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Sony Promises 1M PS3s This Year
Joystiq reports that Sony is still promising 1 Million PS3 units in North America for this year. This, despite much lower estimates as released yesterday. From the article: "basically, these numbers don't mean anything. Despite what appears to be gross incompetence to much of the gaming press and the hardcore industry watchers (that's you guys), the mainstream gamer is blissfully unaware of reductions in shipping estimates. To him, it will appear that the PS3 is the hottest thing this holiday -- just like the Xbox 360 appeared to be last year and the PlayStation 2 back in '00 -- and may have no problem waiting for the demand and/or price to go down. People are still buying PS2s today, remember? Just a reality check before the hype consumes us all." For more on this, 1up has analyst reaction to the release news, and comments from GTA creator Dave Jones on his reaction to the news.
I won't be buying one.
Thanks for thinking of me though!
-- http://frobnosticate.com
I'm so evil.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
And where are they getting these numbers? It's like they're saying look over here at these magically appearing numbers while over in the corner they sit and hope like hell that we're all entranced by them and we won't remember when no PS3's ship this year. You'd think after all the screw ups in the past they might just try telling the truth for once.
e s
So, I wish them luck in reaching their goal, but also, I am calling BS on them.
You heard me Sony... BS. http://games.slashdot.org/search.pl?query=sony+li
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion...
The lower the shipping (and, hence, sales since most are assuming the thing will sell out) numbers, the less chance any given person will actually see a PS3 playing on someone's TV this year and well into the next.
For a price point that high, I don't see many parents buying this for their kids. Only folks with a disposable income will fork over the cash for that and the (hopefully decent) launch titles. They should have dropped the Blu-ray and come down on the price point to be in line with the Xbox 360 at least. The main competition will only be between the Wii and the 360 for some time coming until Sony decides it needs to take a hit in the wallet to move the product.
It's amazing. I think they're research into duplicating the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field have backfired. Instead of projecting a delusional field of product love outward towards the consumer, like Apple, instead the field has inverted and Sony staff are the ones with the warped sense of reality.
...that they won't start selling in Europe before March 07. In other words, a lot of people will do whatever they can to get one, either from the US or Japan. And since more people know people in the US than Japan, that's likely where they will go shopping.
In short, don't think that more than 750k of those boxes will actually stay in the US.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"There is only one PS3" and they're sticking to that production target. But it isn't expensive enough.
True, only hardcore games keep track of console news, 80% of game conumers only care about the games. But, damn, they had promissed 6mi by launch and 2mi every month. That's major disappointment.
Shouldn't you be hoing for a surplus? A shortage means that they are selling all the PS3's that they are making. While they are technically losing money on each unit sold, they lose even more on each unit that doesn't sell. If there is a surplus of PS3s, that would be a deathblow to Sony's counsole dreams.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Don't forget the consequences of having lower shipment numbers in terms of third party support.
Third partie publishers who are providing support for the PS3 in the first 3-6 months have been told by Sony several times that there would be 4 Million PS3s shipped in 2006, and 6 Million shipped by March 2007; if Sony doesn't intend to meet these numbers (or it is unlikely that they will) then third partie publishers will start delaying games in hopes that the user base will grow. If EA/Activision/Ubisoft/etc. start believing that Sony can not release 1 Million PS3s in time for consumers to purchase them over the holiday season, expect to see several launch games delayed until Q1 2007 (and current Q1 2007 games to become TBA 2007).
Sony made a decision to sacrifice the Playstation3 on the altar of Blu Ray. If they had released the PS3 with a standard DVD-ROM, it would cut their cost by about $300 dollars (it's estimated by Merrill Lynch that Sony's cost for a Blu Ray drive is $350 a unit). They could easily sell the PS3 for $350 taking less of a loss than they are currently taking per unit. They could have released it at the same time as the Xbox 360 and kicked Microsoft's teeth in. Instead we witness the delays and dramatically cut production. When most companies release a new product, they don't risk their bread and butter products that make their profits. Microsoft doesn't put the Windows franchise on the line in order to sell their music player (which will probably fail terribly). Nintendo didn't risk the DS on the release of the Wii. If the Wii fails, Nintendo will still have the DS as a profitable part of their company. If the Playstation3 is brought down by Blu Ray format, it will be a very messy situation for Sony. Sony has setup a situation where the Blu Ray format must succeed. No rational company does this.
start referring to them as "Son¥" now?
