1 Million PlayStation 3s Shipped

The word from Gamasutra is that Sony is boasting 1 million PS3s shipped. They hope to have 6 million units out the door by the end of this year. This came from Sony's CES press conference, which only touched briefly on their new system. Hints were, though, that they'll be rolling out an IPTV system for many of their consumer electronics via the Xross GUI already in use on the PSP and PS3. From the article: "According to the company, the majority of new Sony televisions -- starting with several Bravia flat-panel LCD TVs this spring -- will accept an attachable module that can stream broadband high-definition and other Internet video content with the press of a remote control button. The module will be available this summer, and content will come from sources including AOL, Yahoo! and Grouper, now part of Sony Pictures Entertainment, as well as Sony Pictures itself and Sony BMG - however, none of this streaming video content has yet been confirmed for the PlayStation 3."

Comments

1 million shipped

[banuk]

prolly 100k sitting on the shelves, the wii turned out to be more popular in the end

Re:1 million shipped

[j00r0m4nc3r]

They actually only have around 20 units that they shipped back and forth 50,000 times

Re:1 million shipped

[HappySqurriel]

prolly 100k sitting on the shelves, the wii turned out to be more popular in the end

The interesting thing is that Sony said:

" ... United States up to the end of 2006, still promising 6 million worldwide by the end of March 2007."

So over the next 3 months Sony plans to ship an additional 3.5 Million PS3 systems. Now if you were to assume 1 Million units for Europe that still means that 2.5 Million PS3 systems have to be shipped to North America and Japan over the next 3 months. Personally, I wonder how many of these systems will just end up sitting on the shelf or in a warehouse being that Q1 is always the slowest quarter of the year for game sales and PS3 demand seems to be (far) lower than was (initially) expected. I'm not trying to bash Sony, but in most years it is pretty impressive if 6 Million units of all systems combined get sold in Q1 in Japan and North America.

Re:1 million shipped

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a marathon, not a sprint. You might be surprised at how the market looks at the end of 2007. The 2 consoles haven't even been out for 2 months yet. There are no winners or losers yet, just leaders. It's a long race. Now return to your parents' basement where you belong.

Re:1 million shipped

[tabacco]

Saw a pile of about 15 at best buy last night, being largely ignored.

Re:1 million shipped

[tabacco]

15 PS3s, I mean. No Wiis.

Re:1 million shipped

[HappySqurriel]

It's a marathon, not a sprint. You might be surprised at how the market looks at the end of 2007. The 2 consoles haven't even been out for 2 months yet. There are no winners or losers yet, just leaders. It's a long race. Now return to your parents' basement where you belong.

To a certain extent this is correct but it is not (entirely) true.

No one will have "Won" or "Lost" until sometime in 2008 but (as far as I know) no company has recovered from a poor start when there was strong competition. The fact is that Publishers look at system sales to determine which system will get exclusive games, which system will get games ported to it, and which system to ignore; if the PS3 is selling poorly while the Wii/XBox 360 is selling well publishers will devote most of their resources towards development on the Wii/XBox 360 which will reduce the number of PS3 systems sold (because people buy systems to play particular games).

Re:1 million shipped

[UbuntuDupe]

No one will have "Won" or "Lost" until sometime in 2008 but (as far as I know) no company has recovered from a poor start when there was strong competition

What about the original Playstation? From what I remember, it had a slow start, in an environment where there were lots of competitors using CD media, but gradually won out.

Re:1 million shipped

[GreenEnvy22]

Yep, at Best Buy yesterday, I saw 8 PS3's sitting on the sales floor. Salesguy said they'd been there for a few days with only a couple being sold. Grabbed a pic with my cell phone for fun.

Re:1 million shipped

[dagamer34]

The original Playstation didn't have any strong competition until the N64 came which by that time, was doing just fine. But, not only did the PS3 have a poor start, the Xbox 360 has had a year to get its act together and the Wii still has plenty of steam from its launch as well. Sony has been accustomed to having a year to get things straight before other competitors came with their consoles. Not going to work this time...

Re:1 million shipped

[HappySqurriel]

The playstation did recover from a slow start but it did not have strong competition. When the Playstation was released the main competition was the Saturn and in Japan there was a close battle for a little over 2 years before the overall dominance of the Playstation was ensured; the main reason for this was that in North America and Europe the Saturn was dead on arrival and developers who had an interest in selling games outside of Japan were (essentially) forced to choose the Playstation over the Saturn.

At the same time, the N64 didn't launch until the Playstation had been on the market for 18 months; with this lead time the Playstation was already becomming accepted and had sold over 2.5 Million units in Japan, 1.5 Million in North America and (IIRC) 1.5 Million in Europe and was already becomming the favourite platform of third party developers.

Essentially, it could be argued that the PS3 is launching in an environment similar to the N64 did against the Playstation (where the PS3=N64 and Playstation=XBox 360) and at the same time competing directly against the PS2 (where the Wii is the PS2) ultimately the slow start is far different this time than it was with the Playstation vs. the Saturn.

Re:1 million shipped

[UbuntuDupe]

The original Playstation didn't have any strong competition until the N64 came which by that time, was doing just fine.

What are you counting as strong competition? At the time of the original PS, it had to compete with the Saturn, Sega CD, CD-i, Turbo Duo, 3DO, Jaguar, and Neo Geo. The point is, it was a very saturated market, and the PS didn't have much momentum initially.

Re:1 million shipped

[NineNine]

I *wish* there were some sitting on the shelves somewhere. I'm still waiting to get my hands on one!

Re:1 million shipped

[tuffy]

At the time of the Playstation's launch, the Sega CD, CD-i, Turbo Duo, 3DO and Jaguar were all either dead or dying in the market. The Neo Geo kept on churning out 2D fighters at the arcades, but never had any impact on the home systems. That leaves the Saturn which launched a few months earlier, but was $100 more expensive with a weak 1st party lineup and increasingly disinterested 3rd parties.

It didn't take long for the cheaper, easier-to-develop, 3D-focused Playstation to catch on.

Re:1 million shipped

[supabeast!]

No one will have "Won" or "Lost" until sometime in 2008 but (as far as I know) no company has recovered from a poor start when there was strong competition
 
What about the original Playstation? From what I remember, it had a slow start, in an environment where there were lots of competitors using CD media, but gradually won out. The original Playstation had a great start. Battle Arena Toshinden and Ridge Racer were both launch games, and no other system had anything that could compare with either one, particularly Toshinden which was the first 3D fighting game sold for consoles. These games made the console a huge hit with arcade fans who wanted to play Ridge Racer at home and fighting fans seeking a faster, easier game than Sega's Virtua Fighter arcade game.

Re:1 million shipped

[UbuntuDupe]

I think the way it's supposed to work is that you fit the theory to the facts, not the other way around.

Re:1 million shipped

[king-manic]

Mi>What about the original Playstation? From what I remember, it had a slow start, in an environment where there were lots of competitors using CD media, but gradually won out.

The SNES int he US as well. It lagged behind initially playign catch up to the genesis. But once certain key games came otu it started stomping the genesis.

Same witht he Ps2. the Dreamcast had a year head start, a fair game lineup and a good launch onyl to see the PS2 come from behind.

Re:1 million shipped

[tuffy]

The fact is, a bunch of 2+ year old systems wasn't any "saturating the market" or providing any competition at all. The Saturn wasn't taking off either. The Playstation's big competitor was inertia from the SNES and by Christmas 1995 the only question was whether the delayed N64 would be able to reclaim Nintendo's dominance when it actually arrived.

It really wasn't that hard to see where the market was going a few months after launch, even 10 years ago.

Re:1 million shipped

[twistedsymphony]

If that article is correct in saying that supply has already met demand then it's also true that the console is selling like crap (aka being ignored). Think of it this way...

