Sony And The No-Confidence Vote

Sony continues to spend the goodwill it has achieved over the last generation of consoles. As widely reported over the weekend, last Friday CEO for SCE Europe David Reeves spoke to the press. "We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games." This 'you'll buy it anyway' attitude has further annoyed gamers already rankling from the announced pricetag. Next Gen and IGN talk about the two sides of the coin, with IGN laying into the company for the lack of HDMI output in the cheaper model, and Next Generation saying that Sony is far from defeated.

Comments

Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[TripMaster Monkey]

Tying to sell a console without games is like trying to sell a gun without ammunition. Reeves' blithe assertion that their 'brand equity' will induce gamers to shell out 600 clams for their console, despite the dearth of available games, is pure fantasy. There are other consoles out there, that are far cheaper, and have games now. I personally can't imagine how Sony's going to move any of these consoles before the games become available.

That said, perhaps Sony would have a better chance of moving said consoles if it didn't take its customer base for granted in such a shockingly flippant way. The $600 price tag is bad enough, but Reeves' interview with Computer and Video Games probably cost Sony a lot of business from spite alone.

Also, from the IGN article:

In word, Sony downplayed the disparity between the $499 and $599 PS3 versions, citing the primary difference between the consoles at the time of the announcement as the difference in built-in hard drive space, namely 20 GB for the low-end and 60 GB for the high-end. Within minutes, however, journalists homed in on a variety of factors that placed the lower-end PS3 into contention for the dreaded "tard-box" classification of crippled-console.

Sony, if you've got so much frelling 'brand equity' that you can try to sell us a console for $600 without any games, why do you feel compelled to market a separate, 'tard-box'?

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[objwiz]

My friend and I were talking about this exact topic at lunch--except we were talking about the XBox 360. I have not bought a 360 yet because there are no 360 based games that I am dying to play. I have no incentive to shell out $400 for a console that, atm, doesnt give anything better than what I currently own.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[AKAImBatman]

Reeves' blithe assertion that their 'brand equity' will induce gamers to shell out 600 clams for their console, despite the dearth of available games, is pure fantasy.

Basically, Sony is making many of the exact same mistakes Sega made with the Saturn. Given that Sony was Sega's "$299" antagonist at the time, you'd think they'd know better.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[Ant P.]

Trying to sell a console without games is like trying to sell a gun without ammunition.

Yeah, but it's still useful for beating some sense into their head if they buy it :D

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[jbreckman]

It's like buying soda at a movie theater. A small is $3.25, and a large is $4.00. But a small is like 8 sips, and a large is 1000 sips. Most people will shell out the extra 75 cents. If I'm going to spend $500 on something, might as well pay the extra $100 for something a lot better. The large soda is a rip-off, but less of a rip-off when compared to the small soda.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[WillAffleckUW]

My friend and I were talking about this exact topic at lunch--except we were talking about the XBox 360. I have not bought a 360 yet because there are no 360 based games that I am dying to play. I have no incentive to shell out $400 for a console that, atm, doesnt give anything better than what I currently own.

Exactly. I'm still waiting for some PS3 games that will make me pay attention - I haven't heard of more than two so far, and that's not enough to buy a console with.

I did that once before, bought an xBox when it only had two games I wanted to play out of all the many hundreds - and I regretted it. Now, I never count cross-platform because ... I can get those on any console anyway.

Make the games and I'll pay attention.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[ClassMyAss]

It certainly spells disaster for Sony if the people on Slashdot are rooting against their new system (you'd think we'd be the ones itching to shell out big bucks for the next hot thing!), and looking at the polls, Sony should be worried. However, I wonder whether we might be overstating the shortage of games?

An informal Google search revealed the following numbers of games available/expected to be available at console launch:

• PS: 35/12 (? conflicting info ?)
• Wii: 27 playable at E3
• PS2: 26
• XBox: 18
• XBox 360: 18
• GBA: 16
• PS3: 15
• Game Cube: 12
• Nintendo DS: 6
• Game Boy: 5
• Sega Genesis: 5
• SNES: 3
• N64: 2

If the PS3 actually launches with 15 games, that puts it right about the middle of the pack. Of course, it will have fewer than any of the other systems of this generation, and that may be more important than a comparison to systems more than a decade old. Add to that the fact that they've offered what appears to be little more than a PS2++ (or should I say a (PS1++)++?), priced higher than a low-end desktop computer, and the overall picture is anything but rosy for Sony.

Come on, guys, at least give us some reason to prefer your box over the other guy's!

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[radish]

This is a pretty comprehensive listing, it shows the PS as having 12 titles at the US launch.

As for the Wii, it's currently showing 18 titles. I didn't see 27 titles at E3 (far from it) but there were a number of tech demos (which won't be released) and each of the sub-games of Wii Sports was being shown on a different stand - I imagine this accounts for the disparity. 15-18 seems like a good average number for the new console launches.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[Chris Burke]

Basically, Sony is making many of the exact same mistakes Sega made with the Saturn. Given that Sony was Sega's "$299" antagonist at the time, you'd think they'd know better.

Yeah, you'd think that being famous for "winning" E3 merely by uttering a price that undercut the competition by $100 would make them realize that price does matter.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[__aaclcg7560]

I don't know what movie theater you go to, but where I go the difference between a small soda and a large soda is more about money. It's about being able to watch a two-hour movie without a bathroom break (small soda) or blowing your bladder out on the way to the restroom (large soda). :P

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[iocat]

It may not deliver *better*, but it delivers *newer.* I still think Tony Hawk for PS1 is awesome, but I don't run home every day and play it (although now I will). Chatting w/ far-away friends while playing Geometry Wars comes close to being worth the $400 clams to me.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[NeutronCowboy]

Dude, you have time to not only get a lengthy first post, but you also manage to read the linked article in its entirety? Are you from the future or something?

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[mrchaotica]

You should follow my strategy: buy the big one, and then mow people down in the hallway while rushing to the bathroom after the movie.

(Just don't try it on long movies, like LOTR -- that thing should have had an intermission, like the books did!)

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[fondue]

I heard this crazy rumour that some games are going to be released at the same time as the machine. 'Launch' games, I believe the term is.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[jt007]

While I understand the concerns in your post, there may not always be a correlation between the success of a console and the number of games available at its release. Given that the Gameboy and SNES had a total of 8 launch games between them yet still proved to be two of the most successful games machines ever.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[KDR_11k]

I prefer my very own "What do I need a soda for? I've just had dinner!" strategy.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[LMacG]

With both the Gameboy and SNES, however, there was a game inside the box when you got home from the store. At the time, you could hardly go wrong with Super Mario Brothers, and Tetris spawned a million sore thumbs.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[Scudsucker]

It's about being able to watch a two-hour movie without a bathroom break (small soda) or blowing your bladder out on the way to the restroom (large soda). :P

Heh. I know a couple of guys who got jumpo pops when they saw Fellowship of the Ring, and they knew how long it was. Didn't go to the bathroom till the end of the movie, the idiots.

Re:Pride Goeth Before A Fall

[LordVader717]

This may be true with alot of cases, but I've seen alot of "research" where they compared the value of different portions of fries and sodas. And in most cases, the difference was negligable, and sometimes the medium sizes were better value. Just goes to show.

narcissism

[eldavojohn]

Etymology

After Narcissus, the fictional Greek hero who became obsessed with his own reflection.

Pronunciation

• 'när-s&-"si-z&m

Noun

narcissism

1. Egoism; egocentrism.
2. Love of oneself.
3. Sexual desire for one's own body.

--

I grew up on a farm. If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's people who walk around with their noses in the air. Yuppies, politicians, etc. are prone to this behavior.

Sony's elitism sure is getting underneath my skin. I enjoyed their console but anymore of this "only-the-rich-are-worthy-of-experiencing-this" attitude and I'm going to take my ball (money) and play elsewhere.

They do realize that many of their customers also buy their competitor's products, right? By stomping all over Nintendo and Microsoft, they may be alienating a large selection of their consumer base.

Re:narcissism

[bunions]

I grew up in the city. If there's on thing that pisses me off, it's people that post definitions of common words, as if to imply they were imparting deep wisdom unto the masses.

Re:narcissism

[Ekarderif]

I like pants. If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's the total irrelevance of the first statement in relation to the second.

Re:narcissism

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that the QOTM is

Happiness, n.: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

=D

Re:narcissism

[iroll]

I grew up on a ranch, and believe me, farmers don't have a monopoly on "humble pie." Country folk are quite capable of breeding their own special species of snobbery.

Re:narcissism

[ScaryFroMan]

But, in saying "I like Pants," you've reinforced your second statement, meaning that they are in fact connected.

Re:narcissism

[Anonymous Coward]

The statements are not irrelevant to each other. The author's implication is that there is a large class of people who think that farm life is somehow inferior and make their opinion known - and are the prototype group that he got pissed off by.

Re:narcissism

[Ohreally_factor]

I grew up in a barren waste, and if there's one thing I can't stand, it those farmers and ranchers who think they're superior just because their land is arable or has grazable acreage. Walking around with their noses in the air, acting all high and mighty because they can afford a pair of overalls or shit-kicking boots. I hate 'em!

Re:narcissism

[Mistshadow2k4]

"I grew up in the city. If there's on thing that pisses me off, it's people that post definitions of common words, as if to imply they were imparting deep wisdom unto the masses."

The thread earlier about blogger plagarism proved that sometimes that this is a good idea, as many posters clearly didn't understand the difference between plagarism and copyright infringement.

Re:narcissism

[caffeinatedOnline]

I grew up on a farm. If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's people who walk around with their noses in the air. Yuppies, politicians, etc. are prone to this behavior.

I would think that growing up on a farm, the one thing that would piss you off is when the local fire chief screws your sheep
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0307062sheep1 .html

Re:narcissism

[prockcore]

3. Sexual desire for one's own body.

Well then Sony can go fuck themselves.

Re:narcissism

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up in the void beyond time and space, and if there's one thing I can't stand, it's those wastelanders who think they're superior just because their universe is expanding or has multiple dimensions. Walking around with their noses in the air, acting all high and mighty because they have matter and energy with which to interact. I hate 'em!

Let's be fair, it's true..

[goldaryn]

"We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even [if] it didn't have games."

So? It's true.. everyone likes to think they aren't suckers for the latest piece of kit, but aren't we all?

Re:Let's be fair, it's true..

[LurkerXXX]

So? It's true.. everyone likes to think they aren't suckers for the latest piece of kit, but aren't we all?

As someone who's never been willing to shell out stupid money for the latest-greatest electronics, and always waits until it is at least 'older/mainstream' and had come *way* down in price... No.

Re:Let's be fair, it's true..

[stlhawkeye]

Exactly. I spend money reluctantly, especially on throwaway purchases like a console. I had an Atari 2600, an NES, a GameBoy, and never bought another console until about 2002. Even then, I only bought one because I got $3 in-store credit per used CD I brought in, which totalled up to about $120 of credit. I traded it in for a used PS/2, a second controller, a memory card, and Simpsons Road Rage. I gave the thing away about a year later. I tried a few other games but frankly they all got old pretty quick. I tried all the "hot titles" at the time in a few different genres and I came in the inescapable conclusion that nothing at all has changed since the last time I plugged in my NES, other than the graphics. Yeah, 3D world. Whoo hoo.

Re:Let's be fair, it's true..

[Guppy06]

We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of the NES in 1987 and the SNES in 1991 that the first five million are going to buy the Nintendo 64, whatever it is, even if it didn't have games.

Re:Let's be fair, it's true..

[The Warlock]

And they did, and the N64 took, what, 40% of the market? Not too shabby, really. It wasn't until the Gamecube that Nintendo saw their prior good name didn't mean much anymore.

Personally, I'm predicting that they're going to be on the upsurge again, but then, back in the day, I thought the Dreamcast would save Sega, so who really knows anymore?

Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[PSXer]

In 2000, everybody wanted a PS2 even though it didn't have any real "must have" games. That might have been because of DVD (but DVD in 2000 was a lot more popular with the mainstream than Blu-Ray in 2006) Or, it might have just been the next "must have" item and people wanted it because people who had one were "cool"

Granted I don't have my finger on the pulse of the entire world, but the people I hang around have nothing but bad stuff to say about the PS3. Sorry the market's so fickle, Sony, but 2001's "xbox is heavy" and "Gamecube is for kiddies" is this year's "PS3 is expensive"

Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[joshsisk]

Most people I know (including me) didn't get a PS2 until after GTA 3 came out. That's what sold it for me, I played GTA at a friends house and was like "whoa, I gotta get this!". The PS3 will sell well if it has exclusive games that have a similar "must own" factor... though, at the higher price, and more competition, I doubt it will fully replicate the success of the PS2.

Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm guilty of doing that as well. I ran out and got a PS2 (mostly to play final fantasy), but then the thing sat there for a year collecting dust.

The lesson was learned, and I won't be duped in the same way for the PS3. Hopefully others have learned as well. Obviously Sony thinks history will repeat itself.

Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[zoney_ie]

"but DVD in 2000 was a lot more popular with the mainstream than Blu-Ray in 2006"

Really? Hindsight is from the present perspective where we are all very familiar with the big benefits of DVDs over VHS.

But in 2000, most people had not seen DVD in action, players were ridiculously expensive, and more importantly, so were DVD movies. It had barely entered into the equation in PCs.

The "common sense" of choosing DVD over VHS was not a definitive indicator of DVD's success - mainly because of price.

One could even suggest the PS2 was to some degree a significant factor in DVD's success. Sure it was more important that people bought DVD players in a big way, but the PS2 was the first publicity for DVD movies for many people.

Blu-ray is very much DVD battle rerun. And this time, HD TV uptake is a far bigger driving factor than any reason people had to ditch VHS. People with HD TVs will want HD movies, whether HD-DVD or Blu-ray. Of course, this latter item is a change from the last battle - this time there are two wannabes. But it's a major point that the PS3 will have Blu-ray and be relatively cheap *as a player*.

There is no fore-gone conclusion in this battle anymoreso than the battle for DVD uptake.

Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[Anonymous Coward]

But in 2000, most people had not seen DVD in action, players were ridiculously expensive, and more importantly, so were DVD movies. It had barely entered into the equation in PCs.

Actually, DVD was initially released in 1997 in Japan and early 1998 in North America; by 2000 every major electronics store had a decent DVD movie section and carried DVD players that were in the $300 range. In 1998, when I got my lightning fast Pentium 2 433MHz pc it came with a built in DVD Drive; in 2000 you had the choice of a DVD drive, CD+RW or a hybrid DVD CD+RW drive. DVD was very much an established format by the time the PS2 arrived.

What Sony has done is priced the PS3 into a position where only about 5% of North American gamers (a yahoo Japan survey had it at 8% of Japaneese gamers, who spend more on games than americans do) are willing to pay it. The PS3 has the weakest line-up of all three platforms for the next 12 months and the only saving grace is Blu-Ray (which isn't rentable yet, unlike DVD in 2000, the movies cost $40 compared to the $20 that DVD cost in 2000 and you require an upgrade on your TV to take advantage of the format).