Monstar L
After the CPU clock speeds, the GPU polygons-per-second (or whatever), the price tag, we now have a number for the units shipped to america (I'm guessing that 1M number is also for Canada, or do we have another 100K extra units for Canada alone?)
Nintendo still hasn't revealed anything: price, release date, number of units. If the Nintendo DS is any sign, however, there won't be a shortage in my town.
but if there's a shortage, I'm gonna buy up as many as I can via reservation and sell all but one on ebay. I made a KILLING... a texas chainsaw massacre ... doing that with the 3 extra 360's. Sold two for $1100 and one for $779. Others made $1600-$2000 on those things. I expect that I could make a pile even selling them at flea markets.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
What demographic are they aiming for?
Teenagers don't have this kind of money, and most parents won't buy it for them.
Adult gamers will prefer to Wii, due to their Nintendo roots, innovative design, and cheaper price.
Home theater enthusiasts will have a separate professional high definition player.
The only market I see is the 20somethings out-of-college with disposable income. But even then, the bulk of this market already has a 360 and may not want both.
Just don't see where the demand will be coming from.
...when I've been locked in or out so many times by their proprietary products...hmmmm...yeah....I won't be adding a cent to the $600,000,000 Sony plans to generate off those units.
Maybe they expect a shortage to work in their favor, if one were to occur: as they have a few months to bolster production, the media will be able to broadcast that "The PS3 has sold out across America! Not one can be found, except on eBay for $2000!" Sony will give the illusion that everybody wants one - when, in reality, everybody who wanted one already had it. But will anyone buy it? I dunno. I'm just anxious to see how it plays out. When I'm not busy playing with my Wii. (Obligatory Nintendo joke - but the sad part is that I'm serious).
I still know a few very single guys who have the money saved up for the PS3 already (one guy has about $1000 stashed away so he can buy a few games). But other than that, nobody I've met is interested in a $600 console.
OTOH everyone I know is saving a few extra pennies for the Wii.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Sony promised 2 million during the launch period, 4 mil by the end of 2006, and 2 mil more by March 31st 2007.
NOT 6 million at launch with 2 million per month after. Big difference.
Game consoles should use swapable optical drives so when the machine gets Disc Read Errors, I can just go to the store, pick up a slimline slot loading DVD drive or Blu Ray drive or whatever and pop it in there.
How much do online rumors, reports and criticism really effect sales of any particular product? We have folks on both sides of the argument saying how much it will or won't effect the PS3.
Obviously as more folks get more information from the web the effects will increase... I think the PS3 will be a great help in gauging where we're at, as far as online marketing.
We had one other big testcase this year with "Snakes on a Plane" and it seemed to boost ticketsales if just a little bit. However with the PS3 there are two differences... one, it's negative press instead of positive... and two, the videogamer crowd might be more prone to get news from the web, because they're slightly geekier than the movie-goer crowd.
I'm interested to see how it all turns out. Whichever way it goes, it'll probably be a lesson for the next generation of consoles.
Reminds me of this...
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Duke Nukem Forever will ALSO be shipping One Million Copies by the end of this year. OH, and it's European release date will be the first quarter of 2007.
I think I speak for all of us when I say the saddest part of all this, for me, is that my plan to convert entirely from DVD to the wonderful technology that is Blu-ray will be tragically delayed...
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Are Sony's exploding batteries powering the Shuttle? Maybe they require some blinky Blue LEDs!
http://wii.ign.com/articles/730/730536p1.html
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
You may have a DVD player that upscales to 720p, but that isn't really the same thing as what you're saying. I mean, I can take my 1 megapixel camera and scale an image from it to 5 megapixels - but that doesn't mean i suddenly have a 5 megapixel camera. Upscaling DVD players don't magically make the content be 720p.
HD-DVD does 1080p as well. I think you're confusing the fact that the PS3 is capable of 1080p (though games aren't required to support that resolution and most probably won't) with the fact that the Xbox 360 isn't. In terms of resolution, HD-DVD and BluRay share the same capabilities; the main difference between them is disc capacity.
