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History To Repeat Itself With PS3?
Dr. Eggman writes to mention a 1up article looking at the way things were when the PS2 launched vs. next week's PlayStation 3 launch. The question: can history repeat itself? From the article: "PS2: Released one year after the lower priced Dreamcast, lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service. PS3: Releasing one year after the lower priced Xbox 360, lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service. PS2: Competition from Nintendo: A smaller, cheaper 'family friendly' console with a 'focus on gameplay.' PS3: Competition from Nintendo: A smaller, cheaper 'family friendly' console with a 'focus on gameplay.'" The article also looks at how things have changed for Sony since the last time around.
For me it's all about the price
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
same games, better graphics, pay us again
Maybe I just wasn't as well-informed back in '99-'00, but I don't recall much talk about online plans during the launches. I mean, ChuChu Rocket and PSO were big deals for the DC, but I don't recall the PS2 boasting superior online play right out of the gate...
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
... because today is not like yesterday. For example, online game play wasn't as important when the Dreamcast was released. Also, sales were sluggish from the beginning as people held their money for the PS2 launch which was not the case with the 360.
The PS3 might still dominate, but it's not likely to be for the exact same reasons as in the past.
TW
... otherwise we can look forward to the PS3's lens giving out shortly after the warranty period and refusing to read half of the discs. The PS2 lens problems made the 360's failure rate look like a drop in the ocean? Nope, this isn't intended as flamebait - it happened to me, and I was only able to get it working, sort of, by cracking the PS2 open and changing the lens angle. What Joe Public who's never even opened a PC was supposed to do, other than buy a new one, I don't know.
I think you're parsing that sentence wrong. Read it as :
"PS3: Releasing one year after the lower priced Xbox 360, [with the Xbox360 being] lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service."
- Tempestdata
Er...I'm pretty sure Live is an online service, and I'm reasonably certain the 360 has it. At least I hope it does, becaause I'm paying $50/yr for it.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Now that's what I call bootstrapping: you'll be able to get online only after you get online to download the patch.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
i think people are a little confused about what Sony are trying to achieve with the PS3. Sure, it's going to be up against the Wii and XB360, but I'm guessing that's a secondary concern to Mr Stringer.
The PS2 sold 105million units. Let's say the PS3 is a disaster - how bad could it be? 50million? 25million?
Those are all Blu-ray devices. At least an installed base of 25million Blu-ray players sold in a few years time. Versus how many HD-DVD players? How can HD-DVD compete with that kind of a headstart?
Owning the next-gen DVD format is the prize here. HD-DVD is only 33% ahead of Blu-ray today, before the PS3 even hits the market. I think that's more precious to Sony than losing a bit of ground to Microsoft. Maybe they calculated on losing gaming market share this time round.
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So basically it'll boil down to:
1. The naysayers will say that it'll suck
2. It'll sell beyond expectations
3. The naysayers deny the first statement and claim they knew all along
Summation 2
The real reason why the PS2 was such a success, is that it was a very cheap DVD player, and DVDs had just become established technology.
The PS3 is a cheap Blu-Ray player, but Blu-Ray is by no means established. Instead of using the DVD to launch the PS2, they're trying to do the reverse: using the PS3 to launch Blu-Ray. I don't think that will work nearly as well. In fact, I expect it to fail miserably.
PS2: Competition from Nintendo: A smaller, cheaper 'family friendly' console with a 'focus on gameplay.' released one year after the PS2
PS3: Competition from Nintendo: A smaller, cheaper 'family friendly' console with a 'focus on gameplay.' released concurrently with the PS3."
Fixed your article. Where's my co-author credit?
History To Repeat Itself With PS3?
No.
This has been another episode of Simple Answers to Slashdot Questions.
If we're going to look at the past to predict the future, let's look at these facts:
No console with a launch price higher than $300 (at the time of launch) has ever been a success.
No console with a launch price higher than $400 (adjusted for inflation to 2006 dollars) has been a success since prior to The Crash of 1982.
Sony took a huge risk in pricing their new console so far outside of the historical comfort zone for price, and I don't think the outlook for them is good at all. I only wonder what derisive name will ultimately be attached to their failure:
P$3?
PS3DO?
PS3O-GEO?
One important item to make note of here is that while the Sega Dreamcast was itself a decent system, Sega had already burned a lot of its customers with their numerous "1.5 systems." What I mean by that is, all of the many systems they created as extensions of current systems (Sega CD, 32X, etc..) that they sold as the next big thing, but completely failed on when it came to supporting them. I myself bought the 32X for $130 when it came out, and how many games were made for it? Less than 60. Same with the Saturn, the ultimate 2D system, suddenly found itself floundering when the Playstation focused solely on 3D games and Sega dropped it, and went on with the Dreamcast. After all of those, you could be sure I wasn't about to spend another dime on a Sega system, because how do I know its not another "1.5" system than will have its support cut out from under it in only a few months time.