Most stores received 5-10 units at launch and the launch quantities were estimated to be between 150k and 200k... nearly double the launch quantities are sitting on shelves at any given store which means there might be anywhere between 300K to 400K units shipped but not sold... If Sony has only shipped 1 million units to the US it means it only took about 600K-700K units to saturate the market (at very least substantially less then 1 million)... that is also known as crappy holiday console sales, even worse when you consider the Xbox 360 saturated the market and sold nearly 2.4 million units in the same period of time, and the Wii is still currently sold out with over 2 million units shipped also. Using the same logic if Sony delivered the PS3 in the same launch day quantities that Nintendo delivered their Wii, then the PS3 would not have sold out at launch.

By admitting that they've met demand they're admitting that the demand isn't all that high. Because the quantities that they've reached are still very low when compared to the competition.

Re:1 million shipped

[harlows_monkeys]

They are sitting on the shelves at my local Target and Walmart. Gamestop is reporting having them in stock at a large number of their stores, too. Best Buy has them online.

Looks like the shortage has ended. If you want a PS3, they are now easy to obtain.

Re:1 million shipped

[UbuntuDupe]

The fact is, a bunch of 2+ year old systems wasn't any "saturating the market" or providing any competition at all.

Oh, I know, I know, when you said competition, you meant "real", "serious" competition. Not, in other words, the Saturn or the Sega CD or the CDi or the 3DO or the Turbo Duo or the Neo Geo. You meant the real, SOLID systems. Just like when you were saying that no Scotsman eats porridge, you were only referring to the true Scotsmen, not like, Angus. Sure, Angus eats porridge, but think about it -- he can't even play the bagpipes!

It really wasn't that hard to see where the market was going a few months after launch, even 10 years ago.

I know. The past is rather predictable like that.

Re:1 million shipped

[fistfullast33l]

Sony has shipped 1 million, Nintendo has sold about 4 million and launched after the PS3!

Okay, first off, the Wii hasn't sold 4 million in North America, it's sold 1.2 million. And that's an estimate. So now, Sony shipped maybe 200,000 (I'm pretty sure the 700,000 in the article is worldwide) in November and 1 million six weeks after, which puts them neck and neck. Where are you coming up with Nintendo selling 4 million?

Re:1 million shipped

[fistfullast33l]

Of course demand isn't going to be that high - it's $600. Compare that to $250 for a console that Nintendo can't make enough of - which is hysterical when you consider that it's parts are almost two generations old compared to Sony's which aren't mainstream by any stretch of the imagination.

Re:1 million shipped

[HappySqurriel]

Oh, I know, I know, when you said competition, you meant "real", "serious" competition. Not, in other words, the Saturn or the Sega CD or the CDi or the 3DO or the Turbo Duo or the Neo Geo. You meant the real, SOLID systems. Just like when you were saying that no Scotsman eats porridge, you were only referring to the true Scotsmen, not like, Angus. Sure, Angus eats porridge, but think about it -- he can't even play the bagpipes!

Most of the competition the Playstation faced in the early days could be compared to the NGage.

Certainly, the NGage was competition for the Gameboy Advance and some people bought a NGage and didn't buy the Gameboy Advance but no one in their right mind ever thought that the NGage stood a chance; the NGage was an awful product that didn't suit people's needs and was remarkably expensive.

The Sega CD, Sega 32x and Sega Saturn being released so closely together both splintered Sega's fanbase and (at the same time) angered many of Sega's early adopters; the Sega CD and 32x demonstrated that Sega was not great at supporting existing products and the Saturn launch with no games.

The CDi, Neo Geo, Turbo Duo, and 3DO were all really expensive in a time when a videogame system was seen as a children's toy; $500 is still seen as an outrageous price for a console and many of these systems were at that price or were higher. On top of that very few games were released for any of these systems while the Playstation was struggling.

Re:1 million shipped

[LordSkippy]

http://nexgenwars.com/

and

http://www.vgcharts.org/

The article you quote states "has likely sold over 1.2 million", which to me says "we don't have all the numbers, but do have this figure." It is also the lowest number I've ever seen when talking about Wii sells. Considering that Nintendo stated that they would ship 4 million (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?s tory=11510) by the end of 2006, and there have been no reports of Nintendo falling well short of that number, the numbers I'm quoting a within the ballpark. While you're 1.2 million seems to be parking the car.

Re:1 million shipped

[HappySqurriel]

According to the firm's preliminary estimates, as reported by CNBC, around 2 million Xbox 360 units were sold in North America from November up until December 25.

The figure for Nintendo Wii stood at 1.8 million units - despite the fact the console only launched in North America on November 19, and the first batch of stock sold out within hours.

link

In addition, Wedbush is estimating that Sony sold 600,000 units (800,000 cumulative) of PS3 and that Nintendo sold 1.3 million (1.8 million cumulative) units of Wii in December.

link

So NPD (the most accurate tracking company in North America) is predicting that Nintendo sold 1.8 Million Wii in North America as of December 25th, the analyst firm Wedbush Morgan is saying 1.8 in 2006, and your number says 1.2 (likely 1.2 Million in December).

On top of that in Japan the current numbers are 1,000,250 Wii vs. 456,750 PS3 where the Wii has been out for 5 weeks compared to 8 for the PS3; Nintedo has also launched in Europe and sold 325,000 consoles in 2 Days in Europe. So we have a number of 3,125,000 Wii sold before we know how many Wii systems were sold in europe over the past 4 weeks; if you assume sales of approximately 200,000 per week (a reasonable estimate) the Wii as sold ~4 Million units to 1.5 Million PS3 systems shipped.

Re:1 million shipped

[fistfullast33l]

You're getting North America and the rest of the world confused. Sony announced it shipped 1 million units to North America. To my knowledge it hasn't said how many were shipped worldwide. Your 4 million Wiis is worldwide, and the website says 1.86 million to North America. So 1.2 wouldn't be too far off if it was an estimate. Plus, where are these places getting their numbers? VGCharts.org has no links to the sales figures they're reporting whatsoever. And nextgenwars has a huge disclaimer that says the number is an estimate.

Re:1 million shipped

[Austerity Empowers]

As far as I can tell, all systems that have been made are sold, or are in between factory and recipient. So far, all we have is hype. The Xbox 360 on the other hand, is definitely out and available for purchase casually.

Re:1 million shipped

[LordSkippy]

No, I'm not getting North America and the rest of the world confused. You got it confused, by assuming I meant North America in my first post (I didn't mention any region).

You need to learn how to read numbers. 1.2 is 64% of 1.86, that's pretty far off. So, your 1.2 million hasn't unbuckled it's seatbelt yet. You also need to learn how to read reports and articles. That 1.2 million number you quoted was a U.S. sale's estimate by analyst, and the article was saying that Nintendo beat it. It didn't list any actual sales numbers.

Now, I'm going to ask you to do a little math. I know, it's hard, but bare with me.

Taking the number of Wiis reportly sold world wide (4 million) and compare that to reportly world wide sales of PS3 (1.41 million), what is the ratio of PS3 to Wiis sold? 35%

Taking the lower number of Wiis sold in North America (1.86 million) and compare that to PS3 sales in North America (0.86 million), what is the ratio of PS3 to Wiis sold in North America? 46%

Now, some questions about your statements:

How does selling 35% as many consoles constitute being "neck and neck" is sales? What about 46%?

How does shipping 1/4 as many consoles constitute "getting the console out the fastest"?

Now, a general question:

How does shipping a quarter of the consoles, compared to a competitor that launched after you, and having reports of your console hitting the supply/demand equilibrium point before that competitor good news for a company? How about for a company that wants it's console as the dominate platform?

Re:1 million shipped

[Leviance]

Not to mention, when the Playstation was launched, it was cheaper than the 3D0, Jaguar, etc. Nobody was stupid enough to buy a $600+ console then, and nobody would be dumb enough to market another console at that inflated price again.

Wait a second..... oh yeah...

Re:1 million shipped

[gfxguy]

Virtua Fighter (the real 3D version) shipped with the Saturn, which I bought several weeks before the PS was released.