The PS3 is already a disaster and they haven't produced 1 system yet.

Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[Lave]

You've hit the nail on the head. A lot of the playstation generation (despite what they may claim) were not around for the sega/nintendo years.

Nintendo were full of themselves, sublimely arrogant and they snubbed everyone around them, released very expensive games, and were convinced they could do as they like. Sega was the same, pushing out cookie cutter games and walking around like nothing could hurt them.

Sounds familiar?

Within one generation their empires collapsed. Sega went bust (effectively) and Nintendo fell to 3rd place in the home console market.

There is no reason this cant happen to Sony, and as you say it based purely on popular opinion. Sony became cool and shot to number one, and now - they seem anything but.

The real question is, not whether they will fall, but if they will survive it. I doubt they will go bust (but financially they are no where near the shape the public thinks they are) but I do expect them to lose a large amount of market share.

This is the best thing that could happen to them, whilst sega dropping out of the hardware market has crippled them, Nintendo's 3rd place is the best thing that could happen to us the cosumers. The amount of innovation and free thinking thats come out of them, now they know they have to try, is outstanding.

I think Sony could do with its own wake up call.

Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[poot_rootbeer]

But in 2000, most people had not seen DVD in action, players were ridiculously expensive, and more importantly, so were DVD movies. It had barely entered into the equation in PCs.

Not true. I built a computer with a DVD drive and MPEG decoder card in 1998, and quite affordably. By 2000, consumer DVD players were in the sub-$200 range and DVDs were already taking significant amounts of shelf space away from VHS in retail stores and video rental outlets. And at no time did the typical DVD movie EVER sell for about $30 or so.

By 2000, Circuit City's DIVX experiment had already failed.

Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a question, This time around GTA4 is coming out for both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 at the same time. If you can get the same experience on both systems, and one console is $100-$200 cheaper which one would you buy ;)

AC#0029385

Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[Rayonic]

2001's "xbox is heavy" and "Gamecube is for kiddies" is this year's "PS3 is expensive"

Ironically enough, the PS3 is heavier than the original Xbox. (according to released specs, it's 2-3 ounces heavier.)

Re:Yeah, everyone will buy one. Suuuuure.

[joshsisk]

Thus why I said "exclusive" games in my post... multiplatform games don't sell systems. At least, not as fast.

Woah, that's weird

[Doomstalk]

I looked up the word "hubris" in the dictionay, and there was a picture of the Playstation 3.

Re:Woah, that's weird

[Anonymous Coward]

That is weird. I looked up the word "word" in the dictionary and there weren't any pictures at all

Re:Woah, that's weird

[Hogwash McFly]

Funny, because I looked up the word 'dictionay' in the dictionary and there was a picture of you with a puzzled look upon your face. =)

Re:Woah, that's weird

[allanc]

Oh man, I am so damn tempted to edit the Wikipedia article on Hubris...

Re:Woah, that's weird

[Doomstalk]

I have to stop posting from work. Sneaking in a comment doesn't do much to help my proofreading skills. :p

Re:Woah, that's weird

[KDR_11k]

So you were the one who replaced the PS3 article with just the text "It's 600$, that's all you need to know."?

Crown isn't hereditary, really

[Gadzinka]

You know, it used to be that Nintendo then Sega owned the game console market, but it didn't prevent them from losing position when their next interation of console was an overpriced crap.

Don't think for a moment, that it's something completely different with Sony. The attitude they present toward their customers is just ripe for detronisation. And it's a good thing...

Nothing to see, move along.

Robert

Re:Crown isn't hereditary, really

[Traiklin]

that's the thing I always find funny.

everyone is suddenly thinking Sony is the only company in the history of corperations to act like they are better then everyone else.

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't Microsoft pull this off years ago (and still pulls it off today)? Didn't Apple act this way back in the 80's (and once again today)?

Nintendo did it with the SNES (going into the N64 they were acting like everyone would buy it simply because it was Nintendo), Sega did it going from the Genesis to the Saturn, Sony is doing it going from the PS2 to the PS3.

Give it a few more years and be amazed when we see "editorials" like this poping up again Complaining about Microsoft's price hiking on their latest system going from a previous one, simply because it sold better then any other system that generation.

I don't get why everyone is so suprised about this, Sony is riding high just as Sega was when they charged $400 for the Saturn, Just like when Nintendo charged $300 for the N64 (I couldn't find them anywheres around here for less) even though both their previous systems sold for $200, Sony released the PS1 for either $400 or $300 (depending where you looked, Toys 'R us charged $400 for it but everywheres else I looked it was only $300) then the PS2 was $300 because they were still trying to break into the gaming market, with the PS2 they got alittle more cocky because they had more third party's on their side then Sega or Nintendo.

Come 2000, Sega is gone, Sony is riding high and Nintendo is trying to reclaim it's crown, Microsoft comes out of nowheres with a system (just like Sony did 5 years prior) and it suprised people, They didn't really have the same support as Sony did 5 years prior but they had enough.

where did the change happen and when did I miss it? Microsoft announced $400 for a 20gb hdd version and everyone is all excited about it and doesn't think it's strange and they justify it instantly. Sony announces a $600 60gb hdd version and suddenly everyone shits their pants and can't understand why they are charging so much for it...what? A new processor is being used, a true next gen drive is in it, it can read just about every kind of card you can think of, yet no one can justify it, Yet when it comes to the 360 "oh yeah it's got that HDD that's why it's more" and that's it, that justifys the $100 higher over last generation?

What's going to be interesting is to see what Nintendo unltimatly sells the Wii at, everyone is automatically assuming it will be no more then $200, But what happens if they charge $250 or even $300 for it? will people act like they are over the PS3 or will they justify it quite nicely and act like it was to be expected?

Re:Crown isn't hereditary, really

[edwdig]

Just like when Nintendo charged $300 for the N64 (I couldn't find them anywheres around here for less) even though both their previous systems sold for $200

The N64 launched at $200. You went to some sucky stores if they charged $300.

Re:Crown isn't hereditary, really

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

The N64 launched for 199$ like every nintendo console ever.

Re:Crown isn't hereditary, really

[tighr]

Like the other two replies stated, the N64 sold at $200. But the point I want to make is, why do people continue to insist they saw it for $300? I remember getting mine for $200. When I was 12, I didn't have $300, so I know I wouldn't have bought it otherwise.

Either way, the N64 launched with some fantastic games. Super Mario 64 was literally off the shelves for weeks. The argument here is that PS3 is not only going to cost $600, but that nothing worthwhile will accompany it on launch day. Unless some fantastic new game is announced between now and November, many people simply don't see a reason to buy it opening day.

Re:Crown isn't hereditary, really

[IpalindromeI]

where did the change happen and when did I miss it? Microsoft announced $400 for a 20gb hdd version and everyone is all excited about it and doesn't think it's strange and they justify it instantly. Sony announces a $600 60gb hdd version and suddenly everyone shits their pants and can't understand why they are charging so much for it...what? A new processor is being used, a true next gen drive is in it, it can read just about every kind of card you can think of, yet no one can justify it, Yet when it comes to the 360 "oh yeah it's got that HDD that's why it's more" and that's it, that justifys the $100 higher over last generation?

People did bitch about the XBox360 price differences, and there are people now that are justifying the PS3 differences, so it's not all one or the other. On the other hand, not only is the premium PS3 $200 more than the premium XBox360, but $600 is just a huge chunk of money to many people. Sure $400 is pretty big too, but the XBox360 has already been out for months, so it's old news and people are used to by now. What I see people complaining about the most, though, is that they don't think that extra $200 is worth it, even if they are getting expensive tech for "a good deal." It's only a good deal if they want the extra stuff. Otherwise, it's just a bigger price tag.

Re:Crown isn't hereditary, really

[mausmalone]

... why do people continue to insist they saw it for $300?

The N64 was a huge Christmas hit. Nobody remembers, of course, because it was 2nd place behind Tickle Me Elmo ... and apparently nobody can remember anything if Elmo's involved.

At any rate, people were selling N64's for like $500 - $600 in back alleys in NYC. It was fucking crazy. Some people did indeed pay $300 for their N64, but it's because they went to dishonest retailers who didn't follow the $200 MSRP. Something about that $100 of pure profit, I guess.

Re:Crown isn't hereditary, really

[GalionTheElf]

The other commenters have already handled most of my issues with your post but no one has mentioned this little tit-bit yet:

"then the PS2 was $300 because they were still trying to break into the gaming market"

Sorry, you must live in a different world where the the PS1 wasn't the only system that mattered that generation. In my world the Dreamcast was a terrible, awful failure forcing Sega out of the console market and the N64 had like 4 games worth playing.

Shame, I like your world better :(

Re:Crown isn't hereditary, really

[Midnight Thunder]

Don't think for a moment, that it's something completely different with Sony. The attitude they present toward their customers is just ripe for detronisation. And it's a good thing...

Difference is that Sony sounds like it is being run by their media devision, which for the moment royally screws customers, but people still want to buy music, so they let themselves be screwed even more. Maybe they think this would work with their hardware devision, since we already have their non-mp3 mp3 players that look they were from Radio Shack and their overpriced PS3.

Re:Crown isn't hereditary, really

[ScaryFroMan]

Actually, the N64 was quite sucessful, with (IIRC) 40% of the market. It came in second to the PSX, but still did well, and had some incredible games. It was also more technologically advanced than the PSX. They may have been riding on the "It's Nintendo, buy it!," but it had a lot of other things going for it. Additionally, the Nintendo brand recognition has an awful lot to do with exclusive first-party games, and less to do with being master of the market (at least now.) It's less of "Nintendo, I know it's good," and more of "All right! Mario and Zelda!"

Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[dada21]

It is false to believe that a free market offers any value in "goodwill equity" of any sort. I'm a businessman, and every time I provide a product or a service for my customer, the only equity that exists is the expectation that I will perform exactly as I am supposed to for a given payment, and that customer will pay me for my performance. The believe otherwise is a quick way to end up out of business.

I see it every year -- some kid takes over pop's huge business because the old man had a heart attack. The kid (usually in his 30s or 40s) drives the business into the ground and below within 2 years. He believed that the business didn't need to constantly re-win back old customers solely because they'd been around for years. Sony is no different than the businesses I see failing every year, even ones who have been around for 100 years and are now gone.

Every time a customer makes a purchase, it is with an expectation. No law is needed to protect the customer, because the customer can destroy a business in no time -- if each and every customer who is "hurt" by a previous transaction refuses to make a future one. Does "goodwill equity" give a customer a reason to buy again? Certainly. Does it mean the customer will be willing to accept one grievance or one mistake? Absolutely NOT.

To think that previously happy customers will forgive a mistake is to think that life is all happy-happy puppy-love bubble-gum and kisses. It isn't. This is business. You give the customer what they're paying for, or you go away.

Sony, go away. Please go away. You made too many mistakes, and the only goodwill you should be seeing is the clothing charity.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[joe 155]

your comments are very true

I see it every year -- some kid takes over pop's huge business because the old man had a heart attack. The kid (usually in his 30s or 40s) drives the business into the ground and below within 2 years

Which is ironically exactly what happened to my dad's business - altohugh to be fair I wasn't involved so it wasn't me making any mistakes. Customers can be a wii (get it?) bit fickle about what they buy although I do think that an amount of brand loyalty exists. Sony has quite a bit of brand loyalty so I would expect what was said to hold true about the "we've sold 5 million anyway"; the thing is, and where your point is right on the money, is that this isn't enough to keep the company up and one bad gen of consoles can be enough to finish off a company

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[pete6677]

Right on. Sony lost me as a customer when I paid a premium price for a CRT monitor that was given great reviews, but quickly died on me. It was obviously made out of crap parts and Sony had no interest in providing any meaningful warranty service (ship it both ways at my expense, yea right, its cheaper to buy a new one). So I bought a new monitor of a different brand and never again gave any thought to Sony products. I've heard only bad things about newer Sony products, like their "MP3 players" that don't actually play mp3s. This company is running on fumes and will be bankrupt in 5 years at this rate. Hopefully, they'll get new management that will turn the company around before its too late.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[ChaosDiscord]

No law is needed to protect the customer, because the customer can destroy a business in no time -- if each and every customer who is "hurt" by a previous transaction refuses to make a future one.

Of course, this assumes the customer realizes he's been hurt. Or perhaps knowingly hurting a small percentage of your customers is acceptable because it's more cost effective. Or perhaps you've just taken over a business with a good reputation and are perfectly happy to destroy the business in a year or so, harming many customers in process, in exchange for a short term increase in profit. Or you've got a monopoly through some means and can generally treat your customers like crap because they don't have other viable options.

The market may self-correct, but it doesn't do so instantaneously. During the churn as the market adjusts, innocent people get hurt. A tobacco company willfully suppresses information on the danger of their products. A con artist convinces people to invest in his new company, then skips the country with the money. An automotive manufacturer ships a car with a deadly flaw because it's cheaper to pay off the occasional lawsuit that will result instead of fixing the flaw. A construction firm building a house runs massively late because once construction is underway it's extremely difficult to change companies. A software company ships deeply buggy software because its users are trapped by incompatible file formats, bad standards, or license agreements. If you wait long enough the market will correct, but in the meanwhile people get hurt. And when the market corrects, it's just time for the next dishonest businessman to step to the plate of greed.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[kenneth_martens]

Does "goodwill equity" give a customer a reason to buy again? Certainly. Does it mean the customer will be willing to accept one grievance or one mistake? Absolutely NOT.

When a company has built up "goodwill equity" with me by giving me a good value, I will be likely to accept one--and only one--mistake. For example, I've had uniformly positive experiences with Panasonic brand electronics. So when my most recent purchase, a Panasonic cordless phone, turned out to be a lemon, I decided to stick with Panasonic. I went ahead and bought a different model phone from Panasonic.

That's where goodwill equity can help a company. But goodwill equity only goes so far: if my new phone stops working too, I probably won't buy Panasonic ever again.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[jthill]

It is false to believe that a free market offers any value in "goodwill equity" of any sort.

I think there's a reverse sense: it isn't so much customers' goodwill towards the company, it's customers' belief that the company harbors good will towards them.

I'll buy from companies I believe are full of people working their butts off for me. I'll tolerate a fair amount of crap from such companies. The list of Apple's crap would fill a thick notebook. It bothers me, I keep running gut checks, but it isn't even that they suck less. It's what I believe they're trying to do. Fanboyism? I don't think so. I believe your customers are the same way: as long as they believe you're working for them, you'll do ok.

Companies have a bozo-carrying capacity: once exceeded, it's damn hard for them to recover. Small companies' capacities hover around zero, which produces your observations. Larger ones... well, Sony's been heading this way for a long time. People are starting to believe the bozos have hit critical mass: that Sony, as a whole, are no longer working for anybody but themselves.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[courtarro]

"Of course, this assumes the customer realizes he's been hurt." ... "The market may self-correct, but it doesn't do so instantaneously."

