI inputs? Where is the obvious and needed synergy between product lines.
A trojan horse mentality works if you get it for free. Ie price it like your competetion, but give them a free bonus of Blu-Ray. If you force people not interested in Blu Ray, to pay more for Blu Ray, you likely just lost a sale.
If you can't be price competetive. Drop the Blu Ray drive on the base model.
Base: DVD drive, Flash memory, Component output. $299.
Top: Blu Ray drive, HD, HDMI output, pack in movie $499.
Again use the studio as an asset. You should be able to include a movie essentially for free.
Sony continues to trash its brand value on a daily basis. If I were a shareholder, I would be bailing out fast. No signs of a turnaround on this barge.
There were several different versions. IIRC, the $200 one was with Rob, the Zapper, Duck Hunt, and Gyromite.
The core system with Super Mario Bros was $120, though people are saying there was an $80 version, which I don't recall.
Karma burning time...
I really, really hope the Wii lives up to the expectations set for it. I really do. Because if it sucks in any way, Nintendo is on such a pedestal in the community right now that they are going down hard if the Wii is not exactly what you are imagining.
I am extremely interested in that console, but specifically I want to know what its like to play for over an hour. I could easily see it being something that is fun for 20 minutes and then gets annoying (or tiring). Time will tell.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Lastly, the studios will see no need to turn this on as long as sales are good
The copyright cartel has shown time and again that they are willing to do things that aren't good for their bottom line.
CD sales were never higher than in the heyday of the original Napster, every time the RIAA shuts down a P2P site or sues another group of P2P users their market share goes down, not up, the they continue on this self destructive path.
It won't matter that leaving ICT turned off can only increase sales, there are forced within the studios that are scared to death that people will be pulling unencrypted 1080p video off their component outputs and sticking it straight on the big scary Internet. The only thing that is keeping them from turning on ICT rigt away is they want HD-DVD/Blu-Ray to take off and eventually kill DVD with its easily broken CSS.
It is very easy and fairly inexpensive to get a HDMI to DVI coupler.
But can you get an HDCP to DVI coupler? If not, you might as well just stick with component input.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Getting slightly off topic here, but..
My non-techie friend has an older HDTV with only DVI as well, and was asking me about HDMI->DVI converters.
One thing I didnt know/couldnt find out was whether there are cheap solutions to convert a HDMI audio/video signal into DVI video and some other form of audio. I know there are cheap couplers to carry the video signal from HDMI to DVI, but they discard the audio channel (which presumably would make it difficult to connect a PS3 through HDMI to a DVI input). Anyone know if any reasonalbly priced solutions exist?
Thanks
I like the way you're thinking, but you're not taking it far enough.
The real answer here is to say screw it to pri$ey consoles like the Wii and just pick up a DS. Imagine how many DS (or GBA!) games you could afford to get with your DS for the price of a Wii!
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
I could easily see it being something that is fun for 20 minutes and then gets annoying (or tiring).
welcome our new "drunk bimbo" videogames console overlords
What those charts don't take into account if the value of the US dollar. The rumored prices of the two PS3 offerings on the Canadian market will be slightly higher than the price of the first PlayStation when it was introduced. So, for us here, it won't be much different from 10 years ago.
Yeah, 20GB, that would never fly today. Apple ditched the 20G iPod ages ago, and would never think of selling 1-4GB ones. It's pretty clear that 60G is where it's at, given the 50G+ capacity of Blu-Ray you'll need a 60G drive to get all the games you own on there at once. It's not like they'd read off the disc and merely cache some data and savegames or anything.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Why would you want access-restricted HDMI anyway?
Apparently the core PS3 can do 1080p HD content over the component jacksjust fine.
What does HDMI give you in addition apart from DRM?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
People who keep talking about how insane the announced price for the PS3 is are conveniently forgetting the $2000 PS2s for sale on eBay during the initial release week. Witness the $1000+ XBox 360.
The manufacturers have got to realize that if people can go buy one and turn right around and sell it for 2-3x markup, they're underpricing them.
Maybe if the price is still insane after the first month, I'll say Sony's insane. Until then, they're just pricing it at what they feel the market will bear.
I *still* bet they get their asses pounded by Nintendo, though.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Bear in mind that Nintendo seems to be aiming primarily at non-gamers and casual gamers with recent efforts. Noting this, I don't think a lot of non-gamers and casual gamers have the time or the desire to sit and play a game for an hour or more at a time. As long as they have a few offerings for the hardcore gamers that don't require too much moving, they should be able to sell a lot of units.
I think there was considerable ill will generated. Read any forum anywhere when the new gen machines are mentioned. Sony is always mentioned with respect to their DRM infecting ways.