Re:1 million shipped

[Reapman]

Futureshop, Bestbuy, EBGames where I live are all sold out. I know, I keep asking. I can't get my hands on one, as much as I want to. Sadly I don't think I will probably even be able to get a Wii (or another game for PS2) for several months now, so all works out I guess...

Re:1 million shipped

[LKM]

I think the way it's supposed to work is that you fit the theory to the facts, not the other way around.

I actually remember that time. After the PS came out, they had demo stations in all bigger shops, showing a (for the time) amazing 3D fighting game (Tekken? Can't remember which one). I've never seen a Jaguar or a 3DO or one of these weird Amiga consoles in real life. The games magazines told people not to buy the Jag because Atari had only produced failures since the 2600. Nobody could afford a 3DO. No store sold Amigas anymore - and I'm living in Europe.

The only competition the PS had was the SNES and the Megadrive/Genesis.

Re:1 million shipped

[LKM]

The reality isn't that it's getting ignored, it's that supply has finally met customer's demand

Wow. Sony ships one million consoles, and the customers' demand is already met? And we're not even talking about one million sold consoles. We're talking shipped.

Only shipping a million consoles and still meeting customers' demand is not a good thing. Shipping around three to four million consoles and still not meeting customers' demand, on the other hand, is a very positive sign for the popularity of the Wii.

Re:1 million shipped

[Itchyeyes]

The CNBC report has been discredited. The official NPD numbers won't be out until Thursday.

Re:1 million shipped

[be-fan]

It's not quite twice was powerful as the original GC.

Re:1 million shipped

[Tourney3p0]

Only on Slashdot can someone start a statement with "prolly" and provide no evidence at all, and be considered "Informative".

Re:1 million shipped

[be-fan]

We have a good idea that the CPU and GPU are very similar architecturally to their predecessors. If Nintendo really had made extensive changes to the chips, they would've done things like boost the amount of 1T-SRAM on the system. The fact that they boosted the amount of external DDR instead indicates that they didn't try to muck with the memory controller to much. The fact that they didn't enlarge the EDRAM on the GPU indicates that they worked on the GPU die conservatively, not wanting to change the load-store pipeline too much.

So while it's possible that certain effects on the Wii are much faster, I'd still say it's a stretch to call the console much more than twice as fast when it still basically has the same design. And of course 2x the raw theoretical power (which would be achieved if they increased the clock by 50% and say increased the number of pixel pipelines by 50%) still doesn't translate into anywhere near 2x the actual performance.

Re:1 million shipped

[/ASCII]

Ok, so 1 million units shipped, but you saw 15 boxes in the corner. 999 985 units sold.

Re:1 million shipped

[metamatic]

Futureshop, Bestbuy, EBGames where I live are all sold out. I know, I keep asking. I can't get my hands on one, as much as I want to.

Order online. CircuitCity and BestBuy have the PS3 in stock right now.

Re:1 million shipped

[ivan256]

Don't tell Microsoft that 1,000,000 consoles in a month and a half is a poor start. They took over three months to sell a million 360s. They launched earlier in the season, and they still didn't hit a million until February.

Only one console had a poor launch this generation, and it wasn't the PS3.

Re:1 million shipped

[VGPowerlord]

It really depends on whether Microsoft were talking about sales to stores or what the stores actually sold to people. There's a great deal of difference between the two.

This article specifically says "shipped" in relation to Sony's sales. It does not say that 1 million PS3s were sold.

Re:1 million shipped

[Reapman]

Canadian here... I probably could but without a car getting shipments are a pain (UPS for example is on the far end of the city... already used up my mooching rights with car capable friends for Christmas presents :P)

futureshop is sold out online currently. I think Canada got barely any, considering I see nothign of what you Americans are talking about :(.

Re:1 million shipped

[reanjr]

Sega CD was an add-on (which pretty much can be read as "failure").
CDi was quite expensive and had almost no games.
3D0 was exorbinately expensive and never had a chance at its price point.
Neo Geo suffered from the flipside of 3D0's problem - the games were very high priced.

Those can be thrown out immediately.

Saturn - for anyone who followed the gaming industry - was a non-starter. Sega had built up way too many platforms at the time and nobody was going to buy a Saturn until Sega proved it was sticking with it.

Turbo Duo was the only competition with actual potential, but NEC had done a pretty good job of giving Turbo a bad name before it became controlled by Turbo Technologies. Not to mention, it was really just aging hardware (TurboGrafx-16) with one of the aforementioned failed add-ons (TurboGrafx-CD).

No, Sony really entered into the market with no real competition (besides oversaturation). People were just waiting to see what would turn out alright, and Sony took the cake by being good enough with a decent company name that hadn't been tarnished.

Re:1 million shipped

[enharmonix]

How does selling 35% as many consoles constitute being "neck and neck" is sales? What about 46%?

Well, I agree with your comment, but as somebody else pointed out in an earlier story, corporations aren't concerned w/ the number of consoles, they're concerned with money.

$250 * 100% = $250 (Wii baseline)
$550 * 46% = $253 (PS3 guesstimate)

If you consider the average cost to the consumer per console times the number sold, PS3 and Wii really are neck and neck. In your defense, though, if you consider the cost to the manufacturer per console (how much of a loss they're taking per sale), Nintendo is absolutely trouncing Sony.

Re:1 million shipped

[7Prime]

That would have been Battle Arena Toshindin, and MY GOD was that an awesome sight! Not only was it the first 3D fighting game that wasn't just glorified wire-frame, (Virtua Fighter), but I remember that it had different outfits for different characters, depending upon the color you chose, which was pretty nifty. I've never been much of a fighting game fan, but that game just made my jaw drop. I was in Middle School at the time; I went over and played it at my lesbian friend's house, and both of us were smirking at how hot the chicks were. That was the first time I ever thought a video game character could be sexy.

Re:1 million shipped

[Mr. Hankey]

At the risk of sounding like some sort of Sony fanboy, out of the lot none of the others really had the 3D capabilities of the PSX. The Saturn had a decent amount of power for those who could develop for it, and I did enjoy the games I had for it, but the PSX really outclassed the Saturn for 3D games with its geometry engine. I had Tomb Raider for the Saturn, seeing it on the PSX it was pretty obvious which system was the fish out of water in 3D games with large areas. The Sega CD and Duo were both interesting 16 bit era systems, I still have my Sega CD for that matter as it had some excellent RPG and very playable action games, but power-wise they both fared much worse than the 32 bit Saturn which was a 2D/audio monster.

If you're trying to mention the 3DO or CDi (never mind the Jaguar with its CD attachment) as competitors, you're selling the PSX laughably short. Neither system had the games to compete, the 3DO was probably at its best with the Putt Putt games and that's sad. The CDi didn't have even that much and when it came to marketing, it seemed to get caught up in the FMV craze that marred the Sega CD. It was "Interactive" all right. I still remember that cheesy commercial with the couple playing "Voyeur" and acting like they really cared. That system died the death it deserved.

Hopefully the Wii continues to fulfill its promise of bringing the 3rd dimension into game play instead of just the display. It really is about time for another real leap forward in gaming. I've been quite impressed so far by a few of the games I've played, but it's up to the developers to bring us more interesting ways to control the action.

Re:1 million shipped

[7Prime]

Also, the Playstation, as well as the XBox, were each the company's first system, so there were no expectations of how well the systems would do. Now Sony and Microsoft have a very strong video game presence, and every time they falter, all eyes will be on them. There is an advantage to being a first-timer in the console industry, in that everyone knows that you can only go up from there (or just not take off at all). The PS3 is in a downward spiral, as far as I'm concerned; comparing it to the Playstation launch is completely silly.

Re:1 million shipped

[7Prime]

That's not fanyboyism in the slightest; it's the truth... and if you can't see otherwise, from our perspective 10 years in the future, than you're blind. Sega didn't start working on the 3D chipset until well into the Saturn's developement... and the other's? lLet's just say they had NO CLUE about what they were doing. Sony had the advantage of originally working hand in hand with Nintendo on what was supposed to become the SNES CD, so they were about as knowledgable as a seasoned video game hardware manufacture by the time they released the Playstation.