Agreed, but you forgot the music industry. They've been seriously hurting artists and customers for decades, and the market still hasn't corrected.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[TheGavster]

Of course, this assumes the customer realizes he's been hurt.

If someone doesn't know they've been hurt, have they really been hurt? Losing something you didn't know you had is a small loss.

Or perhaps knowingly hurting a small percentage of your customers is acceptable because it's more cost effective.

If it's more cost effective to not pursue business with a particular group of customers, then it's more cost effective. There's nothing saying that a company *has* to try and sell to every last person. The marginal cost of winning some people over is just too high.

Or perhaps you've just taken over a business with a good reputation and are perfectly happy to destroy the business in a year or so, harming many customers in process, in exchange for a short term increase in profit.

I see two potential situations here. First, that management is retarded and doesn't respect even the customers who are worth pursuing. That management needs to be displaced, and they will be once the company goes under and someone better starts a new company that takes their place. A second possibility is that the market they are in is too hard to win customers in, and it's time to cut losses and sell all you can before leaving the market for better pastures. It's entirely possible that Sony's management is foolishly acting out of hubris (case 1), because the videogame market is hardly one that is hard to stay in once you've gotten over the cost of entrance.

Or you've got a monopoly through some means and can generally treat your customers like crap because they don't have other viable options.

When a harmful monopoly is in place, the market has failed. One can only hope that whatever economic mediator is in place acts properly to restore the market to viability.

The market may be slow to act, but outside of a failure as in the case of monopoly, things will eventually be righted. The manner of the righting will inevitably seem unjust to some, but it must be remembered that the market does not seek for the personal welfare of the participants, but to encourage efficient production by all.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[SetupWeasel]

I have two words for you:

"Ford" and "Firestone"

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[HarvardAce]

Or perhaps knowingly hurting a small percentage of your customers is acceptable because it's more cost effective.

If it's more cost effective to not pursue business with a particular group of customers, then it's more cost effective. There's nothing saying that a company *has* to try and sell to every last person. The marginal cost of winning some people over is just too high.

There's a difference between not pursuing certain unprofitable customers and "hurting" a small number of your current customers. An example of the former would be like Best Buy did a few years ago when they told the customers that only bought items Best Buy was selling at a loss to take a hike. Even that example is a bit extreme -- a more reasonable example would be financial advisors refusing to work for people with less than 50k (or 500k, etc.) of investable assets.

Now, as far as what the grandparent said, "hurting" could be construed a few ways. You could financially hurt a customer, or you could physically hurt them. Let's take the financial advisor again. Let's say that the advisor decided to work with a person with only $2000 in assets, but realized that spending any amount of time on the account would just lose money, so he ignored the account. I think most of us would agree that this was very unethical. Additionally, the FA has likely broken his fiduciary responsibilities, thus breaking the law.

A final example would be an HMO that won't cover more expensive but more effective treatments, knowing that in the long run it would cost them more money to do so.

As you can see the grandparent and the parent are talking about two completely different things.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[ChaosDiscord]

This, I think, is really the crux of your argument:

The market may be slow to act, but outside of a failure as in the case of monopoly, things will eventually be righted. The manner of the righting will inevitably seem unjust to some, but it must be remembered that the market does not seek for the personal welfare of the participants, but to encourage efficient production by all.

Encouraging efficient production isn't the core of the free market; it's an expected side effect. (The core is personal greed.) But I'll yield what I think if your core idea: most economists would say that a free market is good because it encourages efficient production. Efficient production is a generally good thing. It leads to overall growth: better lifestyles for people as a whole. All great stuff. But at what cost? The participants in a free market have incentive to thwart that very market: to create barriers to entry, to form monopolies, to make serious costs externalities, and actively harm their very customers so long as it increases the bottom line. Sure, maybe you place your faith in market and purchase a medication that is supposed to make you healthier. Oops, turned out it killed you. The market will self correct as it becomes clear that the medication is too dangerous to use, but you (or perhaps someone you loved) is still dead. Perhaps after much research you pick a well respected financial advisor to handle your retirement money. The guy has years of experience. Oops, he's decided it's time to retire and has fled the country with your retirement. The market will adjust, but you're still poor despite having tried to save. Perhaps you worked at a company for your entire life and retired with a good pension. Oops, the company enters bankruptcy and uses the opportunity to drastically cut the pension you've been promised. The market has already adjusted (only a fool trusts a pension program these days), but those people who relied on it before the rules changed are still poor.

As the market self adjusts, people's lives are destroyed. And the market simply cannot adjust quickly enough to cope with the occasionally otherwise honest person who decides to make a money grab and flee.

A free market is only viable economic system we have. It's like cockroaches: you can try and crush it, but it always survives (See: any black market anywhere in the world). But the free market has no morality, no innate "good". The free market, given the existance and behavior of human beings, is more like a force of nature. Some people would argue that the number of people whose lives are destroyed is relatively small; and a price we must pay for efficiency. They would claim that it's more important to have a more free market, to have more efficiency. I think many more (myself included, obviously) would argue that the destruction of a significant minority of people's live is too high of a price to pay, that we should sacrifice some efficiency in exchange for providing various safety nets for people. We'll live best if we accept the free market as a reality, take reasonable individual steps to protect ourselves from the occasional storms (I think everyone will agree with that), and collectively work to set up failsafes when the storm of the century shows up (and that's where the pure libertarians and myself diverge).

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[NeutronCowboy]

Ah... more "we need no steenkin laws, the market takes care of everything." While I do agree to some extent with your proposition, I don't agree taking it all the way to the end.

There is a value in a brand, and there is a monetary value associated with it. How much is it though? No one knows for sure. The simplest way really is to check the stock market: tally all assets and revenue, subtract from capitalization, and you get some left over stuff that can be qualified as the value that people associate with the company itself.

Another point you have patently wrong (and I'm sure you can actually vouch for this if you'd actually stop to look) is that people are never "willing accept one grievance or mistake." They actually do that every day. It's a question of how badly did they get shafted, and how much work is it to find a new supplier or partner. To give you an example: I have a choice between several online stores. One carries a good selection, has good prices and I haven't had any problems with them. Would I switch to another store just because I got a bad product once? No. Would I switch if I got a bad copy and plenty of grief to boot? Maybe. Why? Because I don't want to have to redo my homework on what stores are reputable, what the price/performance ratio is and how long it takes them to ship stuff. You're right, it doesn't mean I will stay with them inspite of continuous foul-ups. But my past experience does influence my reaction to problems with them.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[TheGavster]

I agree: a free market is going to do nothing to protect an individual. That is the realm of the government (through legislation preventing fraud) and the individual themselves (through considering their transactions, and evaluating risk).

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[ClamIAm]

It is false to believe that a free market

Stop. Just stop. I love you "libertarian" trolls to death, but this is one lie that simply isn't true. The mythical Free Market does not exist. It exists only in your mind, and serves, in essence, as your God, as it is an infallible ideal that only heretics dare to question.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[Mistshadow2k4]

"Agreed, but you forgot the music industry. They've been seriously hurting artists and customers for decades, and the market still hasn't corrected."

I don't think he did. The market is self-creating in their case, but it is taking longer because they've had a complete monopoly for so long and they still have a lot of popular artists on their side. There simply wasn't an alternative in their case, but now there are alternatives and more alternatives keep arising. But it is happening. I think that proves his point quite well -- no matter how deeply entrenched a monopoly may be, it will eventually be broken, if it takes 80 years or even longer.

Re:Goodwill equity does not exist in a market

[Anonymous Coward]

life is all happy-happy puppy-love bubble-gum and kisses

No, that's a DS game; we're talking about the PS3 here.

They Had My Money

[MBCook]

They had my money. They built up brand equity. I was ready to buy it. Even if they pulled a 360 and charged $400.

Then they announced it would cost $600. And did I mention that there aren't really any games I really want to play? Just MGS4 and maybe Assassin's Creed.

Nice try Sony. You lost your brand equity. It was alredy eroeded with the PSP (how about some good games for once?). I was full-on Nintendo before all of this. I still like Nintendo best and will buy their console.

But I won't be buying a PS3 for over $400. I may even wait for $300. I won't be buying a 360 for over $300.

Three consoles, two shot themselves in the foot (as far as I'm concerned). Who will win? The expensive one, the MORE expensive one, or the reasonably priced one with about a dozen games that I want to play?

Hmmmmmm......

Re:They Had My Money

[dada21]

I'm not sure I agree about not buying a PS3 on the "expensive" idea. I made a post a few days ago, Is the PS3 really more expensive? offering that the PS3 is not really that much more expensive once you factor in Federal Reserve currency devaluation. The Central Bank has destroyed the dollar by almost 50% over the time since the PS2 was launched. Considering that devaluation, the PS3 really isn't that much more expensive. If you follow that thread, you see that the PS2 versus PS3 in Europe (which didn't see as much of a currency destruction as the USD has in the same time period) is NOT seeing a huge price increase in the PS3 as we are.

I still won't buy the PS3 on other grounds -- but definitely not the "its too expensive" idea. The PS3 is no more expensive than the PS2, comparing 2000USD versus 2006USD values.

In terms of the price of gold, the PS3 is VERY cheap.

Re:They Had My Money

[MBCook]

Maybe the PS3 is reasonably priced compared to previous consoles if you take inflation into account.

But Nintendo is still only charging $250 or so

And $600 just strikes me as WAY TOO MUCH. Even if it is not that bad historically. I could buy a decent laptop for that. I could buy a new HDTV. I could pay 2 months of car payments on a VERY nice car.

If MS wanted $400, Sony wanted $600, and Nintendo wanted $400 then I might be willing to pay more. But if Nintendo can sell their console (that I REALLY want) for $250, then Sony won't get me to buy their "ultra powerful do all" console (that I'm somewhat interested in) for 2-3x that.

And that assumes Nintendo doesn't go with $200 (1/3 the price of a PS3) or $150 (1/4 the price).

Re:They Had My Money

[kesuki]

It was alredy eroeded with the PSP (how about some good games for once?)

the PSP won't have a whole lot of good games for another year, it will mainly be platformers and titles that lauch for everything. If you'd looked into it before buying you could have saved yoruself the trouble of buying it a whole year too early. In a lot of ways the psp is a lot like the original PSX that way. If you can manage to hold onto your psp for another year there will be a lot of decent games worth playing for it. in the case of the ps3, i think there isn't going to be enough demand for 'high definition' movies to drive the kind of sales sony is predicting. for DVDs you could use your same TV set, for HD movies you may need to purchace a new set as well, and then you want to charge $600 for the console? i just don't see the rapid flood of prople with the cash to drive the kinds of sales sony has forcasted.

Re:They Had My Money

[timster]

It's useless to value an entertainment item in relation to the price of gold for two reasons: the price of gold relative to other commodities is not stable and nobody buys consoles with gold. Try comparing the prices based on growth in expendable income instead.

I doubt you will find a 200% increase in median expendable income between 2000 and 2006.

Re:They Had My Money

[Babbster]

...the PS3 is not really that much more expensive once you factor in Federal Reserve currency devaluation.

Oh, yeah. This is why plasma TVs are actually cheap and Mercedes is the new Hyundai. In other words, you're trying way too hard.

The bottom line for many of us is this: The PS3 is debuting at a higher price than either of its two competitors, and a higher price, even considering inflation, than all but a couple (Neo-Geo and 3DO) consoles in history. Whatever your dollar analysis says, the Xbox 360 will still be at least $100 cheaper than the "budget" PS3 and the Wii will be at least $200 cheaper...unless, of course, the Federal Reserve devalues currency spent on specific game consoles...

Re:They Had My Money

[The Warlock]

Actually, after factoring in inflation, the only consoles that come anywhere close to the PS3 are the Neo Geo, the 3D0, and the Sega Saturn, none of which were all that sucessful.

Re:They Had My Money

[despisethesun]

To quote Jerry Holkins, "This would be great if I were buying it with money I used to have, or perhaps spending valuable, inflation adjusted 'Future Bucks.'"

Re:They Had My Money

[Anonymous Coward]

> I could pay 2 months of car payments on a VERY nice car.

Hmm, $300/month on a car? I pay $400 on a car I put 20% down on. What car is it? Mazda Protege5. I guess a VERY nice car is a Hyundai Accent. I drive an awesome car.

Re:They Had My Money

[dada21]

I doubt you will find a 200% increase in median expendable income between 2000 and 2006.

People making median income are generally schmucks who don't realize that the same dollars they're getting paid in are going down in value significantly. Let's look at the M2 money supply figure of January 2000 -- 4675.6 billion. Now let's look at the M2 money supply figure of January 2006 -- 6738.0 billion. That is a 44.1% money supply inflation rate over the 6 year period. Ouch. Looking at the M3 figures is even more scary.

My income has doubled in those 6 years as I tie my income to more realistic measures of inflation. So should you. A measly 3% raise annually means you earn less and less over time, so for those only getting that pittance of a raise, of course you should expect to buy less and less. Why do you think most Americans live off of false home equity?

Re:They Had My Money

[SetupWeasel]

Inflation increases, but wages stay the same. God bless America.

Re:They Had My Money

[SetupWeasel]

Actually, you will probably see less quality games for the PSP in a year. No one is going to want to spend a PS2-esque budget on a portable game they can't port to something with a better user base. Most of the best PSP games are ports in one way or the other. When developers stop writing PS2 code, much of the incentive to make PSP games will vanish with it.

Re:They Had My Money

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're just an idiot.

Re:They Had My Money

[timster]

Certainly the dollar has had better days; I think the major reason it's maintained value as well as it has is that big investors are having trouble finding great non-dollar investments.

The price of the PS3, though, has nothing to do with your income or my income. Sony's target market doesn't think in gold, and they have experienced a significant drop in gold-standard wages since 2000. Not that the value of gold is "real", either, but it gives you some idea.

That's the reason I cite the median. Even Warren Buffet is unlikely to purchase more than 15 or so PS3s, so Sony needs to sell these things to the mass market. If they price out everyone who got a pittance of a raise last year, they will have trouble.

Personally, I make the most money I can every year (within the limitations of my chosen lifestyle). I'm not a gold mine, so my market value isn't tied to fluctuations in the value of gold. Of course, much of my pay comes in the form of health care; that "kidney transplant for $300" deal was a real lifesaver.

We should all recognize, though, that when the government squanders a large percentage of economic resources on a basically destructive activity, they lower the real value of the nation overall and therefore its citizens' labor. No amount of gold will change that.

Re:They Had My Money

[kesuki]

I was basing my opinion on the announced release dates of upcoming psp titles.

Barring a cessation by developers developing these games, (as happened with many titles for the virtualboy advance when it bombed) there should be a couple decent titles in mose generas withing a year. as to the continued success of the psp, that's up in the air.