Adult games generaly had their start with the Atari or a computer. But that hardly dictates what console they will buy now. What usualy drives the older groups is the quality of product. You're not going to find many adults driving lowered Cyvics(the Wii equivalent of cars), they'll buy something good, which sadly also means expencive.
/. Just like there's a market for PCs and and Microsoft made operating systems. The fact that /.ers don't want to admit to it, it does not mean that it does not exist.
The 20 somethings will buy a PS3 just because; or just because snake/GTA is on it.
So, yah, there's deffinetly a market out there, it's just not on
It would be more impressive if Sony were promising two original, non-sequel, non-license, and actually entertaining games to ship with the PS3.
So let's only ship 1 million to create a shortage (sound familiar, XBOX 360?).
This means that we'll have a repeat of having people trampled, simply trying to snag a PS3 (given that it sells at all).
With a $600 price mark, only 1 million consoles being made (read: a large shortage of the consoles), and very expensive games, the PS3 is as good as dead already; before it's actual launch.
Sony's in some serious trouble here.
I am a casual gamer and I bought a PS2 slim two years ago, but I didn't buy
it because of the brand. I bought it because it is the best system to own:
it is cheap, small and quiet. It is the most popular system by far.
Whatever you want to buy new/buy used/rent, PS2 is your best option.
Should I spend money on a next generation system this Christmas? Of course not!
But let me tell you this: if I buy a new system in a couple of years,
I won't care if it is a Playstation, I will just pick the winner.
[flamebait] I kind of liked it when it was the "Revolution". But the "Wii"? That sounds like what a mage would say as he's casting an erectile dysfunction spell on some poor unsuspecting /. poster! [/flamebait]
Ok, seriously... the wii has far less power than the PS3 or 360, and frankly I'm not much of a fan of Mario Brothers style platformer games (that includes you, God of War for the PS2). I'm not interested in another Legend of Zelda remake. I like open free range games like Morrowind, Oblivion (and I hear that'll be coming out for the PS3), Half Life 2, Far Cry, and all of that stuff. I don't imagine that'll come out for the Wii.
Why, oh why did they rename the "Revolution" to the "Wii"?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I want to see who will be ripping into Sony if it does well. We don't even know if it will do good or bad, but everyone is predicting that it will fail. I have faith in Sony, and I believe they can put a good product out there for consumers. All I see here on slashdot is a lot of people jumping on the "Anti-sony" bandwagon...
Your metaphor doesn't work, because the Wii is simply more fun. You don't buy a car for fun, you buy it to get to work. You buy a game console for fun, not for eye candy and assorted BS.
The 20 somethings already bought a 360, just because Halo 3 will be on it. They don't want to have to buy a PS3, too, but they might still buy a Wii, because it's going to be so much cheaper.
PCs and MS operating systems do get bought by slashdotters -- at least 50% of us. But there isn't any sort of monopoly forcing us to buy a PS3. I know if I do, it'll be because Sony has made significant good-faith efforts (the onboard Linux should include ALL source code), the system is every bit as awesome as it's hyped to be (yay Cell), and the price has gone down significantly to where I won't just be upgrading my PC.
See, gamers actually have choices.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
...there was no current-gen competitor for the PS2 or the 360 when they launched.
They were the only game in town, which allowed them to survive an otherwise precarious launch.
This year, the PS3 is launching itself into the market alongside the dramatically cheaper, more numerous Nintendo console, and a 360 with a very respectable foothold.
These are hardly comparable situations.
Furthermore, the PS3 is not notably more powerful than the 360, and it's advantages are a moot point for all but a tiny segment of the -hardcore- gaming audience.
It would take twenty minutes to explain to Joe Consumer why the PS3 is better on paper.
-Then- you'd have to spend another ten explaining the theoretical advantage is moot unless he's spending several thousand dollars on a TV, and planning on spending another thousand on an HD video player in the very near future.
If he doesn't have an HDTV, the marginal theoretical performance advantage and 1080p capability don't matter.
If he isn't planning on buying a blu-ray player in the next year, then the 'cheap' BR player capability doesn't matter either.