The Playstation 2 had no competition when it began (not much, the DreamCast was already floudering), and it did very well, so discussing the success of the previous two Sony consoles is neither stupid or fanboyism. Now, if you can't see that the PS3 is falling on it's face, on the other hand, is akin to halocost denial, as far as Slashdot is concerned.

Re:1 million shipped

[kripkenstein]

No one will have "Won" or "Lost" until sometime in 2008 but (as far as I know) no company has recovered from a poor start when there was strong competition. The fact is that Publishers look at system sales to determine which system will get exclusive games, which system will get games ported to it, and which system to ignore; if the PS3 is selling poorly while the Wii/XBox 360 is selling well publishers will devote most of their resources towards development on the Wii/XBox 360 which will reduce the number of PS3 systems sold (because people buy systems to play particular games).

Very true, yes. However, it is too early to say whether the PS3 has a 'poor start': while in the US the XBOX 360 is far ahead, in Japan it isn't doing so well. The Japanese market, while not as large as the US of course, is still very large, and if the PS3 becomes the dominant console over there, that will be more than enough incentive for developers to target it. Of course, besides the XBOX there is the Wii, which may turn out to be very serious competition for the PS3 in Japan... time will tell.

Re:1 million shipped

[macshit]

I'm not trying to bash Sony, but in most years it is pretty impressive if 6 Million units of all systems combined get sold in Q1 in Japan and North America.

Sony's main goal at this point is to keep the keep the hype, smoke, and mirrors going long enough to fool 3rd-party game developers into dedicating lots of resources towards making ps3 games. If they can keep that up long enough, and the ps3 becomes known as the "system to have" (and Sony can eek though some kind of price drop), the future will sort itself out more or less.

If not.... well, I think Sony simply cannot even let itself thing about that possibility; they've bet an awful lot on the ps3 dominating...

Re:1 million shipped

[antek9]

I don't have any numbers, and while there has been some excitement due to its launch shortly before christmas, I dunno, didn't notice an awful lot of hype.

We didn't buy the first gamecube either, you know...

Re:1 million shipped

[ivan256]

Given that the PS3 is almost universally sold out, the difference is probably negligible. It is still very uncommon to see a PS3 in stock. I doubt that you would find more than a couple stores in the whole country which have units from their daily shipments last until the next business day.

Yeah, people aren't lining up before dawn to get them, so you might see one in the display case when you're at Target in the afternoon or something, but even the less desirable 20GB units are still selling out the day they arrive.

On the other hand, Microsoft claims to have sold 7.something million, but I'm sure that includes the pile of 20 systems at every BestBuy, Circuit City, Frys, Target, Toys R Us, Gamestop, and Walmart in the country. Maybe there are a few thousand shipped but unsold PS3s, but there must be well over a million shipped but unsold 360s. It'll be the same way for the PS3 this time next year, but this close to launch "shipped" and "sold" may as well be the same number.

Re:1 million shipped

[VGPowerlord]

Given that the PS3 is almost universally sold out, the difference is probably negligible. It is still very uncommon to see a PS3 in stock. I doubt that you would find more than a couple stores in the whole country which have units from their daily shipments last until the next business day.

Except that's not true. Heck, my local Best Buy had 2 out on the display floor two days before that sale started, and each store was holding back 25 due to the advertisement's guarantee of a minimum of 25 units for the sale.

They aren't the only retailer that still has them in stock, too.

The Wii, on the other hand, is selling out as soon as it comes in everywhere here, a metropolitan area of 100,000 people.

Re:1 million shipped

[ivan256]

Stockpiling is a different story... Also, anybody who's wanted to buy something in short supply will tell you that the BestBuy inventory display shows the status as of closing time the previous day. Stores don't have a continuously active link to each other. If they're stockpiling, of course the numbers are going to be elevated. If not, the numbers aren't going to be up to date. How much do you want to bet that screenshot was from the Chesterfield, MO store? It's got typical levels of weekly sales, but none in stock. That tells me all the other stores probably sold out too, but the updated numbers won't come in until the nightly cron job runs.

Regardless of all of that... The number unsold compared to the number shipped is still a statistical anomaly when the device is sold out in most places.

Re:1 million shipped

[SethraLavode]

If the corporations are intelligent, they care about both the number of units moved AND the money earned. Especially when you are dealing with video game consoles, and you have to convince developers and publishers to support your console.

It's all well and good for Sony if they are pulling in the same amount of money by selling fewer PS3s for more money, but all Square-Enix is looking at is the fact that there are less than half the number of potential customers out there who have $350 less to spend on their games.

Re:1 million shipped

[enharmonix]

If the corporations are intelligent, they care about both the number of units moved AND the money earned. Especially when you are dealing with video game consoles, and you have to convince developers and publishers to support your console.

It's all well and good for Sony if they are pulling in the same amount of money by selling fewer PS3s for more money, but all Square-Enix is looking at is the fact that there are less than half the number of potential customers out there who have $350 less to spend on their games.

Concur. Considering Ninentdo is only barely not breaking even per console sale and they are moving a lot more units, and console manufacturers make their money from the games anyway, it really should only boil down to who sells the most units. That's why I'm not sure I trust the analysis that predicts PS3 winning by 2010... It just seems like there will be more Wiis, which means more Wii games, meaning Wii wiill wiin.

Info....

[jrwr00]

I would still like to know how many they have sold! not shipped, a product can ship 7million units for all i care, but how many did they sell?

Re:Info....

[antifoidulus]

I think the distinction isn't nearly as big as most people make it out to be. If none were selling then retailers wouldn't order any more and Sony would ship less. IE there may be a difference, but actually the number shipped is more accurate than the number sold because it is easier to keep track of.

Re:Info....

[KDR_11k]

One million is still less than the number retailers would keep in stock. Later on it becomes a more exact measurement but currently retailers have little data to determine what numbers to order and many just assume that because it's called Playstation and supply is limited they can just safely order as much as they can get. I don't think the shipped numbers mean much yet. The disparity is probably not that bit but right now the shipped numbers are more indicative of their production capabilities than the demand for the system.

Re:Info....

[zarq]

Have a look at http://nexgenwars.com/, the numbers on that site appear to be pretty believable.

Re:Info....

[UbuntuDupe]

Also, on this one, I think sales numbers would be *less* reliable because they may double-count a sale if a failed scalper returns it.

(Yes, I do know someone like that.)

Re:Info....

[SnarfQuest]

I would still like to know how many they have sold! not shipped, a product can ship 7million units for all i care, but how many did they sell?

Well, there were some 20,000 available on ebay. Do those count twice?

Re:Info....

[Troed]

Uh, only if you're the site's 18 year old admin - who's just guessing anyway.

http://www.vgcharts.org/ actually has some valid data behind their numbers.

Re:Info....

[mnmn]

What they ship they will eventually sell. Even if at a major loss. Receiving the units back would be the biggest loss possible, so they'll definitely sell what they've shipped.

It also means stores have 'purchased' the units from Sony, so strictly speaking Sony has sold the units, when stores agree to receiving the shipments and paying Sony eventually.

I'm tempted to buy one just for the multiple cores and processing power in Linux.

Re:Info....

[Troed]

You could've used the time it took you to write this post to check the facts instead, but sure. Do a whois on nexgenwars.com - see the nameservers - go to that website.

(Relevant information under "about")

In 2002 James Simpson was just 14 years old and had just entered the online world. His interest in programming advanced quickly along with his skill and he had quickly created his first site

Regarding numbers - vgcharts.org publically explains their sources on their site (check the forum). nexgenwars.com takes wild guesses and includes a "real time counter" with no connection to reality.

Re:Info....

[slashdotjunker]

How does this get modded informative? The linked site provides zero supporting documentation for how the numbers are computed. This could only be modded speculative. A category which does not exist (for good reason).

