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Can Sony Convince the World?
Gamasutra's regular feature asking a question of the game development community is back. This week's question cuts to the heart of the reporting from the Tokyo Game Show: Can Sony Convince Us it is Still Dominant?. From the article: "All that Sony needs to do is stop acting so arrogant. People can forgive any number of faults if the company generally acts responsible for their mistakes. When the PSP came out and people complained about the square buttons getting stuck and not being as responsive as the other buttons, Sony said 'There may be people that complain about its usability, but that's something which users and game software developers will have to adapt to.' We have to adapt to their broken button... Comedic at best. When everyone said the price of the PS3 was rather high, Sony told everyone that 'people will buy it no matter what.' What do they say about PCs? 'The PlayStation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC.' - Dave Fried, The Collective"
I think it is POSSIBLE for them to pull their act together. Are they going to do it? I have no clue. I have honestly never seen a company seemingly TRYING to hamstring themselfs before this.
They have tacken 2 steps i nthe proper directions:
1) The inclussion of HDMI on all PS3s is a very good idea in my mind. You now have a BluRay player for $500 that is not crippled. The expanded HD does not seem like that much of a wory. The loss of WiFi? Mehh. No card reader? I dono, does it really do much? (I honestly don't remember).
Now they just need to make the price not suck AS much, right?
2) Droping the price of the core system in Japan.
They caught on that the Japanese didn't like the price, and mabey they will catch on that Americans (and the rest of the world) don't like $500 as a price point either.
Though, I will admit that $500 is almost an acceptable budget for a system to me, however that is b/c I am ussed to dropping $500+ when ever I upgrade my computer...
Note: I will never buy a PS3 untill the price comes down to around the $200 range. I will buy a Wii, but that is b/c it seems like it is honestly inovative. the PS3 is a replacement for my computer as a gaming platform? I will pass, you can pry my trackball from my cold dead hands.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
You gave it your best shot for the past year with your Sony and PS3 tirades, FUD, snide commentaries.
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All realtime PS3 titles:
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748483/vids_1.
http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=2628
http://www.level5.co.jp/products/shirokishi/index
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748488/vids_1.
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748480/vids_1.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/733/733921p1.html
The PS3 is just over a month away from hitting the shelves in the US and Japan. Both pricepoint versions now have HDMI standard.
Give the console world a rest and let all of us enjoy the next month in peace. If that means you have to go throw yourself on your bed and have a good cry, please do so. It's time to move on Zonk.
Who? When? Where? Why?
I would like to see some sorta reffereance to this.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
Seriously... come on guys. I personally plan to wait until all 3 consoles are out for a while, then see if one (or maybe more) have the games, and features I want. Maybe Sony will give me what I want, and I'll be willing to pay them for it - maybe they won't.
MS has failed to impress me with the 360 and their game line up thus far. To be honest though I am hopeful / excited about the Wii, but you never know it might turn out to be a turd. Point is there is so much smoke and mirrors, and hype around console launches it's stupid to speculate and get all worked up about every half baked press release and "insider speculation".
People want Playstations. That is it. Look at the sales number difference between the Ps2, and the Xbox. The Xbox is superior to the PS2 in every way, but it still sells FAR less than the PS2. People buy brands, and I think that is far more true today, than it was in the past. The PS3 could still be screwed up, but I don't ever want to underestimate the stupidity of the average consumer.
The Playstation 3 will certainly have a number of exclusive games. It will simply not have the number of exclusive games that the Playstation 2 had. Previously, if a developer wanted to make a game for a single console, PS2 was the optimal one. There are 100 million PS2s out there and less than half that number of Xboxes and Gamecubes combined. Look at the number of games which were only released on the PS2. It made a lot of sense because there was a very large install base.
With the very high price of the PS3 (which Sony appears to be cutting before launch), a lot of developers will hedge their bets with a dual release on the PS3 AND Xbox 360. The Wii's unique controller scheme will prevent direct ports, but the low cost of development should mean more third party developer interest. Now Sony will have to pay for exclusivity, opposed to having the default console.
Even if Sony cuts the price of the PS3 quickly, a lot of the damage has already been done. Many developers who would have created PS3 exclusive games have started Xbox 360 development in parallel. There are a lot of games that will be produced for the Wii on the chance that it takes the dominant position in Japan away from the Playstation brand.
Does anyone honestly believe that there will be 100 million PS3s out there in 2012 and only 50 million Xbox 360s and Wiis combined?
I think understanding their history is important. The arrogance didn't come from no-where. Each of these is a survivor from a very uncertain start and emerged victorious after bruising competition. This rather naturally makes the managers somewhat self-satisfied and complacent. And sows the seeds of their subsequent demise.