" This one costed $300."
The past tense of cost is cost. You sound like a retard or an elementary school child when you write it in a "real" article. This is the first line, too! Do they not hire editors at 1up?
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What killed the dreamcast wasn't the PS2 directly. What killed it was Segas poor reputation with its past systems. The Sega Saturns 3d support was very poor compared to PS1 and N64,and died off rather quickly. Segas Add-ons for the Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, 32x-CD, Sold moderitly well, but had poor games, and killed of right away when Saturn came out.
So when Sega rushed the dreamcast out to be the first of the new generation systems, people were hesitant about buying another sega product. Some people only used the Saturn as a stop-gap till the PS2 came out. The hype of the PS2 helped kill the dreamcast but it wasn't the only factor.
This time around PS3 is competing with Xbox360. Unlike Saturn the Xbox has proven itself as a strong system, and in many ways better then PS2.
I'd say the Dreamcast had a lot more in common with the Atari Lynx. Both were innovative platforms made by failing companies that died due to a complete lack of marketing.
I agree! It's very convenient to be able to use my PS2 to play my DVDs, I don't need to have another machine hooked up or worry about video swit-
DISC READ ERROR
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I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
You could get good DVD players (Panasonic brand) in $150 in late 2000. That's half the price of the PS2 when it came out. I didn't have a DVD player and I thought it was a good selling point when I got my PS2 in 2001, but I did not think it was a "very cheap" DVD player.
The DVD player contributed it, but it is by far the "real" reason it was so successful.
Yes but what you forget is Blu-Ray discs are playable in other Blu-Ray players. UMDs can only be played on PSPs. Also, UMDs don't offer better quality than DVDs. Why would you want to buy a movie twice so you can watch it on your home system and a portable? So this argument can't really be applied to the PS3, it's not the same situation.
Easily. HD-DVD has the letters "DVD" in it. That has an immediate meaning in the average consumer's head: It's like DVD, but now it's in HD! Just like how a HD-TV is like a TV but in HD!
HD-DVD, regardless of how well it actually performs, has an immediate name recognition. The name "Blu-ray" really doesn't convey any meaning to the average Joe Blow -- unless s/he already did the homework. It doesn't exactly scream, "This is better than DVD!"
vs.
How is that a valid comparison? I wonder if the author is aware that the PS3's are going for up to $5000 on ebay right now. And there's also that gem about PS2's having DVD functionality:
From what I recall, DVD's were already kicking ass when PS2 came out. In fact, many people bought a PS2 because they liked the DVD functionality.
PS2: Released in the middle of a booming economy when a large number of twentysomethings had either more money than god, or at least enough to warrant spending hundreds of dollars on a video game console.
PS3: Released in the middle of a shitty economy when a large number of twentysomethings have less money, more bills, and enough to worry about that a $700 game console isn't in the cards.
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The PS2 didn't reach 40 million until September 2002, 2.5 years after it went on sale in March 2000. It took it until November 2005 to reach 100 million. I couldn't find any reference to the PS2 hitting 150 million. All I could find was a cite from this month saying the entire "installed base" for all gaming number 150 million.
So I really don't forsee this as being a coup for Sony. It might be, but I don't think so. I bought an N65 and then a Playstation. I bought a Playstation2 and then a Gamecube. I would have bought an original Xbox if any of my friends had them.
At $600, I will never buy a PS3, regardless of the fact that I've already pre-ordered a Wii. Ken was right - at that price, it's not a gaming machine anymore. If I buy a second console, it will be an Xbox 360, even though I loathe Microsoft.
With the high price of the PS3, the initial install base will grow very slowly. This will cause a low volume of game sales, which will further cause fewer games to come out, which will cause fewer people to buy a PS3. It will just snowball from there. Sony simply does not have the first party games to pull this off. I think Nintendo MIGHT be able to do it, but it would take a radical marketing and focus shift. But their first party titles would guarantee an initial install base to get the ball rolling. Microsoft might be able to get it going due to Halo and its penchant for just buying up game developers. Sony would have a small chance of doing it based on games that tend to be exclusive to it (at least initially), but with the pricing they have just guaranteed it will not happen.
It really just comes down to a VERY simple fact - $600. Even at $500, it's a bad deal. $500 is right around the price for a lot of people where purchases move from "do I want this?" to "do I need this?". And when you add on the price of a game and an extra controller, bumping it up around $100, most people will decide they don't need it. I think this would be true even if the Xbox and Wii were launching two years later than the PS3.
And Blu-Ray will do absolutely nothing to help sell more than a few million or so PS3s. Studies have shown that the average household income for HDTV owners is nearly $90k. The people with that kind of money would probably have bought the PS3 anyway. But the people at the lower end of the scale who really stretched their finances to buy the HDTV to begin with will be hard put to shell out for the PS3. And if you look at that study, only about half the people watch HD programming on their HDTVs. These people aren't exactly clamoring for higher quality video.