Hmm

[Attrition_cp]

Just curious, but if the Xbox 360 has 10 million sold, and the PS3 hopes to have an additional 6 million by the end of the year (on top of this 1 million?)...

Doesn't that mean they can't possibly have a market domination even after a year? How long do consoles typically have to win over the market?

Re:Hmm

[RorthronTheWise]

The year is the *fiscal* year that, for Sony, ends in March

Re:Hmm

[dj961]

How long do consoles typically have to win over the market? One hit game.

Re:Hmm

[CashCarSTAR]

They have ohhh...

Until the end of March I'd say. All snark aside, there's some reality to that statement. The reason there is a "console wars", is because the console that makes the best business model for 3rd party developers gets the most exclusive games and the best ports. It's as simple as that.

The business model that Sony presented this generation, is one of the highest development costs, for a variety of reasons, but they hoped to balance that by selling 100 million systems again this generation. Which would work pretty well. Except for the selling lots of systems part it seems. So their whole business model they're presenting breaks down. For this reason, you'll see a sparse line-up this holiday season, which results in less sales. It's a negative feedback loop, and the stronger it is, the more they'll need to do to counter it. (An AAA+++ title or a huge price cut or both)

Just to go a bit further. The 360 has a more comfortable programming/design environment and better tools provided, lowering costs, and has a large and very active American and European fanbase, plus online handled through XBL, the possibility of demos and new content, and microtransactions (even though we all hate them). It's a good model.

Nintendo is offering a very low development cost system, that focuses more on controller interaction than pushing polygons. And it looks like Nintendo will be combining this with a very large world-wide installed base. (The Wii will probably be the #1 system worldwide by middle of the year) It's a very good model.

It all comes down to the games. Before the launch of the PS3, people were saying they wanted it because they wanted the same experience they got with the PS2 and the PS1, namely the huge library that had games in every genre and even created a few new ones. But it's looking more and more like that experience is going to be on a non-Sony system.

So if Sony can't start selling systems, it's not going to get the games. And if it can't get the games, it'll probably end up like the GameCube..making games for it's core audience, but little beyond that. And I liked..no loved the GameCube. But a lot of people didn't. (Mostly people who didn't have it..but anyway) Or they perceived it to be a failure.

Re:Hmm

[drinkypoo]

Just curious, but if the Xbox 360 has 10 million sold, and the PS3 hopes to have an additional 6 million by the end of the year (on top of this 1 million?)... Doesn't that mean they can't possibly have a market domination even after a year?

It more than likely means they can't possibly pass Xbox 360 for two years.

How long do consoles typically have to win over the market?

It seems that they have as long as their parent company can afford to promote and maintain them. Sega went to the bitter end with the DC. Even the Neo-Geo limped on for a long, long time.

Re:Hmm

[UbuntuDupe]

It's a negative feedback loop, and the stronger it is, the more they'll need to do to counter it. (An AAA+++ title or a huge price cut or both)

On that note, is there anything to the rumor that MGS4 could be ported to the Xbox 360? I bet MS could crush the PS3 in its infancy if they lured MGS4 and maybe the next Final Fantasy by offering the developers zero licensing fees, which wouldn't be much of a sacrifice since they weren't planning to get license revenue from either of them in the first place.

Re:Hmm

[nuzak]

> Until the end of March I'd say.

Hardly. The 360 was still not available in decent quantities even then in 2006. No one is writing it off anymore in the US market.

> And if it can't get the games, it'll probably end up like the GameCube..making games for it's core audience, but little beyond that.

You're aware, aren't you, that Sony's "core audience" is defined by about a hundred million PlayStation 2 consoles? Sheesh. I'm one of those PS2 owners, and I'm holding out on the PS3 for myriad reasons (the lack of a hit game being the main reason -- Resistance just isn't my type of game), so I think Sony might have some bumps in the road for the PS3 too, but it's a little early to be writing the obits.

Re:Hmm

[amuro98]

There have been rumors of MGS being released on the 360. Nothing has been made definite, and for now, Konami denies the rumor. I think we'll see MGS on the 360 eventually, seeing as how it happend for the original Xbox.

As for Final Fantasy, that probably won't happen. However, Square-Enix has made some vague noises about putting out an RPG of some sort for the 360.

Re:Hmm

[HappySqurriel]

You're aware, aren't you, that Sony's "core audience" is defined by about a hundred million PlayStation 2 consoles? Sheesh. I'm one of those PS2 owners, and I'm holding out on the PS3 for myriad reasons (the lack of a hit game being the main reason -- Resistance just isn't my type of game), so I think Sony might have some bumps in the road for the PS3 too, but it's a little early to be writing the obits.

That's simply not correct, Sony's core audience is the people who bought the Playstation or PS2 based on the strength of Sony's first and second party developers. If you look at the sales charts for SCEA ( here ) you'll notice that they have a lot of games that sell well but, except for Grand Turismo, none of their games "define" the PS2; when you look at the total PS2 chart ( here ) you'll notice that Take 2, Square, EA, Konami, and Activision were all heavily responsible for attracting gamers to the PS2.

Re:Hmm

[twistedsymphony]

Well Squenix has already released FFXI on the 360, as well as Project Sylpheed in Japan, coming to the US eventually... and while FFXI is dated and PS isn't anywhere close to a flagship title it's still head and shoulders more support then they showed for the Xbox 1.

Re:Hmm

[twistedsymphony]

hell, the Neo-Geo is still limping along.. I have a friend that just picked up some recently released Metal Slug and King of Fighter carts.

Re:Hmm

[Guppy06]

"As for Final Fantasy, that probably won't happen. However, Square-Enix has made some vague noises about putting out an RPG of some sort for the 360."

I'm willing to bet that Sony got blindsided with the announcement that DQIX will be for the DS. It'll have little effect outside of Japan, but having VII and VIII as well as remakes of IV and V on Sony consoles wasn't exactly a bad thing for Sony sales. Final Fantasy is a mere consolation prize compared to Dragon Quest.

Final Fantasy XIII specifically, when will that come out again, 2008? A lot can happen between now and then, and S-E might move that to the 360 if, say, the 360 still has a considerably larger installed base. The PS3 may be the technologically superior platform, but so was the Sega Master System, and we all know what Final Fantasy was published for.

Re:Hmm

[Guppy06]

"It's not like Sony is chasing those third party developers away these days, is it? Given the amount of A-list development studios they own outright, they can hardly produce less content now than from the PS2 days."

Let's step into the Wayback Machine, Sherman, and take a look at 1995.

It's not like Nintedo is chasing those third party developers away these days, is it? Given the amount of A-list titles they develop outright, they can hardly produce less content now than from the SNES days.

Re:Hmm

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Thing about the Gamecube was that it had all those awesome Nintendo titles as exclusives. Sony doesn't have that sort of first-party software team; if the third-party support for PS3 dries up, there will be very little to redeem it.

Re:Hmm

[DrXym]

Just curious, but if the Xbox 360 has 10 million sold, and the PS3 hopes to have an additional 6 million by the end of the year (on top of this 1 million?)...

100 million PS2s were sold in its lifetime so 10 million still pretty small potatoes. Besides let's reasonably say that the PS3 sold 10 million by the end of the year (not unreasonable since Sony are pitching for 6 million by March and they haven't even launched in Europe yet). If you were a games developer, even if the 360 were up to 20 million, does that mean 10 million consoles is not worth your time to develop for? Even it it only adds 10-15% to your budget? Did it happen with the XBox?

I'd say hell no. Which is why the PS3 has a long life in it yet. It's close enough to the 360 to make it straightforward to port games from the 360 (or vice versa) and it will have enough sales to justify doing it too, as well as exclusives.

The odd man out is actually the Wii. While it's selling well now, how well will it sell when the realisation dawns that it really, really sucks compared to the 360 and PS3? Once the gimmick has worn off, and PS2 / XBox / GC games many titles are ported from has disappeared, it may well find itself stuck in 1st party Pokemon / Mario hell just like the Gamecube was with precious few 3rd party titles to bulk up its library.