If developers get burned releasing titles for the PSP/ps3 you can expect them to be more friendly to nintendo in the near future though :)

Re:They Had My Money

[paedobear]

That would make sense if it weren't for the fact that the PS3 is going to be horrifically expensive in Japan and Europe. Unless you want to claim that Sony is ripping off those markets to make up for the money it's loosing in the US.

You hear that, Sony?

[Anonymous Coward]

Zonk has voted you off the island! You're finished! FINISHED!

No company can possibly survive once the bloggers have turned against them!

HDCP not needed for HD?

[interiot]

Now that both the 360 and PS3 will offer HD DVD/Blu-ray drives without HDMI, there's a LOT of rumors going around that hardware manufacturers have brokered a deal with studios to delay turning on the ICT flag until 2010. If so, that would make the $500 PS3 more viable, IMHO.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060521-6880 .html
http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/22/studios-wont-do wngrade-hd-video-for-now/

Re:HDCP not needed for HD?

[DingerX]

Aye, it looks like the hardware is going to sabotage DRM, willy nilly. Sony's argument will be along the lines of, "well, there are a lot of non-HDMI HD monitors up there; we'll make HDMI mandatory in the next generation of DRM, when players are cheap. Get the foothold, then start locking it down."

The problem is that by that time, HDCP will be thoroughly defeated as well.

Re:HDCP not needed for HD?

[b1t r0t]

HDMI is also completely irrelevant if you only want to play games on your games console. The HDMI encryption is not and never will be needed to play games in HD.

And for those whining "what about two years from now when I max out my credit card to get a big-ass plasma TV set?", I say buy one of the $100 BR players which will probably have better features by then anyhow. I have never used a PS2 or an Xbox as a DVD player, and I never will use a PS3 or X360 to play HD video discs.

Re:HDCP not needed for HD?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that by that time, HDCP will be thoroughly defeated as well.

HDCP is already cracked. The studios don't care.

The point of HDCP is not to prevent piracy, it's to lock 3rd parties out of the hardware market. They want to avoid a repeat of the flood of cheap chinese knock-off DVD players that appeared after CSS got cracked. If HDCP actually stops a few people from copying movies that's a bonus, but it's not the main reason for HDCP.

Re:HDCP not needed for HD?

[interiot]

To be fair, some people already have HDTV sets, and are interested in HD movie content (eg. ~5% of the TV market). Also, DVI is a higher-quality connection than component cables, even for playing games, though again, it's not a huge pronounced difference.

Re:HDCP not needed for HD?

[Darth Maul]

Oh, I see, so I'm supposed to buy this new DRM-crippled hardware because the studios may promise to be nice for a few years? I don't think so.

Re:HDCP not needed for HD?

[shidarin'ou]

"I have never used a PS2 or an Xbox as a DVD player, and I never will use a PS3 or X360 to play HD video discs."

So if you've never used it, where do you find the authority to judge it? *rolly eyes*

Re:HDCP not needed for HD?

[Anonymous Coward]

That flag will be the death of blu-ray, HD-DVD, and PS3.

Difference this time

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the X-Box weight and Cube's kiddie rep were just trashtalkin'.

The PS3 really is expensive, no matter what camp you're in. ~_^

Re:Difference this time

[legallyillegal]

GameCube was, well, purple and a cube.

Panasonic Qube

Re:Difference this time

[Anonymous Coward]

This deal with the Sony rootkit is getting old, they have learned their lesson from that as they will not try that again. Also, what does the rootkit have to do with their hardware? Personally, I have been very satisfied with Sony hardware, as I haven't had a bit of trouble out of their digital cameras, monitors, televisions, laptops, and game consoles. When the PS3 is released, I will most likely purchase it as you get what you pay for.

Re:Difference this time

[sqlrob]

It's hidden away on my setup. Sitting on top of the PS2.

The problem was the xbox, with it's non-flat top.

Re:Difference this time

[assassinator42]

Your PS2 is hidden away sitting on top of your PS2? Huh? And the Xbox has a relatively flat top. Especially compared to the PS3.

Re:Difference this time

[Anonymous Coward]

they have learned their lesson from that as they will not try that again

lmao

Re:Difference this time

[sqlrob]

No, the gamecube is on the PS2. That stack is on one shelf, the xbox is on the shelf below it with the AV switch box balanced on the XBox. It rocks when you switch the source, so I certainly wouldn't want a disk based system on top of the Xbox.

I'm confused...

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA "...Sony's getting tired of basically giving away its products in the hope of selling games"

hope??

I didn't realize that PS1 and PS2 had such low numbers in game sales that this would be considered a risk.

Re:I'm confused...

[mausmalone]

Yeah... that's hyperbole for you. But Sony does sell its consoles at a loss with the intention of making that money back (+ lots more) with game licensing and prehipherals. Ever wonder why an 8MB memory card costs $25? Because $15 of that goes to subsidise a PS2 purchase.

I find it funny that the author immediately uses that as a reason to charge more. I would've used it as a reason to make your consoles out of affordable materials.

check out THAT reflection!

[RingDev]

"I grew up on a farm. If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's people who walk around with their noses in the air. Yuppies, politicians, etc. are prone to this behavior."

Yes, because all of us farm boys know we are better than those big city slickers. ;)

-Rick

Re:check out THAT reflection!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really a troll - growing-up on a farm doesn't make someone immediately superior..

(BTW.. was it a turd farm? Just wondering.) :P

Re:check out THAT reflection!

[RingDev]

Nah, mostly just feed crops.

-Rick

Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[MindStalker]

If sony ditched the Blue-Ray they could potentially drop the price but $200 or more. I wonder if they have considered doing it. There is no reason to expect games to need Blue-Ray for a few more years and Sony could even get away with providing it as a cheap addon in a few years. If they push out a few AA titles that require it then people will buy it too. But making people buy a blue-ray drive when noone wants one now is just stupid. Sony! Either GIVE AWAY blueray drives if its that important to you, or provide it as an option. Forcing the cost of blueray into your next gen system with be the death of both..

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[TripMaster Monkey]

They should be ditching it on at least the $499 'tard box' version, since it will not be able to play the movies in 1080p High-Def when ICP starts being implemented on Blu-Ray disks.

But of course, this isn't about marketing a useful product...this is about pushing a standard.

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[badasscat]

They should be ditching it on at least the $499 'tard box' version, since it will not be able to play the movies in 1080p High-Def when ICP starts being implemented on Blu-Ray disks.

This doesn't make any sense at all.

The BD drive in the PS3 is being used for games, not just movies. Developers will now have 50GB of texture storage, as opposed to 4.7GB (realistically, due to streaming limitations on DVD's second layer). Sure, it's true that most games don't use up even a full DVD, but a lot of the biggest games do - including the GTA series, the last couple Final Fantasies, etc. Those games will now have much higher-res textures, and more of them (so less repeating).

Removing the BD drive in the low-end version of the PS3 would remove it as a gaming feature for both models. Developers have to develop for the lowest common denominator. This is MS's problem with the HD-DVD addon for the Xbox 360 - it can never be used for games, only movies. (You can argue that games look great on the Xbox 360 without an HD-DVD drive - though go ahead and look at FFXI sometime and come back and tell me with a straight face that it couldn't have benefited from some better textures.)

If the BD drive's gonna be in there, it only makes sense for it to be in both models. If it's going to be removed from one, it has to be removed from both. But then, Sony loses a major advantage they have over MS. So there's really no impetus for them to remove it.

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[chrismcdirty]

You claim that they will have larger textures, and more of them so things aren't repeated. Games such as Final Fantasy can now have truly unique enemies that aren't just palette swaps of other textures.

I disagree. These games have the potential to do as you say. But whether or not they actually will is a different story. It's all a matter of capital, and how much the producers are willing to spend on the creation of the game. Creating these unique super high res textures will take a lot of hours.

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[NuShrike]

I call bullcrap.

Even the highest textured games don't need GBs of it, you can't store enough of it in memory to make it useful, you don't have the bandwidth to stream it all off disk, the 2nd layer of DVDs can be used for game data (they control what goes where sector), any multi-DVD games currently are usually overflowing with FMV not textures, and there's this new technology called "shaders" that totally eliminates the need for a lot of static textures.

With bigger cpu/gpu resources, it's going to eliminate the need for FMVs in preference for in-engine ones which again eliminate disk space needed.

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a good idea. There were plenty of games that filled a single double-layer DVD on the PS2 with mostly textures. Bigger disks really mean better looking games, more spoken dialoge, ...

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[MindStalker]

I'm simply saying they should ditch it for the standard system and offer it as a very cheap upgrade part and encourage developers to produce games for it. That way people can buy the system NOW, be able to still play their old games and some of the newer games be able to use the online feature and such. And when the are ready they can purchase the blueray player.

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[gEvil (beta)]

PC's have had the capabilities of the 360 for a while now. And there've been some games with super hi-res textures to take advantage of the best systems out there. Yet they still tend to fit on a single DVD, and that's with several sets of textures for different vidcard levels. It'll be a while before the need to move beyond 4.5 GB comes along.

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[HarvardAce]

Removing the BD drive in the low-end version of the PS3 would remove it as a gaming feature for both models. Developers have to develop for the lowest common denominator.

You say that not having a feature in one model effectively removes it as a gaming feature for both models. Later on you talk about Final Fantasy XI on the Xbox360, which requires the hard drive (which isn't present on the cheaper model). While in general not having a feature prevents people from developing for it, if the install base is high enough, and the options are:
a) Require one of these "features" that aren't in all models of the console
b) Don't release for that console
Then I think you'll see a few games that will require a feature that isn't in all models of the console. FFXI is a great example -- there's no way you could release a MMORPG like FFXI without requiring a hard drive (to store updates/enhancements/etc.), so Square Enix decided that requiring the hard drive was better than not releasing it at all.

Now, what does happen is that most games get built for the lowest common denominator which may reduce the overall quality of the games. You can bet that if Sony released a version of the PS3 without the BR drive, the vast majority of the games would not utilize the BR drive, but there would likely be a few that would require it to play simply because not having the BR drive would not be an option.

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[tepples]

there's no way you could release a MMORPG like FFXI without requiring a hard drive (to store updates/enhancements/etc.)

True, but there's a way that Square Enix could have released an MMORPG like FFXI without requiring the Xbox 360 specific hard drive. Would it have been so hard to let the game support standard (and possibly cheaper) USB hard drives as well?

Re:Could Sony ditch the Blue-Ray?

[HarvardAce]

Would it have been so hard to let the game support standard (and possibly cheaper) USB hard drives as well?

It probably would have for them. Whether that is an issue of the XBox360's OS not recognizing standard USB hard drives, or Microsoft telling them that they couldn't is another question, one that I don't have an answer to. But I'm sure that even if it were technically possible, Microsoft would never allow them to release a game that could use a standard USB hard drive.

What does Grandpa Sony cry about every night?

[ofcourseyouare]

What does Grandpa Sony still cry about every night? About losing the VHS vs. Betamax war back when he was a lad.

The way to understand Sony's otherwise inexplicable behaviour is this: games on PS3 are just a means to an end. For Sony (and for MS/Xbox), the prize is not to control gaming; the prize is to own every home's entertainment computer, and the format it uses to show movies.

As they say in the interview, Sony have clearly decided that they will still sell five million PS3s, even at this price. And let's face it, when you count the Japanese market, they're probably right.

Sell 5m PS3s and they establish a user base for Blu-Ray - and kill HD-DVD. Thus they hope to win this decade's version of the Betamax vs. VHS war. Thus Grandpa Sony can stop crying at last and young Mr. Sony feels heroic.

That may be the strategy - but of course that doesn't mean it'll work. Sony's repeated desire to corner the market with a new content formats (UMD etc) has led them to disaster before, and may do so again. Perhaps in years to come young Mr. Sony will be crying every night about destroying the PlayStation franchise...

Re:What does Grandpa Sony cry about every night?

[poot_rootbeer]

As they say in the interview, Sony have clearly decided that they will still sell five million PS3s, even at this price. And let's face it, when you count the Japanese market, they're probably right.

This forecast I agree with. Sony will probably never come close to selling 100 million PS3's they way they did with a previous console, but five million units sold over the first couple of years seems like a reasonable prediction.

Sell 5m PS3s and they establish a user base for Blu-Ray - and kill HD-DVD.

This forecast I DON'T agree with. Not everyone who purchases a PS3 plans to or even cares about high-definition movie content. Look at the portable market -- just that the PSP didn't get killed immediately by Nintendo shows that the device is a measured success, and yet movies on UMD are showing all the signs of being a failed format. Gamers want to game, not to buy movies.

Re:What does Grandpa Sony cry about every night?

[ofcourseyouare]

Very good point - as you say, they decided at some stage that the PSP would create a user base for UMDs, and they were wrong.

However, Blu-Ray is at least a decent format, as opposed to UMD. But we'll see how it pans out...

Re:What does Grandpa Sony cry about every night?

[cylcyl]

Sony also owned the Japanese market with the miniDisc. However, as rest of the world voted with their wallets and bought iPod and other mp3 players, they finally caved.

If they think that they can defeat HDDVD just by owning the japanese market, they are doomed to failure.

Big ships keep going by momentum

[Opportunist]

Even with the engine blown. A brand name keeps getting revenue, even when the brand by itself turned from a bleeding-edge world leader to a mediocre copycat. It takes a while 'til customers get peed off enough to dump a brand they trusted. But they eventually do.

Sony's engine is blown. Yes, they'll sell this generation of consoles. No matter what. People loved their PS, they loved their PS2, they'll buy the PS3. No matter what. But, and here is the problem Sony has to solve, the PS4 sales will rely on the PS3 results as much as the PS3 sales will benefit from the PS2 experience.

Because a ship that's dead in the water takes an incredible amount 'til it gets going again.

Re:Big ships keep going by momentum

[interiot]

Though Xbox debuted at #2 in the console wars, so that's not to say that a giant ship can't muster a giant amount of resources to get it going again. But yes, even if they do that, it's rather more wasteful than simply keeping the engine going the whole time, and not dragging along a heavy anchor named Blu-ray.

PS3 and Sony

[spamking]

$500 plus for a gaming console and probably $50 or more for games? No thanks.

I'm as happy as I can be with my PS2, but I doubt I'll be buying a PS3 anytime soon.

Is anyone else wondering when the price of gaming consoles is going to come down just as the price of PCs has gotten lower over the last 5-10 years? Maybe not super cheap, but you're atleast able to get more bang for your buck these days.

If the PS3 retails for what Sony says it will that thing had better pack quite the punch.

"No Confidence Vote"?!

[the_skywise]

This isn't "politics". Sony is making a product that will sell or not.

Lest our gentle readers forget, a few weeks ago an analyst pointed out that Microsoft could've sold XBox360's for nearly $700 last year and the market would've purchased them all.