In a sense, all victories are Pyrrhic.
Joe Gamer doesn't care about E3 press releases, or some interview at the (insert city) Game Show. He knows his PS2 kicks ass and he heard from a buddy that the PS3 is coming out this year.
"Woah! I gotta get that!" he says...
That is what the average gamer is thinking. Sony is proving themselves to be arrogant and is completely shooting themselves in the foot...but maybe not to thier detriment.
The PS3 will sell out at lauch. There is no question Sony will sell a ton of systems - but I think it is overdelivering the goods. I feel the same way about Xbox, but at least they aren't shoving HD-DVD down everyone's throat.
The Wii is going to be the best choice for right now - the PS3 or Xbox are the right choice in about - oh, $300 worth of price drops...which should take enough time to ensure that most folks have some kind of high-def tv.
Yeah, some people want PlayStations, others want games only available on the PS2 (Square-Enix games for example), and some others also have an investment that's worthless without replacing their PS2... It seems that the PS2 sales numbers are quite misleading due to the fact that so many current PS2 purchases are people replacing their broken PS2s, not "new" users. If you've invested a few hundred (or thousand) dollars in your PS2 and it doesn't work anymore, as much as you may not want to purchase a same name replacement due to your experience, you've already spent so much on the games and peripherals that it's not worth it to switch. Of the 11 people I know who purchased a PS2 at launch, 8 of them have had to replace their systems over the past 3 years. For the average consumer there is definitely a good amount of brand purchasing though, look at the iPod or RAZR (or an ungodly number of other products). I definitely agree there. But, for every PS2 owner I know, I also know an XBOX owner... and to tell you the truth a good number of those people own both actually. ;)
ART on dA
Actually, both Peter Moore of Microsoft and Phil Harrison of Sony had various words of praise for the Wii. Peter's was more like an endorsement than Phil's, but if everyone buys the Wii as their second console, then it is the #1 player over all.
Sony's arrogance is a problem, but I think its history precedes it. After the PS2 launch, there were many, many reports of problems with the PS2, and I don't believe they ever got DVD playback down pat. Even outside of the PS2, Sony has done a lot of things in the past year or two that turn (knowledgable) consumers off from Sony products- the rootkit fiasco has made me very anti-Sony products, to the point that I've passed up things that were exactly as I needed just because they were made by Sony. So, in my case, and others I have talked to, the decision to skip the PS3 was made before the real details were even announced.
This time around, people are going to be wary about buying a $500 system that could break as easily as the PS2 did, and so far BluRay has not taken the world by storm like the DVD did, so having an included player isn't as much of an enticement.
Sony not only has to tone down (and maybe even apologize) for the arrogance, but they will need to make amends for their previous stunts, as well, before the informed consumer will welcome them back into their home.
Are we asking the Slashdot crowd or the world?
The PS2 is still outselling the XBox 360. The PS2 still held an extremely dominating lead over Microsoft and Nintendo combined, even though both had arguably superior hardware. Nintendo was cheaper and Microsoft had Live. Still Sony dominated.
Sony is promising a Live-like service, but allowing to play multiplayer online for free. They will have the best hardware. They will have a huge launch in Japan. They have tons and tons of third-party support. They still have plenty of huge exclusive franchises.
The Slashdot crowd speaks daily of Sony's evils. Yet it is Nintendo, not Sony who cut back on the features of their console launch. Wii is $50 more expensive than promised, and still doesn't have DVD support. One of it's biggest features is the ability to purchase again titles we've already purchased multiple times before. Nintendo promised region-free, and then canned that.
Sony in comparison, is going region-free and said they will support Linux and homebrew development. $500 for a PS3 with BluRay, a HDD, HDMI, more processing power, native 1080p and free online pay vs. a $400 XBox with no high-def movie player, no HDMI, weaker processing power, upscaling, and paying for online play? Suddenly, the price does seem considerably more reasonable. Over the course of the console's life, you'll pay the extra $100 in XBox Live fees.
I think Microsoft and Nintendo will offer heavy competition, but especially now that Sony is offering HDMI on the low-end system, and is talking about dropping their price, I have little doubt that they will once again dominate this generation.
Mind you, I buy each console, and I'm no fanboi. But the facts are that Sony has been EXTREMELY dominant, and despite the elite geek crowd turning their nose up at Sony, the masses still seem to love them. Conversely, you hear alot on the Net about Nintendo love, but other than handhelds, their home console division has steadily declined ever since the days of the NES. The opinions you read about online do not necessarily represent the actual masses.
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