Re:Hmm

[tepples]

It's not like Nintedo is chasing those third party developers away these days, is it? Given the amount of A-list titles they develop outright, they can hardly produce less content now than from the SNES days.

Nintendo has also never lost money on games since Donkey Kong, even in the N64 or GameCube era. It ended one quarter with a small loss on paper due to currency exchange rate fluctuation, but compare that to Sony Computer Entertainment or Microsoft Xbox, which had real losses, real big losses.

Re:Hmm

[nuzak]

Parrot back with the nouns changed, stunningly novel strategy there.

Problem is, NES was notoriously abusive to third party devs for almost its entire lifetime til now. Many are still taking a wait-and-see attitude.

Re:Hmm

[Guppy06]

"Parrot back with the nouns changed, stunningly novel strategy there."

Since when must one devise some new and novel debating strategy whenever one wishes to demonstrate a point? At least I'm not propping up a straw man.

"Problem is, NES was notoriously abusive to third party devs for almost its entire lifetime til now."

I was referring to the introduction of the Nintendo 64 (hence the year 1995 and the reference to the SNES, not the NES).

"Many are still taking a wait-and-see attitude."

If third-party developers are so skittish about Nintendo, why are they still flocking to the DS?

Re:Hmm

[nuzak]

Tell you what: you win. Revel in it.

Re:Hmm

[DrXym]

Putting aside "fun" for a second, the problem is that the Wii is the odd man out. The PS3 and 360 are very, very similar in terms of performance and features making it easy to develop to develop for both in parallel (e.g. any EA game). Or to make a game timed exclusive and then port (e.g. Virtua Fighter 5). Or to do a game for one console and the sequel for the other (e.g. Ridge Racer). That means development costs are less to support the PS3 than you might think since probably 90% of the game is identical to the 360 version and vice versa. The same is not true for the Wii - you either have to port up from the PS2 / XBox / Gamecube (e.g. Splinter Cell : Double Agent, Call of Duty 3) or spend a lot more money developing content exclusively for that one platform (Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam) since you sure as hell won't be able to port down very often. So the crunch will come when the first option disappears. At that point you have two very powerful, similar highend systems, and one very underpowered low end system with limited potential for ports. Which do you think will suffer the most?

Obviously lots of cross-platform games are a load of old crap. But there are some excellent games in there too which may be denied to the Wii and even the crap (e.g any EA sports title) is still bought by somebody.

Now concerning "fun", I wonder why anybody thinks Nintendo somehow has a monopoly on fun. That appears to be a cop out often used to make up for lack of titles, or for hardware specs. I expect that 2.5 million Gears of War owners are also enjoying their fair share of fun at the moment despite the fact there is no Nintendo hardware in sight.

Re:Hmm

[be-fan]

It all comes down to the games. Before the launch of the PS3, people were saying they wanted it because they wanted the same experience they got with the PS2 and the PS1, namely the huge library that had games in every genre and even created a few new ones. But it's looking more and more like that experience is going to be on a non-Sony system.

While that's certainly possible, I'd still say that it's far from likely. After a year on the market, the 360 is still essentially dead in Japan. A lot of people dismiss this by pointing to the fact that the US market is twice as big as the Japanese market. On the other hand, it should be borne in mind that a large fraction of the top video game publishers are Japanese. The other thing to keep in mind is that Nintendo is ignoring a large part of the market in order to solidify their niche. The Wii hardware just isn't appropriate for many flagship titles, which are expected to not only excel in gameplay, but in graphics as well. You're just not going to be able to make the next Gears of War or the Gran Turismo or the next Final Fantasy on the Wii.

Clearly Sony has its work cut out for it. However, the market is still their's to lose (the PS2 was the holiday sales winner for yet another year this season). They've got the advantage that they're only competing with Microsoft on the high-end, and that they've got a strong low-end product to ride them through the launch problems with the PS3. They've also got the advantage that Microsoft's presence in their domestic market is essentially nil, and that their only other competitor domestically seems to be aiming at a different demographic.

Re:Hmm

[be-fan]

Actually, Nintendo *did* drive developers away during and after the SNES. Third-party developers got increasingly angry with Nintendo's heavy-handed policies during the SNES era, and when the N64 came out both late and with the cartridge format, they jumped ship to the Playstation.

At this point, Microsoft has scored some victories with getting some cross-platform titles, and a few titles from small publishers that are finding the 360 world to be less crowded, but for the most part, Sony's third-party developers are staying put. We aren't seeing anything like the rapidly-dwindling future lineup we saw with the N64.

Re:Hmm

[StikyPad]

An AAA+++ title

eBay: The Game?

Re:Hmm

[ClamIAm]

Just curious, but if the Nintendo DS has 35 million sold, and the Xbox 360 hopes to have an additional X million by....

I never understand why video game console flamewars never take into account all the systems out there. The handheld systems out now are not little toys: there are some seriously impressive games for them, both already released as well as upcoming. Hell, the next Dragon Quest will be on the DS.

Of course, this is Slashdot, so I probably shouldn't expect anything above teenage pseudo-intellectual bullshit.

Re:Hmm

[soccerace09]

While it may be off topic, are your claims on console sales alone, or the fact that Sony and Microsoft have lost money? If the latter, it may be in part to the fact that they deal in many other areas of electronics, not just video game consoles. Sources would be great.

Re:Hmm

[Concern]

OK, I'm a game developer. I suffered through a thousand tribulations to reach the point I'm at today. I paid my dues, I beat out the world's stiffest competition, and I have secured an 8 figure budget to make a console title.

Maybe my next game will change the world. Or maybe it will merely be entertaining for a week. Maybe it will suck. Who knows? But anyway... I will spend the next several years of my life making it. I will only make a few games this big in my career.

What system will I develop my game for?

Xbox 360?

Wii?

PS3?

My game will take 2 years to write. Well, 2 years and six months, realistically. Lets say three and call it even. So, starting today, what system will I target? What system will have the biggest audience in 2009?

Wii looks pretty good. For one, my cost of entry is the lowest with Wii. So is the consumers'. With their pricepoint so low, you basically have to admit that they will sell more units than Microsoft. Probably quite a lot more... the Wii hardware sale is already profitable for Nintendo. Within 3 years the price will come down... plus the controller is cool. Hmm.

Then there's MS. Hmm. Their hardware is nice. My game will definitely look better on the 360. And no one can match their online infrastructure. MS's rep wants to talk about a promo deal - a demo and some making-of reels on XBL. Sounds interesting.

There's no denying that they're the next-gen market leader today - pushing 10 million units sold. If my game were coming out tomorrow, it would need to be a 360 game - unless I wanted to make a PS2 title. I hear that John and Tim are both putting in the most work on pipelines tailored to its GPU. Oh yeah, and there's one thing about Microsoft. You know they are not going to go and pull a Sega. They are fucking RICH. They're not going anywhere. They know the PC is dead, and they know the console is the future. They're in this to win, all hundred gajillion dollars worth. And so far, you have to admit, betting against them has never been smart.

Oh yeah. Sony. Hmm.

Right. Well, maybe, if it's cheap, we can port to the playstation 3. And the PC even? We'll have to look at the budget. If the audience is there... Say Sony has 10 million users by 2009 to the winner's 40 million. Say a 10% uptake... ...

OK, stop. Even if I just ported to the PS3, Sony loses. You don't buy the most expensive system to play a port, nor do you put the effort into a single target of a port game to take advantage of Sony's expensive, unique hardware.

To succeed, they need to be attractive to 3rd party developers - now, today. For that matter, a year ago, or 18 months ago - because those are the titles coming out in 2007 and 2008. They failed at this before they even launched. The best they can hope for now is what Nintendo had - a niche, buoyed with some strong first-party titles over its life. It's difficult to estimate what it would take for them to recoup their investment. You could argue that even a modest success could put their blu-ray media play over the top and, if blu-ray wins the format war, the associated profits could in some sense justify PS3 costs. Is that worth it? I don't know.