The XBox360 doesn't have HDMI at all! (Of course that's coming this year)
The XBox360 was supposed to have HD-DVD and it doesn't. (Of course that's coming this year though who knows what port it'll hook up to. If I'm using the wireless adaptor and have two wired joysticks I have no spare USB ports for an HD-DVD player... oops, guess I'll have to get an XBox360 branded hub.)

Given what tech they were showing at E3 (very little), the truth of the matter looks like Sony can't build enough units to meet demand at an XBox360 competitive price point. So up the price which will cut down on the demand and also maximizes revenue generation. Then, in January, if sales are sluggish (and you've weeded out the production run kinks) drop the price to match the XBox360. If sales are still strong (and they could be) keep it at that price because the market will pay that much for it.

Am I ticked about that? Yeah. I have enough spare cash floating around that I could be an early adopter, but I won't. $500 for a video game system (plus $40 for one more controller, plus $60 for ONE game so you're really looking at $600) is just ludicrous.

But then some people pay $100/month for cable TV with all the frills (not including broadband support).

But I'll pre-order a Nintendo wee-wee at $200 (maybe $250)...

But "No confidence" vote? Sony could be making the *perfect* video game system here and I still wouldn't buy it at that price point. On the other hand, if they make some really cool games for it and don't drop the price, maybe I will...

But that's what capitalism is all about Charlie Brown...

Re:"No Confidence Vote"?!

[radish]

The XBox360 was supposed to have HD-DVD and it doesn't. (Of course that's coming this year though who knows what port it'll hook up to. If I'm using the wireless adaptor and have two wired joysticks I have no spare USB ports for an HD-DVD player... oops, guess I'll have to get an XBox360 branded hub.)
The HD-DVD drive connects to the rear USB port. It includes a couple of extra USB ports on the drive itself, so your wireless adapter would connect to that. There's even a clip on the back of the drive to attach the adapter to.

Or, of course, you can use a hub. Any hub - there are no plans (that I'm aware of) for a 360 branded one.

Re:"No Confidence Vote"?!

[Control Group]

If I'm using the wireless adaptor and have two wired joysticks I have no spare USB ports for an HD-DVD player

The HD-DVD drive will be designed to attach to the USB on the back of the machine, and will have a pair of USB ports on it. If you let me do some figuring, here...

3 - 1 + 2 = 4 ...will result in you having a bonus USB port when you're done.

Re:"No Confidence Vote"?!

[thatguywhoiam]

Am I ticked about that? Yeah. I have enough spare cash floating around that I could be an early adopter, but I won't. $500 for a video game system (plus $40 for one more controller, plus $60 for ONE game so you're really looking at $600) is just ludicrous.

Is it really, though? I see people drop $600 on a 'Wintendo' all the time. Perhaps not in console numbers, but Alienware has proven that they will indeed spend much more than that.

Also, last 'round', many people bought two or three consoles, which sorta negates the price argument a bit as well. I think $600 is too much, but perhaps many others don't.

So touching a story...

[Anonymous Coward]

that I have to wipe away a tear.

Are you an actor by any chance?

Crippled PS3 will display 1080p

[harryk]

From the article:

The $499 PS3 model will be able to transmit games in full 1080p High-Definition via component cables without a problem, and far more surround sound receiver-amplifiers support optical-audio than HDMI.

Where the pain will set in, however, is when Blu-ray movies begin making use of HDCP/AACS copy-protection and the infamous "Image-Constraint-Token" (ICP). At the demand of the major Hollywood studios, both HD-DVD and Blu-ray standards have been developed to support this next-generation copy-protection scheme that protects Hi-Def movies from piracy and illegal digital distribution. While AACS is more or less innocuous from the standpoint of a general consumer, HDCP is destined to rain frustration and disappointment upon the masses, or at least those who purchase the $499 PS3 package.

so there you have it. 1080p, sure... Blu-Ray support...sorry I can't see how that is going to sell.

Re:Crippled PS3 will display 1080p

[GodBlessTexas]

so there you have it. 1080p, sure... Blu-Ray support...sorry I can't see how that is going to sell.

Question: How many sets on the market accept 1080p over component?
Andwer: I know of one consumer grade 1080p native display that supports 1080p over component (Westinghouse 42" LCD), and it's an undocumented feature. That's it.

If th PS3 console has a 5+ year lifespan, not having HDMI is a huge mistake. Granted, in the last 5 years we've seen Component, Firewire, DVI, and then HDMI for HD content, but it looks like HDMI is here to stay for the next few years. And, given the cost of an HDMI adapter and the licensing per device, it wouldn't cost Sony much to put one on all PS3 units. How much?

$15,000 to be a part of the HDMI camp annually. Sony already pays this, and distributes this cost to every HDMI component they sell.
The interface/chipset cost. As best as I can tell, this cost is between $5-15 (can't find hard numbers)
Licensing fee of $0.15/unit sold to consumers. It gets reduced to $0.05/unit sold if you put the HDMI logo on your product. It gets dropped again to $0.04/unit sold if you license and implement HDCP. So, $0.04!

Not having HDMI is dumb. It's just that simple. HDCP is spelling the end of component inputs, and they're time is short.
Having 2 SKUs is dumb. Ditch wifi and memory card readers, drop the HD to 20+GB if you have to, put HDMI on the thing and give us one SKU.

Re:Crippled PS3 will display 1080p

[harryk]

I couldn't agree more. I think it's dumb not to include the HDMI output. And to include the wireless controllers I think is a waste! Just include the wired controllers and lets those that want wireless shell out the few extra when it comes time to buy the additional controllers.

Personally, I only have a wireless controller because it was a gift, otherwise I'd be quite happy with just the stock (and replaceable) wired controllers.

As for the harddrive, well... what can I say, ... storage is dirt cheap these days, and they're probably paying more per gig for the 20 than the 60. Quite honestly, I'm not going to be buying a ps3, and the same will hold true for the xbox360. Neither offer anything to me that is a great investment. HD content .. thats nice .. but I'm not going to shell out another 1 to 3k on a decent HD tv just to be able to watch it. Progressive scan looks quite nice on the existing hardware, and there aren't any killer apps for either platform yet...

i'm a late adopter when it comes to shit like this ... I don't expect anyone to agree with me, and I understand that they don't market this stuff for me (not anymore anyway) ... but it would be nice to be able to get the console system ala carte. I want just the console and just a wired controller... thats it. I'll buy the one or two games I want on my own terms.

ugh... ranting...

harryk

bahhhhh!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on now, you city boys don't know nuttin' about teh goatsex. Yer just proud of your ignorance!

ps3 will be on top again

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be 2 years before all the hardcore sony fans get done buying their PS3s, by that time sony will lower the price and all the casual gamers will buy it, nothing is going to change this generation. Sont sold 103 million PS2s compared to 22 mil xbox and 20 mil GC, anyone who thinks Sony is magically going to lose this gigantic market lead is fooling themselves.

Re:ps3 will be on top again

[Wdomburg]

Atari lost a near monopoly on the console market. Nintendo lost a near monopoly on the console market. Anyone who thinks it's impossible to "magically" (for values of magic equal to misjudging the market) lose a gigantic market lead is fooling themselves.

Re:ps3 will be on top again

[prockcore]

Sont sold 103 million PS2s compared to 22 mil xbox and 20 mil GC, anyone who thinks Sony is magically going to lose this gigantic market lead is fooling themselves.

70% of those 103 million PS2s were sold *after* Sony dropped the price to $199.

70 million people spoke with their wallets and said that $299 was too expensive.

Nintendo lost its gigantic market lead to a newcomer with no experience in videogames whatsoever. You're fooling yourself it you think that Sony is invulnerable.

Re:ps3 will be on top again

[Chris Burke]

I once thought just like the OP. It was in Atari's hey day, before the 5200 had succeeded in failing. I distinctly remember discussing with my friend the future of game consoles, and I was convinced that Atari would never be dethroned. My friend was skeptical. A few years later and it was obvious I was wrong. My excuse is that I was ten years old, but so was my friend, heh. Anyway the next time a situation like that came up with Nintendo I wasn't surprised to see them drop the ball. I surely am not surprised to see Sony too trying to ride on nothing but their good name, and they will be as shocked as ten-year-old me to discover that this just gets their good name run through the mud.

Reminds me of President Bush in 2004...

[racecarj]

Remember, after the 2004 election:

"I have political capital, and I intend to spend it."

And his approval rating just keeps going down. This post is not meant to be political or anything, just it sounds rather similar. From my personal experience in the world, it seems that whenever someone is bragging about things they did *before* it's usually because they don't have anything to brag about now. maybe i'm wrong.

Re:Reminds me of President Bush in 2004...

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Remember, after the 2004 election:

"I have political capital, and I intend to spend it."

And his approval rating just keeps going down. This post is not meant to be political or anything, just it sounds rather similar. From my personal experience in the world, it seems that whenever someone is bragging about things they did *before* it's usually because they don't have anything to brag about now. maybe i'm wrong. //start sarcasm

Gosh, You think this will hurt his chances of getting re-elected? //end sarcasm

Re:Reminds me of President Bush in 2004...

[Anonymous Coward]

//start sarcasm Gosh, You think this will hurt his chances of getting re-elected? //end sarcasm

Gosh, it will probably hurt his chances of having any kind of useful legacy - aside from these: destroying the countries economic base, giving us the highest debt EVER, eliminating all political goodwill worldwide, increasing our dependence on foreign oil and product imports, instituting a spying program on our own citizens, and degrading our constitutional rights as never before.

Bush doesn't need re-election, he has done more to destroy our country in two terms than anyone could have ever imagined. If we really wanted to destroy our enemies we would get him elected as president of Iran or North Korea.

Re:Reminds me of President Bush in 2004...

[Midnight Thunder]

Gosh, You think this will hurt his chances of getting re-elected? //end sarcasm

look on the bright side: he only gets two terms.

after reading both FAs...

[Churla]

I came to a conclusion.

IGN has some very solid points about this.... Sony might respond to some of this and salvage the "gimp-end" of it's box offering.

And Mr Colin Campbell is a Snooty McFancyPants who doesn't realize that being "next-gen" will help you for naught if your product is also "not-purchased". There are some terrific consoles out in the mothball fleet to attest to this fact and he probably owns every single one of them.

Sadly, Sony may be right...

[ThePolkapunk]

When I was in Gamestop last week, the sales rep told me he had received many more people asking if they could reserve the PS3 than the Wii. Not only that, he claimed that a bunch of people were willing to put up the $600 now (plus some kickbacks to him) if they could get one promised the day it comes out.

Ironically, he said that gamestop as of this time has no plans to allow preorders for PS3 due to the limited numbers they expect to receive (he said they estimate 1-2 per store on release day).

If he wasn't lying, there's apparently a strong calling for it, at least in my neighborhood.

I thought Sony's price point was ridiculous, and I have no plans to buy the PS3 when it's anywhere near $600, but perhaps Sony is right in believing their fans will buy anything with the "Playstation" name, no matter what the cost.

Re:Sadly, Sony may be right...

[Just Some Guy]

When I was in Gamestop last week, the sales rep told me he had received many more people asking if they could reserve the PS3 than the Wii. Not only that, he claimed that a bunch of people were willing to put up the $600 now (plus some kickbacks to him) if they could get one promised the day it comes out.

If he wasn't lying, there's apparently a strong calling for it, at least in my neighborhood.

An alternate explanation: the would-be PS3 buyers want to profit off a likely shortage. I mean, wouldn't you like to have had a couple of 360s listed on eBay on premier day? I don't recall any huge Nintendo shortages in the recent past, so maybe people expect to be able to amble in to their local store on premier day and pick up a Wii for MSRP.

Re:Sadly, Sony may be right...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not exactly comparable, but the Playstation Portable hasn't done incredibly well (it's doing OK, but it's not the Nintendo-pulverising behemoth it could have been) and it has the magic "playstation" branding. The PSX (Japanese PS2 DVR) also didn't take off in the market. I don't think the brand itself is as strong as they reckon, their success so far has been due to having killer game lineups.

It's a lot stronger than "Wii" or "Xbox" though, and probably has a lot fewer haters than Nintendo or Microsoft amongst the teen market.

Re:Sadly, Sony may be right...

[Anonymous Coward]

If he wasn't lying, there's apparently a strong calling for it, at least in my neighborhood.

He works at Gamestop you say? I imagine he's as honest as Henry Gale.

Re:Sadly, Sony may be right...

[LWATCDR]

"Not only that, he claimed that a bunch of people were willing to put up the $600 now (plus some kickbacks to him) if they could get one promised the day it comes out."
I know some people that are trying to do the same thing... They are idiots!
They saw the EBay prices for the 360 and are trying to make big bucks off the PS-3.
Throw in a few hard core Sony fan boys with more money than brains and I think you see PS-3s sell out.
From a gamers point of view why would you rush out to get a PS-3 or even a 360? I didn't see any games for the 360 that screamed buy me! I sure don't see anything for the PS-3 that I must have. Besides the bragging rights what is the point of rushing out and getting one of these machines?

Xbox 360 price cut

[Animats]

Fry's in Palo Alto just announced a price cut on the XBox 360. The base machine is still $299, but the higher-priced bundles just dropped over $100. This makes sense; some of the accessories were way overpriced, and there's a huge glut of unsold XBox 360 accessories left over from the holiday season. eBay prices are now slighly below retail.

With that happening to the XBox 360, Sony is going to have real trouble at a higher price point.

On the developer front, the general reaction to the Cell processor is "groan". (Except for audio guys, who finally get their very own CPU.) The Xbox 360 is a 3-CPU shared memory multiprocessor driving a conventional graphics chip, something well-understood by developers. Porting from an x86 PC (or an original XBox, which is an x86 PC) to an XBox 360 is straightforward. The Cell is a new, wierd architecture, little limited-memory CPUs with bulk DMA access to main memory. (Architecture people will remember unsuccessful supercomputers of the past organized like this.) In fact, Sony already has had a huge architectural disaster. Originally, the Cell was supposed to do the rendering. That was a dud, and Sony had to put a conventional graphics chip on the back end, running up the cost.

It's certainly possible to develop good games for the thing, but the extra work required means the games willl be out later. It took about two years before the PS2 hardware was really being used effectively. The PS3 is completely different from the PS2 and will require new techniques. So Sony is launching late on a machine you can't just port to. Not good.

What's really going to happen is that the early PS3 games will be doing most of the game work in the main CPU and the graphics engine, mostly ignoring the Cell processors. If the game talks to the network, one of the Cell processors will be handling that. Audio work will be in a Cell processor. PS3 games will probably have really good sound, because there's plenty of extra Cell CPU capacity to devote to audio. As Lucasfilm people like to point out, good audio will compensate for lousy graphics, but the reverse isn't true.

Re:Xbox 360 price cut

[BecomingLumberg]

t's certainly possible to develop good games for the thing, but the extra work required means the games willl be out later. It took about two years before the PS2 hardware was really being used effectively. The PS3 is completely different from the PS2 and will require new techniques

To be fair, this is one of the reasons that the PS2 has been a quite dominant console for such a long time- it has hardware capacity to spare for growth. Even if developers cannot use all of its muscle today, its capabilities will grow in time.