All that 'potential' for $200-$300 more than last generation's price hike, and all ignoring one very large elephant in a very small room: by the time either of those advantages -truly- matter, the PS4, 720, and Wii Too will be in the hype machine.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Sony had cut their launch shipments for the PS2 (I think it was 500K for the US) and promised to deliver more before the end of the year. They ended up having to cut their promised quantities in half several times because of "manufacturing difficulties" (they couldn't make enough EMOTION ENGINE chips).
"What demographic are they aiming for?"
People With More Money Than Brains.
Hey, it works for the GOP...
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
I think the potential benefits of Bluray in the PS3 are way bigger for Sony than they are for gamers, and that the Sony management has either convinced themselves otherwise, or they think consumers are too stupid to notice.
As other comments have noted, some analysts are saying around half the cost of a PS3 is going to go towards the bluray drive. If you're going to add $300 to the cost of a console when the average cost for a console has only been around $300 historically, you've got quite a task ahead of you to convince buyers that they're getting value for their money. In this case, Sony needs to convince me that Bluray is going to make my PS3 at least twice as useful/fun for me.
The best argument that I've heard so far for spending an extra $300 for the PS3's bluray drive is that all the other bluray players are $1000+. I guess that's a deal, but it's still not very compelling. A $10,000 diamond encrusted toilet seat selling for only $8,000 is a pretty good deal, but I don't want a diamond encrusted toilet seat. $300 for $1000 worth of bluray player is pretty good percentage-wise, but unfortunately for Sony, I haven't seen any good reason why I should consider any blu-ray player worth even $50. Especially when I know that if the format is succesful, I'll be able to buy a player for that price in a couple years.
Basically Sony is trying to pull the same thing that Microsoft did by bundling IE with Windows. They're trying to use a monopoly to force a new product onto the market. The problem for Sony is that video game console lock-in isn't very strong, most consumers are aware of the alternatives, and Sony doesn't really have a monopoly anyways.
This whole thing seems like a bad risk for Sony.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
The 20 somethings already bought a 360
We did? Where's mine? In fact, I don't know a single person who owns a 360, and I'm a 20-something with tons of gamer friends.
I'm sorry, but you're being ridiculous; Microsoft has not shipped that many units to claim "the 20 somethings already bought a 360."
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Adult gamers will prefer to Wii, due to their Nintendo roots, innovative design, and cheaper price.
I don't think we can assume that the entire adult-gamer market has roots in Nintendo's classic systems anymore.
There's a new generation of post-adolescents about to come of age that weren't even BORN during Nintendo's 8-bit heyday. Their first tastes of console gaming weren't with Mario and Zelda, but rather with Cloud Strife and Lara Croft. Their nostalgic allegiance is with Sony. It is this type of gamer, the ones who just got a $50k/year job out of college and still live with Mom and Dad, to whom the PS3 seems to be targeted.
That being said, I don't think there's nearly enough of that type of gamer to sustain the PS3. Especially not, as you point out, when Microsoft has already had a console that targets the same type of gamer out for almost a year now.
will go into the store for a PS3, will see its price tag and will leave the store with a Wii.
Maybe the 20 something gamers with the disposable income? I don't imagine there are that many who didn't buy a 360 so they could afford a PS3.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It would be even more impressive if Nintendo were promising two original, non-sequel, non-license, and actually entertaining games to ship with the Wii.
Don't get me wrong though: I want Twilight Princess and Mario 256. Some of the best games have been sequels. SNES had A Link to the Past, PS1 had Nocturne in the Moonlight and Final Fantasy 7, DC had Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Even World of Warcraft is from the franchise.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Being a 20 something (21 specifically) who is going to be finishing college in a year or so, and working at an internship this summer that (if it were year round) would be only a little below 50k, I believe I fit your bill.
And let me say that, while I don't have much history with the 8-bit console generation besides playing duck hunt on my neighbors NES from time to time, my first big generation was the 16-bits (SNES and Genisis). Among my friends, it's mostly the same way, and those that didn't start in 16-bit mostly started in 8 bit. I think sony is going to need to wait untill they get to the PS4 at least to be able to claim that a goodly percent of those "just out of college" + "money to burn" types grew up on Playstations.
And for the record, I have absolutely no desire to get a PS3 and am waiting to see how the Wii does with interest.