The PS3 will never capture the success of the previous two systems. I will still buy it, becuase I loved Ico, and in addition to renting blu-rays from netflix I know there will be a few more games like it I would miss, otherwise. But I'm the exception, not the rule. :)

Re:Hmm

[CashCarSTAR]

Yeah, the point isn't that people won't buy it..people will. Quite a few people (My guess is in the 20-30 million range)..but it's as you said, when it comes to development, it's going to be the 3rd choice, like the GC was this generation. It's the also.

Nintendo learned from the mistakes of the past (and I think that having an guy who ran a game design company running their operation is a big part of this), and have created the Wii from the ground up as being attractive to 3rd party developers, as well, as not changing their chip architecture, all the old libraries will still work, or will be really easy to adapt.

  Microsoft has provided, from what I heard great tools to create on their system, which makes it attractive, and they have a very strong NA and European userbase which are very active players with a high attach rate.

Sony is going by brand and brand alone really.

And this is NOT about system sales, at least not directly. This is about game development, and which systems get what resources (and what games). Very few people seem to recognize it. Kudos on getting it.

I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[Lalakis]

When will companies start saying how many units were sold, instead of shipped? We are not really interested in their plants manufacturing capability.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[Frigga's Ring]

My guess? As soon as they have sales figures worth touting. Most of the sites I've gone to (Kotaku, Gizmodo, etc) are saying how many Wii have sold; not how many have been shipped.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[jours]

> When will companies start saying how many units were sold,
> instead of shipped? We are not really interested in their
> plants manufacturing capability.

Well they kind of go hand-in-hand because they don't just ship them into a black hole, and they obviously don't build units that they don't intend to sell. If the stores are willing to accept them it's because they have "shelf space"...and that's because they've sold their last shipment already. From the manufacturer's perspective these units are sold.

Now in the past there have been companies who have shipped a bunch of product just before the end of a fiscal period to hit a decent number, only to have all the retailers ship it back because they were already holding a bunch of inventory. That's just a numbers game though.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[chrismcdirty]

Nintendo generally lets people know the truth, I suppose. They tell investors numbers sold, not shipped. They told journalists the polygons Gamecube could push in a real environment with textures and effects, not the number of polygons it can display in a wireframe mesh.

Most of the time, it seems that they're ready to accept the criticism they'll surely get, so they don't try to make things look pretty.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[fistfullast33l]

When will companies start saying how many units were sold, instead of shipped?

You misunderstand how the whole manufacturing chain works. In auto sales it's easy to determine how many cars a company is selling because they control the important end of the chain to determine sales to consumers - car dealerships. Companies like Sony and Microsoft do have their own online stores but the majority of their sales are through retailers that are 3rd parties. Those 3rd parties aren't likely to report sales of a specific product, especially in the timely manner that manufacturers need. So as a result, they're forced to say how many units they've shipped in order to report how strong a product is. The theory is that it's hand in hand with sales since most big-box retailers use Just-In-Time inventory and other methods to keep consoles from piling up. Retailers aren't stupid - if the product isn't selling they won't order it. However, there may be contractural obligations built into sales contracts that says they have to stock so many units or buy in blocks.

This timely manner for sales reporting, by the way, can be blamed on everything from the console war to the fact that Wall Street demands quarterly reporting from public companies.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[archen]

The numbers game is mainly done by Sony here. From what I see where I live you still cannot get a Wii - so pretty much all units produced were sold. The PS3 is sitting on the shelves however. Often 5-8 units per store. This is extrapolating where I live across the entire U.S. so obviously that isn't that accurate, but I've heard similar stories from people across the U.S. and Canada.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[Phisbut]

If the stores are willing to accept them it's because they have "shelf space"...and that's because they've sold their last shipment already. From the manufacturer's perspective these units are sold.

Not so. In early November, all the stores wanted to have as many PS3 as possible knowing (or thinking) that it would easily sell out. Say StoreX ordered 100 units in november, but due to the initial shortage, Sony sent them 15, sold the 15 units (10 of them going to scalpers), and 5 of them get returned and sit on the shelves (typical situation), Sony will still send 85 more units to the store from the initial order.

The stores did not order more units, they simply received what they had ordered during the hype period.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[jours]

> Sony will still send 85 more units to the store from
> the initial order. The stores did not order more units,
> they simply received what they had ordered during
> the hype period.

From the manufacturer's point of view those units were already sold with the original order of 100, it just hadn't been fulfilled yet. Follow your example through...now the store certainly won't order any more PS3's until it has sold some of the 90 it has on its shelves.

Point is if Sony continues to ship them then someone is buying them. There's no great conspiracy here about misrepresenting shipments as sales.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[ClamIAm]

You misunderstand how the whole manufacturing chain works.

You misunderstand how the whole marketing chain works. The number of Playstations sold will always be less than the number shipped. And in marketing, a more-impressive number is always better.

Also, the subtle distinction between "shipped" and "sold" works very well from a FUD point of view. Clueless and/or incompetent journalists will fuck up and conflate the two, resulting in $NEWS_ORGANIZATION proclaiming "10 million Playstations sold!". In addition, people who don't stop to examine what "shipped" means in this context will come to the same conclusion.

Either way, Sony wins.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[miro f]

a bit OT, but you'll find that a video card can in general do less polygons in a wireframe mesh than a solid (although with effects and high res textures that might change, definitely the absolute fastest renderng is with a solid shape rather than a wireframe mesh.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[edwdig]

The 6 million polygons number everyone throws about wasn't a "real world scenario". It was a simple, unoptimized tech demo with music, physics, and AI. Nintendo meant it as a performance minimum - you can get 6 million polygons per second without even trying hard.

MS and Sony's numbers were the highest peak performance you could obtain. Something like something triangles with no lighting, shading, or texturing. MS's numbers might've been ever so slightly more realistic. I know that used to flash a demo with a scene full of butterflies (a whopping 2 polygons each... maybe 4).

Japan?

[MeanderingMind]

Sony promised 2 million consoles worldwide by the end of last year, and we received 1 million (apparently). Does anyone know if Japan received the other million, or did Sony fall short?

Re:Japan?

[HappySqurriel]

The data is still not entirely complete (there are some game sales missing for the final week in December) but the yearly chart for Japan has the PS3 at 446,750 units sold; being that the Japaneese statistics are far more accurate than American statistics you could assume that Sony shipped about 500,000 units in 2006.

Re:Japan?

[DrXym]

The 1 million in this headline was to the US only. Japan got 400,000. So still short of 2 million but not by as much. Certainly the fact that Sony managed to ship / sell 1.4 million by end of December demonstrates they're on top of the production issues - they sold 400,000 at launch or thereabouts which means they've managed to produce, ship and sell 1 million units by year end. Which suggests they're not having issues with blue laser diodes any more.

Bravia only?

[Generic Guy]

several Bravia flat-panel LCD TVs this spring -- will accept an attachable module that can stream broadband high-definition and other Internet video content with the press of a remote control button.

So it sounds like this only works on Sony units, and only certain specific Sony units at best -- yet another Sony proprietary product to waste their resources upon. Can't they see that a seperate unit which works with any HDTV would be better for both them and customers? But, this is Sony we're talking about.

Re:Bravia only?

[powerlord]

Can't they see that a seperate unit which works with any HDTV would be better for both them and customers?

So you think Sony should make a unit that will work with any HDTV, and allow content to be streamed from the Internet to the TV.

How about if it includes a next-gen Media player also, like say Blu-Ray?

I think they made this unit already. They decided to call it the "Playstation 3". Perhaps you've heard of it?

Misleading Headline

[Dr Kool, PhD]

That's one million PS3s shipped TO THE US and only in 2006. One million does not include consoles shipped after the new year and consoles shipped to Japan at any date.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6163828.html

Re:In the end?

