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Final PS3 Launch List Shows 13 Games For America
Wowzer writes "Sony's PlayStation 3 is set to arrive this week on November 17th. With just 400,000 units available at launch in the USA, and an unknown number of game consoles arriving the rest of year. The total is expected to be below 1 million units in 2006, as a result many publishers have decided to delay their games so more time can be spent polishing them. From the article: 'Remember you'll have other ways to entertain yourself with the PS3 aside from it's multimedia capabilities. From day one you'll be able to download small games (plus their demos to give them a try first) and while Sony hasn't announced any specifics like price and release dates yet, count on Sony's PS3 download games like flOw & Blast Factor to be there.' From minor delays like Need for Speed: Carbon being delayed until November 20. To big launch lineup losses like MotorStorm which was delayed to March, 2007. The PS3 launch will now have 13 titles including Resistance: Fall of Man, Call of Duty 3, Genji: Days of the Blade and Ridge Racer 7."
Remember you'll have other ways to entertain yourself with the PS3 aside from it's multimedia capabilities.
$600 plus frostbite to do what my computer can already do. That's fantastic. Sign me up, sir.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
FTFA: * Call of Duty 3 * Genji 2: Days of the Blade * Madden NFL 2007 * Marvel Ultimate Alliance * Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire * NBA '07 * NBA 2k7 * NHL 2k7 * Resistance: Fall of Man * Ridge Racer 7 * Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 * Tony Hawk's Project 8 * Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom
-Buddy of DoQ
I remember that I wasn't going to bother with an XBox 360, then as it got closer and closer to release and I kept seeing shots of PGR3, I just kept wanting one more and more, cursing myself for not pre-ordering. I finally tracked one down a couple of months after launch.
I'm getting none of that with the PS3. As it was, the official playstation magazine a couple of months ago went nuts over the big killer-app launch title, Oblivion, and now that's delayed.
I'm sure I'll buy one eventually, but I'm certainly not upset that I didn't try to get a launch box.
For the Sony launch, Resistance: Fall of Man is the big title - Oblivion was kind of nice but not a deal breaker since it's not really new and people could also play it on PC's.
Resistance looks to have a great story, and also really good multiplayer support with 40 people at once and no slowdown. Plus I have experience with the other games that publisher has worked on and I know they do a great job with control layouts and weapons.
It's the title that is making me wish it wasn't so hard to get a PS3 anytime soon... I'm not keen on waiting in line.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Even if Sony hopes Blue-Ray will become a big factor, there are 23 Sony Blue-Ray DVDs out and not alot of those titles are going to appeal to everyone (little man? Stealth? The list goes on,) games (and to a much lesser extent accessories) are going to play the big role in Sony's success with the PS3 (especially short term.)Numbers from EnterBrain show 88,400 consoles sold (100,000 is an shipment estimate, EnterBrain expects the missing 12,600 are simply ones that were unable to be produced, not unsold.) 62% were high end which falls below the expected 80/20 distribution of PS3 models which, as unlike Nintendo, Sony loses money on every PS3 machine, we can conclude is actually worse as the profit-negating feature of the PS3 is likely to lie with the Blue-ray drive (and possibly to some extend the Cell; it sure isn't helping) which was present in the same cost in the lower model. We can assume that the features left off from the low end machine do not present a significant enough cost to be off set by the $100 short of the low end model (atleast not to make up the loss elsewhere, if not even making up the $100 itself.) Worse yet, despite analysis that all would likly have sold anyways, the Japanese PS3 versions were actually cheaper than what the US will recieve, most probably creating all the larger hill for Sony to surmount in the quest for profit.
But the more important factor is the game sales. Top two games sales were Ridge Racer 7 and Gundum at 30,000 each. Togther, that's only 60,000 games sold! Not even 1 game per system sold (lousy ebayers?) Of course, we don't have difinitive numbers on what the other 3 games available at Japan's launch are (only that they didn't reach 30,000) but we can only guess they might have made up atleast 22,000 if that (Doubt Genji sold well; check out the reviews, critics delt massive damage to that Giant Crab turd of a game.) Still, even assuming a difference made up towards one game sold per system sold, it is not hard to believe that that ratio will not make up the difference of system production costs.
Though it sold out, we're still in for quite a rollercoaster ride as the Wii (a 'strong' competitor with a better quick returns setup) steps in and the production of both console start to kick in to high gear for the USA Mega-holidays Spend-O-Rifica period. Rumors and unverified reports put PS3 second salvos in the US stores ready by the 20th (launch +3 days) and Wii at about the same time (launch +1, though these are rumors) and we can only guess they're going to be out in their bests ready for Post-Turkey day Shopping Madness.
Considering numerous games on the PS3 list are non-exclusive and exclusives like Genji have often been review, criticied and praised by Japan-launch capable news orgs, US shoppers have a lot of choice and information on the games to choose. Even if the PS3 sells out in the US, the different environment games are presented in here in the US (PCs and Xbox 360s being bigger here for things like CoD 3) could greatly impact Sony's success (in terms of profit and market share.)
Demented But Determined.
Well, 400k units sold by retailers and then 400k units sold on ebay, thats 800k, pretty close.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
For what it is worth, a couple of notes from someone who actually owns a PS3...
The launch titles play infinitely better than what was available at the Japanese PS2 launch
Mine has been running 20 hours a day since I got it home, no over heating, no game skipping, no crashes.
It's a big beast (I nearly dropped it when I was handed it over the counter as the retail box weighs a ton), but runs pretty quiet compared to my original Xbox which I only use as a MythTV frontend.
No Linux yet as we are waiting on the installer, but the good news is long term it will be possible to install any distribution that supports PPC (out of the box it supports Fedora). Bad news is that as pretty well all hardware access is via the hypervisor/virtual devices, there is no access to the GPU - yet.
Despite the wishful thinking of Nintendo/Xbox fanboys, the games I own are ALL on BluRay.
It's a really nice bit of kit, for me being able to buy a Cell dev box for 300 quid is an absolute bargain, and a fraction of what I paid for my Arm and PPC box's - and then I get to be able to play Metal Gear 4 and FFXIII too?
If you can code, are interested in non-x86 processors, and can afford one, it's a no brainer - get one.