In a way the high cost of the BD drive is a good thing - it gives Sony room to move. As more drives are made the cost will inevitably fall, and quickly - say by $100 or more. Having creamed the die-hards, Sony would pass some of the lower costs on in 2007. PS3s going for $349 next year?
Microsoft is the main fly in Sony's ointment, and what they're able to do with the 360's price and game set will make a big difference in this war. But they're going to hurt later on for not including HD-DVD built-in. Sure, it's available as an add-on but can they seriously expect major buy-in from a couch-prone consumer base? I doubt it. On the other hand they could've included it like Sony did but then they'd be in the same pricing situation as Sony.
Add to that the controller (blatant rip off from Nintendo, bless Sony's black little heart), and there you have it: PS3 has everything built-in, but is presently more expensive; 360 is cheaper but you have to buy extras. Game makers will have to produce to the lowest common denominator, which is going to be that much lower on the 360. A large game that's a single disc on the PS3 will have you swapping discs part way through on the 360.
I don't like Sony one bit, continually trying to foist their proprietary formats and DRM on us - but long term I still think they're generally doing the right thing with the PS3. Time will tell.
I think I speak for all of us when I say the saddest part of all this, for me, is that my plan to convert entirely from DVD to the wonderful technology that is HD-DVD will be tragically delayed...
Your metaphor doesn't work, because the Wii is simply more fun.
It's not even OUT yet. For all you know, it's about as fun as the Virtual Boy. Criminy.
Comment of the year
Eh, the only difference in idea of what Nintendo means to that demographic is that Link played the flute, and Mario had a cap with wings on it and battled head to head with Pikachu. Seriously, Nintendo's "classics" didn't die with the SNES.
Anyway, all these games that we're describing are not even 10 years old (FF7 was released in 1997), we really haven't entered the generation that were young children after the SNES yet, anyway. I'm 25, sure I grew up with "A B Select Start", but a 15 year old grew up with Mario riding a green dragon.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Why do I keep seeing teenagers with 60GB Video iPods?
Although your comparison is ridiculous I have seen worse. So could you please come up with a more assinine metaphor. I also thought that your jackassery was a bit mis-guided and lost its context in the middle of your argument, you should work on that too. I suggest adding a cup more of BS and a titilating lie or two and your horror of a post will be made perfect.
P.S.:
You do get a gold star for motivating me to login and write this.
The truth suffers more from convictions than from lies.
Don't forget those of us who have been gaming for 20 or more years and have never owned a Nintendo system and don't really intend to start here. Sega all the way until the PS2.
I'll be buying a PS3, as soon as Sony start to sell the damned things here that is.
If you reach around behind you, you'll find an area right beneath your tail bone. There is a hole there which can contain all sorts of interesting stuff (depending on your diet).
From the smell of things, this is the area Sony is getting their numbers from.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
1. Teenages have insane amounts of money (or goods and services equivalent to an insane amount.) How many get cars for their 16th birthday? Their own computers in their bedroom separate from their parents'? Cell phones, digital cameras, ipods, musical instruments? Or for that matter, massive game collections? Spoiled brats are the exception rather than the rule, but name a teen without some combination of at least three of the above. Not every teen has these luxuries, but the conspicuous spenders at the top are the ones who'll do the buying/begging so you have to weight their smaller number more heavily. $600 (more like $800) at Christmas isn't that much for many teens. Anyway, with this past console generation, the primary spenders became the 18-34 year old males, which is probably large enough to eat up the 1 million in its entirety already. When the prices come down, then teens will become more of a factor.
2. Your second point is too blatantly biased for me to even need to consider.
3. Considering the reports saying Sony is stopping shipment of blue lasers to other companies in order to have enough to install into those million PS3, there may not really BE a separate market yet. And don't think that just because they are an "enthusiast" that they automatically want to spend as much money as possible - many audio-videophiles love to brag about their used equipment bargains or home-built speakers and cabinets. $600 is a pretty good deal for a Blu-ray player alone - they may hesitate to spend almost double that amount due to the format wars (just because you have a nice tv and stereo doesn't mean you can afford to throw out $500), and enough may be interested in actually having the PS3 for a video game system as well (especially since it will the one best able to show off their setup with its HDMI capability).