Blu Ray DRM nastiness is often thought to be worse than HD-DVD (though they are the same) and blamed on Sony.
Sony has definitely hurt brand image with quite a few people and it continues to get propagated to anywone who visits internet forums.
It's not a fair comparison. The NES launched in limited release in 1985. When it was released nationally in 1986, the price had dropped below the $200 mark.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Also this remark about the Saturn is only valid in the western world.
In Japan, the Saturn saw a lot more of game, and guess what : it had better success.
The Dreamcast is also another good exemple.
It was cheaper. So according to GP-poster it should have performed better than the PS2 commercialy.
But it wasn't the case : It had a nice begining, but as developper began to turn more toward all the hype about the upcoming PS2, the Dreamcast started to decline.
So we see that RyuuzakiTetsuya is in fact giving a better explanation :
- It's the games !
- As long as developper keep producing nice and well done games for it, any console can have at least some success among enthusiats, even if it's old and/or expensive.
(And in a way, we can even consider that this is the case of the GP32 : had a lot of community-made emulators and met relative success among enthusiasts. Even the DreamCast's afterlife as a target for homegrown games is a similar example)
- On the other hand, if a console has no "killer-app", it will definitely go the 3DO (or DODO) way.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The PSP is $250? Nobody is ever going to buy a handheld for so much money! DS/GBA FTW!!!
... Only thing that looks cool on the radar for Xbox360-only is Dead Rising.
While the PSP hasn't exactly blown away all other competition, they've still done pretty well considering what a weak game line-up they *still* have.
PS3 on the other hand will have some amazing games at launch/shortly thereafter
I find that with directtv and comcast, there is a HUGE difference with HDMI vs. Component. It looks much more vibrant, and sharper. I was fustrated to hear that 360 didn't have hdmi. I still have one anyway :)
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They still didn't learn the lesson that NeoGeo provided (while it's still had a following all this time, it's been a small one compared to the PSX and PS2...)- which is if you price the console out of the reasonable reach of budgets it will only (and ONLY) be bought by the hardcore crowd. Sort of a collector's thing or a snobbery thing. The average Joe (who's what propelled them into first place in the market up to this point) can't justify $600 for the thing- and will at most buy an X-Box 360 (which is still over priced for what it is...) or more likely a Wii (since it's more than powerful enough and is priced attractively compared to the other options...).
It matters little if they've got tons of $60 games out there for the thing if nobody can be convinced to BUY the console in the first place.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Oh no, it'll die right after the warranty ends. But for $300 I'm sure they'll be willing to let you send it in and get it repaired or another refurbished model identical to it back. And for only $150 more they might give you an HDMI port.
"If it debuted for $200 when and why did the price take such a drastic nose dive?"
I can offer a suggestion. The $200 NES came with two controllers, two games, a light zapper, and ROB the video robot. The $100 version came with only one controller and no games. Possible?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently, you don't know what HDCP is. HDCP is not an interface. It is copy protection that is integrated into the interface (or, if you prefer, the chipset supporting the interface). So, unless an HDMI->DVI or DVI->HDMI adapter doesn't pass the HDCP information (all of them claim to do so), then HDCP isn't an issue. It's only an issue if HDCP isn't built into the DVI interface on the TV (I've never seen a TV with HDMI that is non-compliant with HDCP).
I think everyone is hung up about the PS3 pricetag, I know I am, but just looking at the features on the PS3 even excluding the Blueray functionality I doubt I will use since I dont have a HD-TV, its pretty amazing. The controller on the PS3 has motion sensitivity.
r t-Linux-and-Homebrew-/pg/49/aid/40039
Honestly, I think the xbox360 will be this generations dreamcast, first to market, underpowered, easy to pirate games on without a modchip, and it has a controller that seems outdated to its competitors and its very very white.
And last but certainly not least, the PS3 will ship with linux and will allow homebrew applications! How cool is that? that means it can run all sorts of programs like media centers, emulators, homebrew apps, ftps whatever, and its especially cool since it has a hard drive. Its the ultimate living room computer! Sure it will have limitations, but you wont need a modchip to run something like xbox media center. I cant wait to turn mine into a little bittorrent box that streams media.
Yes $600 is overpriced, but when it comes down, and it will, to aroudn $500 I am going to pick one up. By then the homebrew community will have enough good programs to make it more than a worthy replacement to my venerable modded xbox. Notice I didnt compare it to the Wii, I think the Wii is going to sell like hotcakes and outsell both systems, though that might not necessarily be a good thing.
http://ps3.qj.net/Its-Official-The-PS3-will-suppo
Having a version without HDMI allows Sony to drop the price of this version without even more grossly undercutting other hardware manufactures who are try to sell $800 (a number pulled out of my ass) Blu-ray players. I wont be surprised if we see the crippled version price drop much faster than HDMI one.
