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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
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.
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).
I'd still rather buy the cheaper and more innovative Wii, which I won't need to spend more money to upgrade.
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!
What makes you think I can afford to upgrade the crappy PS3?
Logic: 1, Sony: 0
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!
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.
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
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.
Probably the same reason that the Xbox 360 can't upgrade to HDMI. The output is 100% analog at the connector on the Xbox. Just adding a HDMI adapter won't do anygood. The Xbox.com forum is full of people requesting HDMI (especially after the HD-DVD announcement), but MS has said it can't be done do to the reason above. Seems like they've hurt themselves by doing so, but they were the first. If Sony does the same thing we may find out "who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?"
Swi
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.
What's the basis for saying the PS3 will likely drop to half its cost?
Because the PS1 and PS2 did?
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.
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.
$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.
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 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.
True, there might be more limits on what people 'feel' like doing with such an interactive game. However, their controller still have normal buttons and can be used in a normal way.
Also, how long do you think people can play DDR for? I'm sure I've seen some play that for hours and I wouldn't doubt that it's far more tiring than any other games.
I would prefer to see games that allow people to enjoy their game for 20-60mins then that person can feel good, put the thing down, and get back to interacting with the rest of life. Maybe I can finally get ride of my monitor tan?
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
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.
The only reason this is true is because of the hype and artificial restrictions on supply. Why was Xbox 360 selling for $1000 plus at release? Microsoft restricted the release to a small number of units. The problem vendors have with setting the release price extremely high is twofold. First, it sours a large part of the market to the product based on price. All people remember is the initial high price and have a mental block against buying the product. Second, you can't lower your price too soon. If you do you will piss off all of the people that purchased at the release price.
To summarize, if Microsoft had release the Xbox 360 at $1000 price point as you suggest they would have had tremendous release sales by all the gamers and fanboys, but their sales would have tapered off immediately due to the product being overpriced for most of the market. If Microsoft had then quickly lowered their pricing, say in 1st quarter 06, to $399 everyone that bought the product before Christmas would have been furious. Anybody that gets burned that bad is going to remember, and next sales cycle everyone is going to wait for that big price drop before they buy.
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