Personally, I wouldn't take the course Sony has chosen. But I don't think they are going to hell in a handbasket either.

Re:Xbox 360 price cut

[thatguywhoiam]

On the developer front, the general reaction to the Cell processor is "groan". (Except for audio guys, who finally get their very own CPU.) The Xbox 360 is a 3-CPU shared memory multiprocessor driving a conventional graphics chip, something well-understood by developers. Porting from an x86 PC (or an original XBox, which is an x86 PC) to an XBox 360 is straightforward. The Cell is a new, wierd architecture, little limited-memory CPUs with bulk DMA access to main memory. (Architecture people will remember unsuccessful supercomputers of the past organized like this.) In fact, Sony already has had a huge architectural disaster. Originally, the Cell was supposed to do the rendering. That was a dud, and Sony had to put a conventional graphics chip on the back end, running up the cost.

With my NerdHat on, that's interesting. Development tools will have an impact and alien codebases/trickery certainly provides a challenge - although one might argue that this same situation on the PS2, much lamented, seemed to really give the thing legs over time as new tricks and techniques were discovered.

As a gamer/customer, I could give a flying fuck. The console I want is hard to program? Yeah, I hear programming is hard! You need good math skills and everything. Sounds like a hard job. Better hire smart people to do it, huh?

On a slightly more serious note: I want powerful game hardware. If its tough to program for, then that is unfortunate, but irrelevant. PS2 was tough to program, but after 80 million of them shipped that problem just kind of vanished, didn't it? (And PS2 programmers made out like bandits for their l33t 5k1llz.)

Sony will never get a dollar from me again

[WCMI92]

After the rootkit fiasco, and the downright abuse of players and Mad Magazine worthy mis-management of SWG by SOE, I wouldn't buy a dollar for a nickel from them.

Sony and SOE both are collapsing from incompetent management and their complete disregard for their customers.

Re:Sony will never get a dollar from me again

[PaulMorel]

I have posted your post almost word-for-word on multiple occasions over the past few weeks.

I don't think this price thing is going to hurt Sony as much as rootkitgate and SWG#$@%$^#$@%# (I still have no verbally communicable name for that fiasco ... even 3 years after the fact).

The only thing I still buy that has a Sony brand name on it is CDs, and only because I can't avoid it.

I pay extra to buy Sony competitors for every other product. Headphones, digital cameras ... etc.

Blu-ray: its raison d'etre. Standards and Sony.

[ianscot]

Forcing the cost of blueray into your next gen system with be the death of both..

Sony's M.O. with the PS3 is awfully simple: they desperately want to "leverage" their existing PS/PS2 market dominance to win the next-generation DVD standard war. Sure, they needed to come out with another console, because the market expected one -- but if there's anything on Sony's corporate mind other than a win for Blu-Ray, I don't see it. Everything else about the PS3 is more of the same.

They clearly won't ditch the Blu-Ray side of things without a major, catastrophic event to teach them why they need to do it.

Even then I wouldn't expect a timely decision. We should expect Sony to have learned this lesson about standard formats why? Many decades after Betamax, this company is still trying to sell us memory sticks, different camcorder compression, and so on; they're making the same mistake over and over and over again. They always try to coerce the market using their market share, and it bites them more often than not. They just keep coming back.

They're forced to issue this statement

[HalAtWork]

They're forced to issue this statement. We already know that there won't be many high quality launch games because according to SEGA and THQ, most developers haven't received PS3 devkits yet. Many developers may choose to release their games on the PS2 instead of doing a half-assed attempt at converting it to a PS3 game because they'll simply make more money on the PS2's larger established user base than they would by making it a lackluster PS3 title with a small installed base at launch.

Re:They're forced to issue this statement

[ljc86]

I was recently talking to a UK developer from Eidos, who said they had had PS3 development kits for about 4 months. Suggests it's a limited supply problem, or just a problem for those particular companies. Either way, the big publishers are certainly aiming titles now towards the PS3.

And he might be right.

[Sarusa]

This is like the old slam on Apple fanboys, where Steve could crap in a box and call it iShit and people would buy it in droves. Please don't flame on whether this is 'accurate' or not about Apple users, it's just the insult that immediately came to mind when I read this.

He's basically saying they could crap in a box, label it PS3, and you'd pay $600 for it.

And he might be right.

Re:And he might be right.

[jandrese]

Except that even in Apple's case that just isn't true. There have been plenty of Macs that have just bombed in the market (MacTV, the Cube, Newton, etc...).

A $600 price point is well into the "what are they thinking?" category for me. It's going to take some seriously killer games to convince me to drop that kind of cash on a console.

Re:And he might be right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that even in Apple's case that just isn't true. There have been plenty of Macs that have just bombed in the market (MacTV, the Cube, Newton, etc...).

Which one came after the iPod?

Re:And he might be right.

[Anonymous Coward]

The G4 Mac Mini was not exactly a big seller. That may have been intentional tho.

Re:And he might be right.

[jandrese]

The G4 Mac Mini (Cube) came out after the first generation iPods (I think, it's been awhile).

I can't help it if Apple hasn't released any noteworthy dogs lately.

And thus history repeats itself...

[nmaster64]

I seem to remember another big game company that had unbridled consumer loyalty and ruled the video game industry practically uncontested...where are they now? Oh yeah, last.

Guess what Sony? Your don't have near the success and loyalty Nintendo did in it's hayday. If Nintendo can go from "taking over the world" to last place in the console race in a mere decade, then your in a position now to be completely shrugged off within a few years. Your arrogant and your screwing over what a good thing you had going, not unlike Nintendo in the past, and if you keep going this way you'll be doomed to repeat your competitors mistake. Nobody's invinicble in business, and there's no such thing as a permanent success.

Re:And thus history repeats itself...

[Grey Ninja]

There's a difference though. Nintendo NEVER shat on their fans. They never blatantly told their fans that they would buy it no matter what. Nintendo's fault was in their dealings with 3rd parties. The Nintendo 64 was intentionally developed as a very powerful console, but insanely difficult to develop for, so that smaller developers wouldn't be able to develop games. The idea was that the bigger ones would be the ones developing the games, thus lowering the amount of crappy games on the market. That plan failed, largely because it was too expensive to develop games, and Sony already had a stranglehold on the market by the time the N64 came to pass. Nintendo corrected this with the GameCube, lowering license fees dramatically, and creating hardware that was extremely easy to work with, but the damage was already done (and Sony once again beat them to market). However, the good will to 3rd parties wasn't forgotten, and we are seeing the return of 3rd parties with the DS and the Wii.

Now think about that for a second. Nintendo's biggest mistakes were basically telling 3rd parties that they would develop for their system no matter what the cost, and creating hardware that was very difficult to code for... Sony is telling the consumer that they will buy it no matter the cost, and creating hardware that is even more difficult to code for...

It will be interesting to see what history says is the more foolhardy approach. Nintendo's learned from their mistake, and are rapidly taking over the world again. Sony just seems to be getting worse.

Next-Gen = Sony Fanboy?

[tighr]

From the Next-Gen article:

What Sony needs are a couple of games that really stand out, and that are guaranteed for launch. Over the next six months, an elite set of PS3 launch titles will begin to emerge that puts the product back on the radar of all those people you just know will be lining up on PS3 day.

What, like the titles announced for the Wii? Or titles that are currently coming out for the 360? This entire piece read like a fanboy article in favor of Sony. Not just a pro-Sony article, but a fanboy's glossy-eyed stare. The only concrete evidence given for why the author thinks the PS3 will win out or at least do well is because he wants it to. Hell, the Wii is also six months out, but consumers aren't waiting for its elite list of games, because those games are already announced.

Also, his 18-month claim seems to backfire for him. He claims that Sony won E3 2005, but then goes on to say that 18-months later the real E3 champion is realized? I hate to break it to him, but 18-months after E3 2005 is PS3 launch day, and if Sony wasn't the real winner a year ago, who will be the real winner in November 2006?

Re:Next-Gen = Sony Fanboy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, the Wii is also six months out, but consumers aren't waiting for its elite list of games

Note entirely correct - everyones already played its elite list of games. Sony is at least half a year behind the Wii, but its going to be launched at the same time?

Re:Next-Gen = Sony Fanboy?

[tighr]

Yes, both systems are scheduled to be on the shelves by at least November 2006. PS3 has a Japan launch date of November 11th, and Wii is confirmed for fourth quarter 2006.

Re:Next-Gen = Sony Fanboy?

[NeutronCowboy]

Don't listen to Colin Campbell. He is a nitwit who somehow managed to snag editor status on a respected magazine. He contradicts himselfs, has no data to support his statistics, and generally just relies on "I am editor, hear me roar" for logic. He was like this when Next-Gen the magazine started to turn south (I'm actually convinced he was part of the reason why the magazine is the tripe it is now), and he still is.

Re:Next-Gen = Sony Fanboy?

[velocipenguin]

...who will be the real winner in November 2006?
With any luck, the Democrats.

Re:Next-Gen = Sony Fanboy?

[Anonymous Coward]

About as likely as Sony.

People just keep forgetting

[Anonymous Coward]

Insofar as the launch period is concerned,

Sony doesn't need you to buy a Playstation 3.

Sony just needs six million people to buy a Playstation 3.

Sony claims they can ship four million PS3s by the end of this year, and six million PS3s by March. In truth they can probably ship significantly less than that.

Let's say Sony's price nonsense drives away 95% of their market.

Then that's great. Because Sony can only make enough PS3s to serve 5% of that market anyway. Sony sold 100 million PS2s. They've got five million-ish PS3s to sell in the launch period. In the absence of something idiotic like a $600 price tag, demand is probably significantly larger than supply.

So now Sony's announced their console will cost more than God. Demand is now much, much lower than it was the week before E3. But that doesn't necessarily mean that demand is lower than supply. And as long as demand stays just ahead of supply, it doesn't matter all the people that Sony's turned off. In a shortage scenario like we saw with the PS2 and 360, those people couldn't have gotten a unit anyway. Sony doesn't need to sell to everyone. They just need to sell out.

The only real risk to Sony is the possibility that people will be so pissed off by Sony's launch hubris that they'll refuse to buy a PS3 not just now, but even after the price drops. This is a real possibility. But I'm not so sure that everyone's raging anger in may of 2006 will matter anymore once it's october of 2007 and tantalizing images of DMC4 and MGS4 and FFX13 and various other acronyms are dancing on the television screen...

Personally, I'll be too busy playing my Nintendo to notice. But I think by the time the games start coming out and the price has dropped a little bit, people will be willing to forgive Sony for Sony's terrible, terrible crime of selling a product for $600 at launch. Historically video game systems have been sold by games, and all other concerns fall before that. Even the concern that people really, really, really hate Sony. Everything that happens in the PS3 launch period is irrelivant compared to what Sony does once people actually start getting PS3 games out.

"Brand Equity": Rootkit

[sehlat]

That's all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Re:"Brand Equity": Rootkit

[Anonymous Coward]

While I realize "rootkit" does appear to be the only word many slashdot users know, "brand equity" is something which is measured over the entire market, not just the tiny fragment of the market which reads Slashdot and knows what a "rootkit" is.

Not buying the Sony defenders.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

A lot of people taking Sony's side on this one - including Next Gen - seem to me to be missing the point. "The price will eventually go down," they say, "and this allows Sony to profit off the early-adopting suckers in the meantime!" Everyone predicts that in a year or so PS3 will be competitively priced and widely available, and Sony hegemony shall be restored.

But... isn't this kind of a competition for third-party developers? A year from now, if Xbox has 10 million installed users and Sony a fraction of that because not many people are willing to pay $600 for a console, won't developers migrate to Xbox? Won't GAMERS migrate to Xbox, because that's what their friends play? And if everyone's on Xbox, who the heck is going to spur this widespread late adoption of PS3?

Re:Not buying the Sony defenders.

[BenjyD]

Exactly, it's the network effect. The value to Sony of a console sold early in the life cycle is much higher than one sold at the end. A larger target market attracts more developers, which means more games and therefore more gamers.

Re:Not buying the Sony defenders.

[Anonymous Coward]

A year from now, if Xbox has 10 million installed users

A year from now, if pigs fly, then how will we buy bacon?

won't developers migrate to Xbox?

It takes well more than a year to make a video game. The games that will be coming out for the PS3 up until the end of 2007 are in development now. Most of them, we know what their names are already. We also already know there will be a lot of them.

In the end, in the console world, hardware, price, and every single other consideration must bow to GAMES. Sony's arrogance is pissing off customers, but they still have the developers. And where the developers go, customers eventually follow. If the customers don't come, of course, developers will spook and run somewhere else. But developers exist in a weird sort of time warp, caused by the sometimes-multi-year lag time between choosing a platform and releasing a game. By the time we find out whether Sony's "gouge the early adopters" tactic works or backfires, it will be too late for the PS3 developers to get out even if they want to.

XBox talking points to the contrary, you need to do more to win a console war than come out a year earlier than everybody else. Games are, right now, the only thing the PS3 has going for it, in the form of all those exclusives that are going to come out in 2007-2008. Whereas XBox has some pretty-good PC first person shooters now and some more, better-than-pretty-good PC first person shooters to come later. Oh, and a PC RPG. That's not really enough to build anything more than a niche market on.

Everyone predicts that in a year or so PS3 will be competitively priced and widely available

What you're forgetting is that this will happen just about simultaneously with the release of the first wave of PS3 games worth actually buying. And this will happen regardless of whether the PS3 launch soars or bombs. The developers making that first wave of games have already committed to it.

more expensive consol = more expensive games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Due the the higher storage size of the blue ray discs i assume that the price will go up as developers spend more and more money on content to fill the disc up.

Where as nintendo's wii has limitations on size and graphics which means the games will be quicker to produce and cost less?

Seems like a resonable deduction to me and overlooked by many people.

Sony's "The way forward is better graphics at more expensive prices" isn't really what i want thanks.

Next Generation 3 Sony

[seebs]

I remember a Next Generation cover that was a beautiful, if slightly low-polygon count, scene. Full-page bright color, every line flawless. No jaggies. High-resolution textures.

Headline: With playstation graphics like this, can 3DO keep up?

Now, the thing is, those weren't playstation graphics; they were at least 100dpi, putting us up to about 850x1000 pixels; a tad larger than the PS1's standard display. They were higher resolution than anything the PS1 could do at any speed, and indeed, the PS2 can't do it either.

NG just loves to pimp Sony. They're crazy.

(It's true, of course, that the PS1 generally had better 3D support than the 3DO. But it wasn't THAT good.)

Sony already lost me...