4. The "twenty-somethings" are a larger demographic than you seem to give them credit for. When you start throwing around terms like "145 million Americans play video games" and "60% of all gamers are 25 to 44 years old" you see the video game world is much larger than you might have thought, and a million consoles (between the two largest markets) is a drop in the bucket. When my brother got his 360 back in April, there was only 1 core system left in a town of 150,000 (we checked seven different places). We asked the salesmen about sales patterns - they were still selling out within a few days of shipment, we would have had to wait another week or so, if not two, until another batch was available. It wouldn't surprise me if 360s were still that unavailable. Remember, Microsoft had its own trouble reaching expected shipment amounts last year too and there were almost as many "$500 is too much for a console" complaints as there are now - and the launch titles were just as poor. PS3s are going to sell out like mad until Sony can ramp up their production to a point where they can actually reach demand.
The real focus shouldn't be on the guaranteed 1 million sales at the launch - there is a demand much greater than the supply for probably the next six months - it should be on what happens in a year or so when all three consoles are fully available to anyone that wants one, when all three are trying to expand past their core market into the general public. I think the early lead is going to go to whoever can manufacture the most consoles in the next year. In the long run, the $100 price difference between the 360 and PS3 isn't going to matter as much as the game selection - 2007 will be determined by how many people will pay $200 for Metal Gear Solid 4 or Final Fantasy XIII versus $150 for Halo (counting a year's worth of Xbox live and any costs for wireless adapter and headset. Yes you can play other games on it, but once you pay the Sony tax you can play other games besides MGS4 for "free" as well). Where Nintendo fits in is anyone's guess - I think they'll do pretty well for themselves, because they're aiming for the largest slice of the demographics: everyone. But like I said, it's going to take a year or two to see which console is the first to break out of the "3 million sold" pack.
I think your quite right, there isn't much of a market for a $600 game console. My expectation is that only the hardcore gamers that MUST have a PS3 will buy it.
But I personally think that most of the industry is shortchanging Sony, I think they have much more market insight than they let on. What if even though it launches at $600, the price of the console follows a steep negative slope as time goes on? What if the price is down to $300 by March? Sure call me crazy, but I can cite a few reasons why this might be the stragy.
First consider something called the learning curve, the general idea is that as you manufacture a specific good, over time you make your process more effiecient, lowering the cost of production. Given all we have heard about diode shortages, there is probably a large oportunity for cutting costs as time goes on.
Second consider the idea of consumer surplus. Consumer surplus has to do with your maximum willingness to pay for a paticular good. Let say you see an apple being sold for $1, the maximum you would be willing to pay for such an apple is $1.50, therefore, (assuming you are hungry) you will buy the apple, and hence not only get the apple but a consumer surplus of $0.50 as well, because you paid $0.50 less than what you would had paid if you needed to. By setting the price of the PS3 at $600 at the beginning, only the people who would be willing to pay $600 or more for a PS3 will buy one (not that many people.) By steadily lowering the price over time, you begin to reach more and more consumers, since the price is now at their maximum willingness to pay. This way, everyone ends up paying close to the absolute maximum that they would be willing to spend on a PS3, and hence Sony milks all the consumer surplus out of thier customers, and make as much as they can on thier new console.
At this point you are probably saying "damn those Sony bastard, what a ripoff!" But realize this kind of marketting tactic is used in many more places, look at Inkjet Printer (Or rather, the price of the cartridges,) look at cell phones, razors with replacable blades, electric toothbrushes... Ripping your customers off and making them think they are getting a good deal at the same time happens a lot more than you think.
SoaP was ripped on as "camp." Which to many, sayyy the Rocky Horror and MST3k crowd, makes it more interesting than a typical B-grade action flick... Even the studio saw this as positive, and repositioned themselves. The started [viral]marketing it as camp, and even reshot some scenes to make them _more_ ridiculous.
PS3 is different. A gadget is either considered a value or it isn't. You don't see people buying UMDs _because_ they're a ripoff... only possibly _in spite_ of it.
The closest thing to "camp" in the gadget world is "retro." For instance, buying an old Intellivision or whatever... but i don't think Sony can effectively market the PS3 this way unless they plan to have another PS3 rollout in 20 years. =)