So while I could completely be wrong, I predict this could be a complete catastrophe for Sony. This opinion doesn't come from fanboism. Nintendo cured me of that with the N64 debacle. Since then I have been fairly platform neutral. Even my disgust with Microsoft wouldn't have kept me from buying an Xbox if I could have convinced my brother to get broadband so we could play online.
My prediction for hitting the different milestones are:
5 million sales in the first 9 months
30 million sales three years from launch
50 million sales five years from launch
Was that a serious assertion? At any rate, the XBox beats the PS3 hands down in that category, methinks...
Even if there's a drive that plays all (which as my elder sibling points out hasn't really happened yet), I think that only one of the two formats will win in the end. I don't think there's room on store shelves for two the-same-but-different copies of every movie. The Internet, where shelf space isn't a problem, will lessen that , but if one of the two formats gets critical mass the other will be marginalized. Controlling the format is not a means to the end of making The Big Bucks (tm) by selling hardware; Sony made plenty of money selling VHS players post-Beta failure. Controlling the format is an end of its own, with potentially even Bigger Bucks (tm) to be made.
I think the main thing you're missing is the 360 has Gears of War and Dead Rising right now, whereas FF13 and MGS4 don't even have release dates. At those time scales, we're talking about Halo 3 for the 360 which, love it or hate it, is a big deal.
I have to say, I love me some MGS/FF, but I'll probably get a 360 well before I get a PS3 since it has good games now instead of potential, future good games.
Which is why more and more I'm thinking Nintendo's strategy is brilliant, releasing 2 days after the PS3. Remember last year when the 360 was in the news for over a month with shortages and games and all that? Now, the PS3 will get that press for two days and two days only, then all the news will be about the Wii. Even after the big rush, no single story about the PS3 will be in the news that doesn't also mention the Wii. Nintendo has basically assured themselves equal media attention to Sony by riding their coattails. And with systems more widely available, a lower price, and completely different gameplay, they can't help but look like a tempting option in the inevitable comparison.
just some guy
The Xbox was released on November 15, 2001 at a price of $299 and it was reduced in price to $199 on May 15, 2002.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2The PS2 was released on October 26, 2000 at a price of $299 and it was reduced in price to $199 on May 14, 2002.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GamecubeThe Gamecube was released on November 18, 2001 at a price of $199 and it was reduced in price to $149 on May 13, 2002.
My guess is that in May, the Xbox 360 Core version will be dropped and the premium version will be reduced to $299. The PS3 will be reduced to $399/$499 and the Wii will be reduced to $199. It may come down to one company cutting their price and the others following.
Microsoft earns over $10 billion a year in profit, while Sony and Nintendo make about $1 billion each every year. Microsoft has been making the Xbox 360 for over a year, significantly cutting manufacturing costs.
The one game that has been reviewed on both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 is Tony Hawk Project 8. There are two major problems with the PS3 version: lack of online support and frame rate issues. The frame rate issues are a huge problem for Sony. If someone is paying a premium price, they expect a premium product. If the PS3 version of games is inferior to the Xbox 360 version, I don't see why anyone would want to purchase a PS3. Luckily for Sony, it probably just means that people are having a difficult time developing for the platform.
So Sony is ok because they do stupid things once in a while? Last I checked MS didnt ship out rootkits embedded in their media, nor did their computer peripherals explode. Evil is all in perspective and frankly neither one is real insterested in your personal well being. I would rather buy from a smart company that one that has an equal chance of screwing me on purpose and by accident.
The idea that the bottom of the line Sony is only $100 more than the top of the line MS product is supposed to be a selling point? More storage in games 99.9% of the time translates into more crappy cinematics to skip...
For the $100, you get an unproven media platform, online play completely lacking in infrastucture and second rate motion sensing. What a bargain, in the end the only real "benefit" is the ability to run linux and most of us do that on our pc's so its not really a selling point.
Personally, im opting for neither, I'm putting my money into a Wii and upgrading my pc with the savings.
I have not elsewhere seen the PS3 described as "easy" to develop for. More like "very very hard".
I am a big fan of the Cell (I've done some writing about it and played a bit with the sim), but I can't imagine calling it "easy".
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In my experience (for what it's worth), women love consoles of all forms (and do generally seem to get on better with non-violent games) but don't tend to actually buy consoles very often - they either tend to play with a male friend's console or have one bought for them. As for non-violent games, the PS2 was the best in the last generation at nontraditional games IMO. Most of the gamecube games are "kiddified", but violent nonetheless.
the ps3 is _not_ over priced. Just because you (and I :( ) don't have the scratch (or aren't willing to fork it over if you do), doesn't mean it's overpriced. The pre orders sold out, instantly. By definition it's not over priced. The only way it will become over priced is if Sony fails to drop the prices as sales slow and costs come down. Then it will be overpriced. Until then, if anything it's severely under priced. It's going for well over $600 dollars on ebay and all indications are that the bids aren't jokes.
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