[wilgibson]

Honestly, I see all the crap that Sony is saying as even more reason not to buy one of there consoles. I bought a PS1 back in 97 because FF7, what can I say I loved 4 and 6. The first one I got didn't work out of the box and I had to return it(never a good thing). About year after the PS2 came out the second one stopped entirely(so it lasted about 3 and a half years :P). I had been saving for a DVD player at the time it died... I ended up spending the money on a PS2 so I could watch DVDs and play my PS1 games. My PS2 stopped playing DVDs within 6 months... 6 MONTHS! I payed $300 to have the thing break on me in half a year. I had to scam Wal-Mart to get a new one. If Sony thinks they will get me to buy another POS when they cost in $500+ I say "HA!" I've already given them enough of my money for shitty hardware, why give anymore of it away?

I have 4 consoles sitting in front of my TV now: NES, SNES, Gamecube, PS2. Can you guess which 3 I haven't had problems with? And if Sony thinks I'm gaga over blu-ray they can sit on their thumb and twist! I have around 50 DVDs sitting on my shelf. I could care less about blu-ray when all the movies I actually want to watch are sitting in my entertainment center already. I'm getting a Wii once they come out, no doubt. I might even get a 360 if the price ever drops... But, I will not get a PS3!

Make the games on what platform?

[tepples]

Make the games and I'll pay attention.

I want to make the games, but none of the console makers will talk to me. What do I do next if I have a working prototype on the PC, but features of the game design require a physically larger screen than most PCs are connected to?

I want to make the games, but none of the handheld video game system makers or U.S. mobile phone network operators will talk to me. What do I do next if I have a working prototype on the PC, but I want to port it to handhelds and sell it?

Re:Make the games on what platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah tepples, the sad lonely weird guy of slashdot

Re:Make the games on what platform?

[uvsc_wolverine]

First: do you think that requiring a physically larger screen for your game is going to affect your playerbase?
Second: the console manufacturers make use of SDKs for making games for their consoles. Get ready to shell out if you want one.

Re:Make the games on what platform?

[tepples]

do you think that requiring a physically larger screen for your game is going to affect your playerbase?

You try fitting four people comfortably around the 17" monitor in the home office for social gaming.

"But I hate split screen!" Not all multiplayer console games are split screen because not all games benefit from having a separate view for each player. Many, such as Bomberman and Smash Bros., let all players see the entire playfield at once.

the console manufacturers make use of SDKs for making games for their consoles. Get ready to shell out if you want one.

How does a typical startup company afford a console SDK? Must all startup companies first make and sell a successful single-player adventure or online multiplayer title for the Microsoft Windows desktop PC platform before attempting other platforms?

Re:Make the games on what platform?

[KDR_11k]

How does a typical startup company afford a console SDK?

They shell out the money. You'll pay much more just for the room, the employees or the publishing. Then there's all the applications you need to create your game like the compiler, the middleware (or the cost to write the corresponding code from the ground up which isn't going to be much cheaper) and all the art tools (Photoshop and Maya, for example). I don't know your definition of startup but the average startup company that survives has a few million $ in the bank before starting.

Thump! Thump!

[Il128]

Sony sounds ripe for the the picking!

Question:

[DoctaWatson]

If porting for the 360 is so straightforward, why is only a fraction of the Xbox catalog playable on a 360?

Re:Question:

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a big difference between porting by the developer with the source code and adding special back-compatibility shims on a title that you only have the binaries of.

Re:Question:

[Keith Russell]

If porting for the 360 is so straightforward, why is only a fraction of the Xbox catalog playable on a 360?

Porting would mean that the source code of the original XBox game is recompiled to target the 360's hardware. There's not much money in creating a separate SKU for last year's assets with this year's binaries.

XBox 360 runs old XBox games by emulating a Pentium III and a GeForce 4 on three PowerPC G5s and an X1900. (Broadly speaking, of course. The actual hardware is customized to varying degrees for each console.) Games are CPU- and GPU-bound, and far more time-critical than your typical word processor. (Word is bound more by hard drive and writer's block than silicon.) So Microsoft can't just throw a reverse-Rosetta on the 360 and call it a day. Each game requires custom patches to run without errors and to performance targets.

Sony's Gambit

[spoonboy42]

The predictions of doom surrounding the PS3 (especially with regards to the very high launch price) are, of course, flooding the Internet. Nevertheless, I think they are very premature.

In a historical context, the PS3 is somewhat like the Neo-Geo home system, or the 3DO: It is a console with vastly more raw processing and graphics power than its contemporaries, but also a significantly higher price tag (although, it must be said that 50% over the 360 pales in comparison the the massive price difference between, say, the 3DO and a Super Nintendo). The Neo-Geo and the 3DO were, for all their technological superiority, failures. SNK, the makers of the Neo-Geo, only had experience in the arcade market prior to the introduction of their home system, and were used to selling very expensive arcade boards, since a steady stream of quarters could be counted on to offset the initial purchase cost (unless you charge your friends to come over and play, this model doesn't work for a home console). Although SNK supported the Neo-Geo with a number of excellent first-party titles, their history as a proprietary arcade supplier and tendency to keep the system's design very close to their chest meant a dirth of third party developers interested in writing games for the console. The 3DO, on the other hand, was made by a group of licensors with little to no background in the video games industry, and only a few publishers made any effort at bringing a few games to the system. Many 3DO games simply weren't very good, and of those handful that were, several were ported from the PC, or were later ported to more mature systems that followed like the Saturn and the original Playstation.

I believe, however, that Sony has the ability to avoid the collapse suffered by the Neo-Geo and the 3DO. Those two systems were the first home consoles from the companies who made them, who had no prior relations with 3rd party developers whatsoever (and in the case of 3DO, no first party development studio and no street cred with gamers, either).

Sony, on the other hand, is right about their own momentum. They did not come out the clear victors in 2 console generations by luck: they did it with games. Even then, I'm hard pressed to remember many launch titles from either system that really stand out as excellent. But, over the lifetime of PS1 and PS2, a library of thousands of games, most from 3rd party developers, and hundreds of them excellent, built up. The reason for this, in the beginning, was that Sony gave developers what they wanted: a CD-ROM drive offering vastly more storage space and multimedia capabilities than the competitors, and a good C-based API for writing games (and an assembly-based devkit later on to really max out the system). Sony managed to woo away many developers from Nintendo and Sega by providing them with a better canvas on which to create their visions, and the accumulation of amazing titles on the PS1 caused gamers to purchase it in droves.

Fast forward to the PS2: it's a more parallelized system, it's a bit harder to program for, but on the other hand, it has a DVD drive (just when consumer interest in DVD movies was skyrocketing), and is backwards-compatible with almost all PS1 games. The PS2 managed to sell extremely well even without any truly great launch titles, if only because people were drooling over a device that would play a library of hit PS1 games AND the hot new movie format. In the meantime, developers who had witnessed the runaway success of the PS1 were already writing a new generation of games, banking on similar success for the PS2. And they were right: the PS2 was a great success, and their investment paid off (and their games also helped to drive sales of the PS2, an example of success driving success). Stellar third-party titles in series like Fin

Re:Sony's Gambit

[NeutronCowboy]

Wow. I'm normally one who mods down much, but I wish I could set this to "-1, Windbag". Most developers on quote said there isn't much difference between X360 and PS3. GTA4 will be on both PS3 and X360, with exclusive downloadable content for X360. GameCube didn't have the kiddie market - it had decent sales for people who were interested in more than the latest FPS or Thugs n' Gunz games. I'd say that PS2 was where the kiddies were - someone had to buy all that Barbie, Spongebob and 50 Cent crap.

Sheesh, I think I'm feeding a troll. I probably should just stop here before my head explodes.

Campaign contributions

[tepples]

When a harmful monopoly is in place, the market has failed. One can only hope that whatever economic mediator is in place acts properly to restore the market to viability.

The trouble is that the economic mediator is all too often subject to bribes (called "campaign contributions" in polite company) from members of the oligopoly. Otherwise, we wouldn't have DMCA, copyright term extension, full penalties for subconscious copyright infringement, trademark dilution, continuing recognition of patents on math, or many of the other issues discussed in Slashdot's YRO section.

Let's not forget the $70 games and small selection

[The_Real_Quaid]

All the fanboys who think BluRay is good for games because it allows for so much more content - I hope you enjoy paying $70+ for the games.

PS3 is already so late to market and so difficult to develop for, it is going to end up with a much smaller game library than the Wii or X360. PS3 will not enjoy the position of being the "target system" like PS2 did. Now X360 is the target system and PS3 will get the watered down ports. That's the advantage of being the first console to hit critical mass.

Wii of course has the advantage of low cost development, and true next-generation gameplay due to innovative interface. EA and other developers have already made special Wii teams (something not done for GameCube), and are more willing to take risks on innovative ideas since the costs are dramatically lower.

In the end, whatever exclusive support remains on PS3 will end up raising costs to $70+ to cover their extreme costs and low distribution.

Unlike M$ and nintendo, Sony does not have any other significantly profitable ventures to sustain them. And assholes like me will be ther every step of the way to remind people of the ROOTKIT, the stolen Walkman, crappy manufacturing defects, and ridiculous prices.

Damn it feels good to see Sony choke on their own shit.

Corporate Arrogance

[finelinebob]

They must have training seminars for executives of all Sony divisions in how to show the proper level of contempt for customers. From DRM'd CDs installing rootkits to its failure to acknowledge it's a non-factor in portable music players to how it handles its online games (my personal pet peeve) to this?

What's good for Sony is good for the rest of the world. Just give them your money and don't ask any questions.

Goes to show

[darkhitman]

Outsourcing is bad.

Particularly outsourcing your marketing department.

Particularly outsourcing your marketing department to Hell.

Re:Goes to show

[patio11]

Dang, if only they allowed signatures long enough to fit that whole thing in...

Wii is a more affordable "games console"

[tepples]

HDMI is also completely irrelevant if you only want to play games on your games console.

If I wanted to play games on my games console, I'd buy a Wii console. Without the ability to do meaningful things other than play games, what justifies the $250 to $400 premium of a PS3 over a Wii?

Re:Wii is a more affordable "games console"

[DragonWriter]

The additional processing and pixel-pushing power to play more involved games with better graphics.

Whether that justifies the additional expense is, of course, largely a matter of how much money you have and how important that is to you.

Re:Wii is a more affordable "games console"

[tepples]

The additional processing and pixel-pushing power to play more involved games with better graphics.

Wii EDTV graphics will look as good as Xbox 360 EDTV graphics or PlayStation 3 EDTV graphics. In addition, a lot of people neglect that a game needs input and output, and the Wii Remote will allow more involved input mechanisms.

Whether that justifies the additional expense is, of course, largely a matter of how much money you have and how important that is to you.

Given that all the affordable TVs are either analog TVs or digital SDTVs, and given the decline in the buying power of the United States dollar over the last five years, I don't think too many people in Slashdot's home country have a lot of money to spend on gaming.

Re:Wii is a more affordable "games console"

[DragonWriter]

Wii EDTV graphics will look as good as Xbox 360 EDTV graphics or PlayStation 3 EDTV graphics.

Given the processing power available on each machine, I doubt even that is really true. It would seem to mean that the Xbox 360 and Ps3 platforms are being grossly underutilized. (And, really, I should have said polygon-pushing instead of pixel-pushing.)

In addition, a lot of people neglect that a game needs input and output, and the Wii Remote will allow more involved input mechanisms.

That's a good point, though its a lot easier to add a new, radically different controller as an aftermarket option to a console supported by later games than to add a new, more powerful processor the same way.

Given that all the affordable TVs are either analog TVs or digital SDTVs, and given the decline in the buying power of the United States dollar over the last five years, I don't think too many people in Slashdot's home country have a lot of money to spend on gaming.

Define "affordable". I've seen 32" CRT HDTVs for, IIRC, under $400 -- mine, about 6 months ago, was closer to $600. And, while the dollar has been declining and income hasn't done well for most segments of society, the people most likely to be the early adopters of a luxury product are still doing okay. Don't get me wrong. I think that from a console-features standpoint, for plenty of people, the Wii will be the better choice. For plenty the Xbox 360 will be. For plenty, the Playstation 3 will be. And I think, as with the last generation, there will be quite a few people that, as popular as whining about price, particularly with the Playstation 3 is, will buy more than one console from this generation, even where one of them is a PS3. Heck, I only bought I PS2 in the last generation, and both the Wii and the PS3 have some attraction (I don't imagine I'll buy a PS3 within a year of launch, though).

Re:Wii is a more affordable "games console"

[magicchex]

I got my open-box 30" CRT HDTV for $450 two years ago and am perfectly happy with it. No need for anyone to max out their cards. I'm going to buy a PS3 and most likely will buy a Wii also. If Microsoft can convince me the Xbox isn't that boring, I might buy one when I get tired of the other two.

If someone can afford a $400 Xbox, they can afford a $600 PS3. There is no way a person without the means to buy a PS3 can financially justify the Xbox.

True up to a point

[SmallFurryCreature]

I find the entire discussion as to wich console will win a bit amusing. Price is the funniest since it seems to never have had an effect before.

But what is even more amazing is how unbalanced fanboys can be.

For totally nuts check this out. A lot of 360 owners slam Sony for not having the cool controls of the Wii. Hello? Doesn't the 360 have zero innovation in its controller? So you slam Sony for adding only 1 small feature vs Nintendo redesign while being the proud owner of a console that has that same old controller that been used for the last decade?

Pot calling kettle black?

I seen a lot of complaining about 360 not being fully backwards compatible. Both the PS3 and Wii promise to be different so how come MS ain't slammed for that?

It seems that a lot of people got something against Sony. Perhaps it is just a David vs Goliath syndrome, we love to see the big guy taken down a notch and perhaps it has to do with the root kit (then again if you run windows surely you gotten used to be rooted by now)

However fanboys vendetta's do not make accurate sale predictions.

So far as I can see the consoles all got their weaknesses.

• The Wii is simplest, it is underpowered. How long can it last in the years consoles are supposed to stay current. It is not just about CPU, it is the only one to lack a HD (People who buy the lesser version of a console like the 360 core are like people who buy Celerons, not worth talking about) and that means it can't do games that require data storage. I am curious where the Wii is supposed to store all those downloadable old games.

  Will it matter? We will know in 2010 when the next-next generations consoles will start to be talked about.

• The 360 weakness is that it is the most boring of the three. Not the supposed power beast that is the PS3 and not as innovative as the Wii. It is just x-box version 2. Games look pretty but not earth shattering and not really all that different from what came before. To me the console seems to have lost a lot of its luster and even the fanboys are now just talking about actual upcoming games rather then having wetdreams about what might happen.
• The PS3 weakness to me seems that the Cell just doesn't deliver its hyped power. There are some nice demos out but they all seem to be cutscenes. Even if they are rendered live this mean little. When you know where the camera is going to be you can optomize a lot. Actual gameplay footage is rare and what is out there just doesn't tell me "supercomputer in your living room". With so many cores why am I not seeing thousand unit air battles?

  In short the real weakness of the PS3 is that it might just not be able to actually produce any games that are richer then the 360 or even worse, the Wii. Rich for me means AI, Physics, unit count, size of area etc etc. NOT resolution.