This suits me just fine as I'm more interesed in PS3 the game machine than PS3 the movie player.
Just the idea of the controller might have sparked people's imagination to a damaging degree. I think a lot of people imagined the thing having full six degrees of freedom absolute positioning; a controller that knows exactly where it is in the room and how it's oriented.
Excuse me for recycling a topic from the 'blogosphere', but take for example the sword control in ubisoft's red steel demonstration. The expectation was that when using the controller as a sword, the moves you made with the controller would translate directly into movements of the sword in the game. The reality is that it basically detects simple gestures such as slashes, and the sword in the game performs predefined moves accordingly. This is not to assume that the former method would be any more fun, it's just that the latter is not going to meet expectations of interactivity.
From a technical point of view, I think the 6-dof absolute positioning is out of the question (though I would love to be proven wrong). It seems like there are probably two systems involved: accelerometers, and a pointing device. The accelerometers probably measure 6-dof of acceleration, and are could be very similar to what's going to be in the PS3 controller. They will useful for detecting discreet movements, like the sword slashes, but will not give you absolute positioning. The pointing device uses a sensor bar which you place next to the TV, and there is a window on the front of the Wii controller which is most likely used for this system. My theory about how it works (could be wrong, common knowledge, or in patents, etc. I have no idea) is that the sensor bar is basically just a marker, and the controller has a camera type device on the front of it which can locate the sensor bar relative to the controller. This would give you a pretty accurate absolute orientation, but probably only with line of sight between the front of the controller and the sensor bar. As soon as line of sight is broken, you'd just have a PS3 controller.
I think there is a lot of gameplay potential in the controller, and the average consumer probably doesn't care about how it works, especially if the games are fun. However, many of the people who have been conjecturing, and building up this mass of hype around the system might feel a bit let down when they don't end up with a magical virtual reality wand to play lightsaber with.
...which is $500ish now. Nobody seems to be whining about that starting price (because it's lower than the $1k BluRay), but for the same price you can get the cheaper PS3. So you don't have HDMI - most people who can afford a TV that's big enough to warrant the HDMI cable would be able to afford the extra $100 for the bigger PS3.
You want a problem to whine about? Well...how about that MS now has to sell games on DVD to support the base platform, and HD-DVD to make the addon drive useful and for anything with more than a DVD's content. You want to swap DVD's each time you change levels? For the game developers, they now have a media problem - choose between DVD or HD-DVD, or both? How much content to put on? One huge benefit of consoles - they just work, and developers know what to develop for. Sony has that. MS...less so. +1 for the hard drive issue. And for the people whining about the 20Gig, isn't that the same size as the BIGGER 360? It's for saving games and some content, and at least the developers know they have a drive in there.
http://www.tudumo.com - todo list with tags
Perhaps it's me.. In the UK, PS1 launched at £399 12 years ago The PS2 at £299 6 years ago. With the rate of inflation, and the serious hardware in the PS3, is £340 for the basic and £410 for the top end version REALLY that expensive?? Not for a launch price. If you can't afford it, don't be a 1st wave adopter, wait until Summer 2006, when the price will drop to a more reasonable price..
HDCP. If the flag is turned on in Blu-ray movie discs, the only way to get 1080p will be thruogh HDMI, all other analog connections will be downscaled in resolution. Personally, I'd like to get all I can out of the hardware and software I buy. So I don't really care about DRM in this case.
Nobody's toggled the flag on though for the first batches of HD-DVD and presumably Blu-ray titles when they come out. But you can bet someone will.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I remember I had 2 controllers, SMB, duck hunt and the zapper, but no ROB. Though quite possibly i'm remembering the $80 part wrong, 21 years will do that, it just seemed odd that I recognized the $80 number as soon as it was mentioned. Oh well, thanks!
------
"And may your days be long upon the earth."
Mate, fuck I thought I was going mad.... glad I'm not the only one who thinks that it's seriously not a huge amount of money, just seems in vogue to hate Sony.
As I have said before, the target audience for these consoles is no longer 12 year olds, it's 25 - 30 year olds, because on the whole they have the largest disposable income. 300 quid or 600 dollars or whatever... it's not a big deal for this age group.
tom-george.comBecause geeks rate higher t
You're citing dorks who hang around an internet forum.
Let's talk about regular sheeple consumers.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
The "sony" rootkit fiasco was completely Bertelsmann (the BMG in Sony BMG) - the head of sony has said that music downloads are still too expensive, he'd like to see 25c downloads.
Bertelsmann on the other hand are old-school media moguls, the kind that still think the customer is the enemy.
I am NaN