Not that any of the console companies are likely to care but I predict that PC gamers will once again look at consoles and go, "nice game kid". Pat the player on the head and go play a real game.

Or put another way. Console fanboys eat my keyboard!

Re:True up to a point

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll do this post as an artistic experiment in how much can be expressed through careful juxtaposition of quotations, simply because you've kindly supplied the very phrase I found myself needing.

But what is even more amazing is how unbalanced fanboys can be.

People who buy the lesser version of a console like the 360 core are like people who buy Celerons, not worth talking about

Console fanboys eat my keyboard!

Pot calling kettle black?

Thankyouverymuch.

(To spell it out: please, all of you, stop identifying with consumer electronics as if it were some kind of important lifestyle choice. I'd very much like to retain some faith in humanity.)

Re:True up to a point

[DDLKermit007]

Please do a little "research" in the future. Just because journalists don't do that anymore doesn't mean we don't need to. The Wii will come with 512MB flashrom and I believe it's also setup for SD cards or similar. The classic download games I think top out at 16MB I think on the N64 so theres quite a bit of room there. When your console doesn't try to be an "everything to everyone" console you don't need 20-60gigs that jacks the price up. Who knows maybe they'll release a "cheap" HD add on for the hardcore. Probably a pipe-dream, but it's Nintendo.

Re:True up to a point

[Anonymous Coward]

it is the only one to lack a HD ... and that means it can't do games that require data storage. I am curious where the Wii is supposed to store all those downloadable old games.

The reason why the Wii doesn't have a hard drive is because it has a flash drive built in. It's not really any different from a hard drive, it's just not as large and it doesn't have the spinny plates and stuff.

Re:True up to a point

[The_Real_Quaid]

"I am curious where the Wii is supposed to store all those downloadable old games."

If the built-in flash memory becomes full, Wii also supports external USB storage devices. Nintendo's president has stated this before:

From CNN:

"The Revolution has 512 MB of flash memory, allowing for some initial storage space. The system also has a slot for SD memory cards, which are widely used in digital cameras and can hold a greater amount of data. Most importantly, Iwata mentioned, were the USB ports that are built into the Revolution "so practically any storage method can be used"."

Re:True up to a point

[Ohreally_factor]

The smart thing about that is they're keeping their hardware lean and low cost while at the same time not limiting the customer's choices. Something as simple as adding a USB port instead of using an internal HD lowers costs while increasing flexibility. Sure, this means the customer will need to buy a USB HD (if he doesn't already have one on hand), but not all customers will really need or want one.

Re:True up to a point

[Lucractius]

as the proud owner of a Nintendo 64 ... god i wish i could get my blasted pads fixed :(

id like to point out, that roms of the larger games actualy reach a ziped size of 90+ MB in some circumstances, which is why my entire N64 collection of purchased games (that i intend to get for the VC without paying for what i own again) is likely to need a couple of gig SD card... or mabey a USB hard drive thing since i remember hearing it has 2USB ports tucked in there as well.

Re:True up to a point

[DeeDob]

So...

- Basically you dish the Wii because it is not as powerful as the other. Other says it's one of it's strength because that being "not as powerful" means it's not expansive to buy. You'll be able to get two Wiis (and possibly a game or two) for the price of a single PS3.

- You say the big weakness of the 360 is that it doesn't have anything over the other two. That it's less powerful than the PS3... (just before saying this:
"In short the real weakness of the PS3 is that it might just not be able to actually produce any games that are richer then the 360 or even worse, the Wii.")

That is completely ignoring it's online functions: not just multiplayer games, but the marketplace, achievements and leaderboards in an unified function. The PS3 is rumored to have something similar, yet i have seen nothing about this that came out of E3.

- The PS3? Well it's the only console where i have to agree with you on it's "weakness". But i don't think you nailed it's weakness correctly. I think it's weakness is that it will do everything the other two console do, but in less good ways. I view it as the "expansive jack of all trades". .. it displays HD graphics, but they are looking similar to those on the 360. .. it has motion detection in it's controllers, but the ones in the Wii are better. .. it has online, but since we still don't know much about it, (i assume that 360 will have a better one). .. it has a blu-ray player, but the cheaper PS3 won't do HD for the movies. The premium one may have problems with most HDTV sold when it comes to movies. A regular Blu-Ray player will be better and less troublesome in that regard.

Re:True up to a point

[KDR_11k]

It is not just about CPU, it is the only one to lack a HD (People who buy the lesser version of a console like the 360 core are like people who buy Celerons, not worth talking about) and that means it can't do games that require data storage.

Developers are not allowed (by Microsoft) to make a game for the 360 that requires the harddrive to function so the Wii and 360 are in the same boat (if we ignore the Flash ROM in the Wii).

Re:True up to a point

[DDLKermit007]

Ooops...looks like were both wrong. I just checked my collection of N64 roms (every game made) and 3 games max out at 64MB: RE2, Pokemon Stadium, Conker's Bad Fur Day; 2 at 40MB: Paper Mario & Ogre Battle 64; and the rest are 32MB and below (average size is 16MB).

Re:True up to a point

[Lucractius]

"Every Game Ever Made"?
well you could just say extensive, not try and claim you have them ALL
im fairly sure that a few of them used larger memory chips inside the carts, i could have sworn a few of the very last games used 128MB roms inside the carts, Rares games come to mind, Donkey Kong 64 and Perfect Dark were among the Biggest games on the console, and im fairly sure they had more than 64MB carts for them.

Re:True up to a point

[DDLKermit007]

Donky Kong 64: 32MB
Perfect Dark: 32MB
And actually I do have every N64 game made. They are on my Xbox and there are a number of romsets for any console that isn't CD based (full sets for NES, SNES, Genesis, Atari, etc). Only games I could be missing is a few obscure Japanese games, but thats it. You may have been thinking of the games in mb form which they were marketing a cart based games as back then, but still your computations would be off. 32MB Perfect Dark = 8*32=256mb

The price point is the true killer...

[HaloZero]

My major roadblock at this point with getting an Xbox 360 is the cost. I can't drop 399$ on a console. It's ludicrous. To shell out that much on a console with only a handful of playable games is disturbing, almost. Some of the most hyped titles - Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, for example - apparently aren't even worth the plastic the disk is printed on from a playability standpoint.

Bloody hell, I'm consdering just stretching my PS2 until it dies, and then giving up the console gaming entirely. Unless the Wii can blow it all away, then I might keep one of those around, but the Xbox 360, and the PS3 are just too damn expensive.

I really don't care about Bluray, or HD-DVD or this that or whatever. Just want to play some games.

Re:The price point is the true killer...

[magicchex]

Thank you.

I'm sick of hearing people tell me they can't afford a $600 PS3 so they're going to buy a $400 Xbox. This is the kind of financial attitude that gets people in serious trouble (And I would know as a debt-management program member). Microsoft already proved that high price points are still viable, and $600 over $400 simply isn't THAT huge of a difference.

Re:The price point is the true killer...

[DeadScreenSky]

My major roadblock at this point with getting an Xbox 360 is the cost. I can't drop 399$ on a console. It's ludicrous. To shell out that much on a console with only a handful of playable games is disturbing, almost. Some of the most hyped titles - Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, for example - apparently aren't even worth the plastic the disk is printed on from a playability standpoint.

Are you sure you are thinking about GRAW? It's not really my kind of thing at all (I spend most of my X360 time with DOA4), but it would be hard for me to argue it isn't a great game. In general most of the big X360 titles have been pretty well received, though I certainly wouldn't begrudge somebody for waiting for a larger library...

Early HDTV adopters got scr*wed

[tepples]

To be fair, some people already have HDTV sets

Very few early HDTV sets had HDMI or DVI+HDCP, which is required for making Blu-ray not become Blur-ray once the studios start turning ICT on. How are Sony Electronics and Sony Computer Entertainment going to apologize to their TV and game console early adopters who encounter ICT'd discs that end up not looking any better than DVD?

Audio guys

[tepples]

On the developer front, the general reaction to the Cell processor is "groan". (Except for audio guys, who finally get their very own CPU.)

Expect Harmonix Music Systems, the developer behind Frequency, Amplitude, and Guitar Hero, to take advantage of this in a big way.

Virtual Console

[tepples]

There's not much money in creating a separate SKU for last year's assets with this year's binaries.

Tell that to Nintendo, which plans to recompile most first-party N64 games for Wii's Virtual Console.

What's so good about Sony BMG music?

[tepples]

The only thing I still buy that has a Sony brand name on it is CDs, and only because I can't avoid it.

If you can avoid PlayStation Family exclusive video games, then you can avoid Sony BMG recorded music, no?

Oh shut up y'all!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of you complained about:

1. Floppy drive in the iMac
2. Batteries on iPod
3. PS2 (the undefeated cheaper gamecube and same-as-priced, haloed xbox *killer*)

Bitch, you'll be standing in line when the PS3 comes out. In fact you'll beg Sony CEO autograph your ass - you know it. All those who are complaining about oh so hoity-toity, elitist Sony attitude - they'll drop the price by 50 bucks, bring in a new game and you'll change your mind or for the elitist, hippie, prius driving, Starbucks-bashing, MacBook toting, iPod slinging losers - your friends will blog about their nirvana shit, yoga on the PS3, tantric DDRmax on the cell processor and your whiny little ass will whore itself to the nearest EBGames as you "stop by on your way home to pick one up".

"It's a Nintendo"
"It's a Microsoft"
"It's a lame ass co trying to be cool"

"It's a Sony"

Sorry to break yer consumerist bubble. You have no choice. EOT.

Re:Oh shut up y'all!

[FSWKU]

Allow me to be the first to say, "Nice troll!"

Seriously, with some practice and fine-tuning you could be the darling of the Sony marketing team!

Re:Oh shut up y'all!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ken! Is that you?!?!??!

Re:Let's not forget the $70 games and small select

[ickoonite]

You were going well until...

Unlike M$ and nintendo, Sony does not have any other significantly profitable ventures to sustain them.

Record company? Sony Pictures? Granted, their MP3 player market is pretty dead, but I'm sure they still sell a telly and a hifi or two.

Otherwise, I'm totally with you. But don't underestimate the Sony fanboy - I was talking to a couple of guys at work about the whole new console thing, and both of them tried to defend the design of the PS1/PS2 controller. Being a fan of ergonomics and thus the N64 and GameCube controllers, I could only manage a hollow laugh. Anyway, I'm rambling, but what I'm saying is that these people will go for anything. As someone else said on here, Sony could shit in a box, label it PS3 and there would still be a rabid fanboy contingent lining up on eBay to pay $1,000 plus for it. If I'm minted at the time, I might buy a few and try flogging 'em...could be quite a profitable venture :D

But my money's on the Wii. Fuckin' glorious, and fun too!

iqu :)

Easy...

[kn0tw0rk]

The one i can hack to have 'hot coffee' :-P

Re:Let's not forget the $70 games and small select

[The_Real_Quaid]

Actually, Sony Pictures is losing money due to several consecutive flops, and Sony music is being heavily boycotted due to the ROOTKIT fiasco. The electronics division is being hammered by Samsung and other competitors.

There may be some slim, erratic profits in those divisions, but it is not reliable or consistent. Don't be fooled by large "revenue" numbers being touted by Sony and their fanboy apologists. I'm talking about operating profits.

There is also some profits for Sony in the financial services division, but it's not enough to offeset the potential flop of the PS3. Sony is literally banking their entire future on PS3.

I Cry BS

[thatoneguy_jm]

Your comments seem highly suspect to me, as I went into a GameStop just yesterday to ask about preordering a Wii - and I was told that GameStop was not yet taking ANY orders for the Wii, because a launch date has yet to be announced. Also? The manager said that most of the stores were having an extremely hard time selling ANY preorders for the PS3 - and the manager also told me that she herself wouldn't be buying one. Now, true, the manager could have been lying to me - but it seems to me that if they'd lie, they'd try to get me to BUY one, not tell me facts that would destroy a potential sale.

NEXT GEN is right you know ..

[busternuck]

6 months is still a long time in coming and moods and appetites can whittle and change overnight. Sure, Sony had made its life a little harder with the E3 flop, but a well executed marketing blitz can still create the line of lemmings outside the game shops on launch day. A majority of us have short memories - be they in politics, at work, life etc. A faux pas by a politician today is easily overlooked 2 months later. Err .. a case in point : after positively dissing the 360 during the initial months after launch (shortage, power supply, same-old-same-old type of games blaa blaa), months thereafter I have one 360 sitting pretty at home. How quickly the negativity ebbs away as I have a blast of a time with GRAW and Oblivion. It will be the same here. A well managed campaign can erase much of the negative publicity Sony gained recently. The launch is by no means a guaranteed flop and Sony still can do something about it.

Re:Let's not forget the $70 games and small select

[magicchex]

Sony music is being heavily boycotted due to the ROOTKIT fiasco.

Can you show me some references to this? I know slashdot soapbox preachers talk about this, but I haven't heard it anywhere else. Do you have any articles or something? Thanks in advance

Re:Let's not forget the $70 games and small select

[The_Real_Quaid]

You can get plenty of info here:

http://www.sonysuit.com/

Re:A Good AC!

[Lave]

As much as I think he was joking with his original post. I would mod-this up if I could. Beautifully put.

Re:Let's not forget the $70 games and small select

[magicchex]

I know all about the rootkit affair. I was wondering more about the boycott. Do you honestly think a significant amount of people are boycotting Sony over that?

excusse me ... console in a slot

[Anonymous Coward]

when are they going to sell console a i can plug into
my pci or for that matter pci-express slot? THAT would be
cool. wii in a pci-express with a 1600x1400 monitor ... why not.
maybe for the next generation then ...

It's the games, stupid!

[SimDarth]

Polygons mean nothing if the game sucks. Let's face it: all the fancy hardware in the world doesn't make a crappy game a great game. If Sony gets some developers exclusive to the PS3 that will publish the next Grand Theft Auto 3 or other mega hit then they will win. Of course, Microsoft was able to squander away having Jade Empire, Halo and some other decent exclusives...

Re:Let's not forget the $70 games and small select

[ickoonite]

You vastly overestimate the boycott. I am no fan of Sony - I loathe their computers, audio players, the not-made-here attitude, the PlayStation controller, etc. - but there is no excuse for being blind to the reality of the situation. Granted, in the tech press, Sony was demonised (and rightfully so) for the rootkit thing, but the tech community have harboured a dislike for Sony for a long while now, chiefly because of their recording arm's assault on this community's supposed "right" to freeload music. Whilst this fiasco was reported in the mainstream press, it hasn't garnered the kind of attention you might like to think it has.

The sad truth is that boycotts rarely work because people are so easily bought. What price principles, you might ask. Evidently the shapely tits on the latest Shakira CD (or whatever - I have not the inclination to check) are enough to dissuade people from voting with their wallets.

iqu :|