[HappySqurriel]

Declaring some unit to be more popular "in the end" after less than three months on the shelves is like declaring a baseball team the world series champion after the Grapefruit League.

"In the end" is a phrase which is typically used to express how the anticipated result is different than the actual result and does not actually refer to a absolute ending; at this point in time it is fair to say something along the lines of "The PS3 was supposed to be the popular system this holiday season but, in the end, the Wii ended up being far more popular."

It only takes a couple good games.

[SQLz]

Thats what happened to the Original Playstation, although, good games (read: original) seem to only be found on the Wii right now.

Re:It only takes a couple good games.

[fistfullast33l]

although, good games (read: original) seem to only be found on the Wii right now.


Yes that's right! In the coming months we can look forward to original titles from Wario, Mortal Kombat, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, SSX, Prince of Persia, and Medal of Honor. Nope, never seen those before. And let's not forget all of those original rehashes for virtual console!

Re:It only takes a couple good games.

[miyako]

I think that people are sort of exaggerating the unique experiences that can be had on the Wii a bit. Don't get me wrong, it's an absolutely FANTASTIC system, but the only really unique game that I've seen for it is Elebits (which, for some reason I can't quite explain, reminds me of Katamari Damacy). Granted, there are some other good games, Zelda is of course the big system seller for the "hard core" audience, and Super Monkey Ball, with all of it's mini games, seems to be popular among the less hard core crowd, but over all, they aren't radically different from anything else out there.

Re:It only takes a couple good games.

[twistedsymphony]

I'd have to disagree with that... after the initial excitement of getting a Wii wore off I've been quite bored with it. Zelda is a great game but quite similar to the experience I had on the N64 titles, Not to mention after playing the GC version, I'd rather use that controller if only for a better camera. Red steel is a terribly generic shooter thats only interest is in it's controller interface, which is so buggy it's horrible to play. Trauma Center is a cool title but it's identical to the DS version save a couple of newly added levels, Monkey ball, pretty much the same as the GC and Xbox versions I've already played, Excite Truck and Wii sports are fun for an hour or two with friends but they become quite boring after that... there just isn't enough depth to them beyond their initial impression. Elebits looks interesting but I haven't played it yet so I can't really comment on that title.

When you look at the 360 it's got Gears of War which is a very fresh shooter the game play is quite different and very unique in comparison to the many other shooters I've played, in terms of multiplayer/co-op the game has enough depth to provide much lasting appeal. Also Viva Pinata gets my pick for the most innovative game this holiday, it's what I'd image the results would be if Nintendo made Spore. Then of course there are older titles like Dead Rising which is akin to the melding GTA, Resident Evil, and Shenmue... and Test Drive Unlimited (the first MMO Racer).

Honestly I played nothing but the Wii for most of December, I wouldn't consider most of the games all that innovative, particularly as someone who's owned all of Nintendo's consoles. So far the games that truly utilize the Wii remote are horribly shallow and don't serve as much more then a way to impress your friends for an hour, other games that have the necessary depth that you'd expect from a modern game don't use the Wii remote in any real unique ways, they just replace pushing the analog stick with waving the remote around.

The Potential is there, and I'm excited to see what will come out in the next year or so but as of right now, the Wii is collecting dust and I've started playing the 360 again, the controller might not be anything new but the current crop of games are far more interesting in my opinion.

Re:It only takes a couple good games.

[Itchyeyes]

I'm sorry, you've obviously either never played Viva Pinata or never played Animal Crossing since about the only thing that the two games have in common is bright colors. Viva Pinata is more akin to a mix between The Sims and a tycoon game. Even if it was similar to Animal Crossing, does that somehow not make it a good game? Perhaps we shouldn't be playing Half-Life 2 because id already did it "or something very similar"... they called it Doom and it sold for the PC 15 years ago.

Re:It only takes a couple good games.

[LKM]

Games don't need to have an unique concept to be unique on the Wii. Wii Tennis has the blandest concept ever (it's fricken tennis! With stick figures!), but it still an unique experience. The Wii isn't unique because the games are different, it's unique because you play them differently.

Re:It only takes a couple good games.

[LKM]

It took the Xbox a year to get a game like GoW. Zelda is a launch title and easily beats GoW, in my opinion. Yes, the shooters on the Wii are pretty bad right now, but the potential is definitely there (combine the best parts of CoD and Red Steel and you have something pretty compelling). Yes, most of the games don't have too much depth, but they're launch titles.

And I'm still playing Wii Sports every day :-)

Re:It only takes a couple good games.

[tepples]

I'm sorry, you've obviously either never played Viva Pinata or never played Animal Crossing since about the only thing that the two games have in common is bright colors. Viva Pinata is more akin to a mix between The Sims and a tycoon game.

And AC:PG for GameCube is The Sims + Harvest Moon.

Re:It only takes a couple good games.

[twistedsymphony]

It took the Xbox a year to get a game like GoW. Zelda is a launch title and easily beats GoW, in my opinion.

I only used GoW and VP because they're recent titles, but I found quite a bit to like with the 360 at launch: PGR3, Condemned, COD2, and DOA4 soon after launch. They might not be the most innovative titles (though Condemned was pretty original) but they were all quality releases and I still play PGR3 and DOA4 regularly, as do many other people (I know because the servers are still fairly populated online) which in my book makes it a fantastic title.

Unsold means loss as costs decrease too!

[failedlogic]

Amid concerns that some of the consoles are just "sitting" on the shelves, I'm sure that this is posing an addtional loss for Sony.

I say this because I'm sure they get better prices for parts on a Quarterly on Monthly basis. If something didn't sell which you didn't have to produce and your cost goes down = loss.

I also wonder if there is lower adoption because the higher quality Blu-Ray (and who "wouldn't" want it to play movies) really needs an HDTV to take full advantage of the system. This means system price + cost of HDTV. Ditto for X360.

Aside but relevant:
I don't know about most /.'ers but I'm 26. I've played a fair number of video games. I've had a Gamecube and PS2 for over 3 years now. Only three games on the console have "wowed" me to the point I wish all games were like it: Zelda Wind Waker, Metal Gear Solid 2 and MGS3. Otherwise, all games to me, are now boring, repetitive, not story driven and/or too time consuming (don't have time for RPGs anymore). Sorry to say to the console makers and I think I'm not alone: part of my demographic won't shell out mega-bucks when we have rent to pay when all the games look, feel and play the same! And I'm not buying a PS3 just for MGS4 (might rent to play it). And time wise I don't think I'm buying a Wii (I already have a better one anyways ;) )

Re:Unsold means loss as costs decrease too!

[amuro98]

Blu-Ray? Blu-ray is irrelevant. I guarantee we'll hear plenty about players that can handle both Blu-Ran AND HD-DVD while also upscaling your regular DVDs (something the PS3 can't do!) AND will cost less than $500 by Christmas. Single format players, including the PS3, are now obsolete. Sony's plans of using the PS3 to help Blu-Ray conquer the market have failed.

That leaves games. Sony better realize that they only way to sell a GAMING CONSOLE is to help their developers produce lots of GAMES.

I'm not interested in IPTV - I already have Tivo and Netflix - that's already too much to keep up with. If I buy a PS3, it's going to be so I can play games. No games, no PS3.

Re:Unsold means loss as costs decrease too!

[VGPowerlord]

You should try Zelda: Twilight Princess. I liked it a lot better than Wind Waker, but it also took a lot longer...

Re:MythTV on PS3

[PS3Penguin]

oops .. the </shameless plug> got stripped out .. sorry noob to slashdot posting.

Re:The PS3 will do fine when...

[dagamer34]

When a system has to depend on 2 games that won't reach American shores for a good 1-2 years, you can definitely sense trouble. No one spends $600 for 1 game. That's lunacy. The way I see it, it's going to be real hard to get the PS3 out of this rut unless it finds a way to cut costs. It can't have developer abuse anymore, not when the system with the most units right now is also EASIER to develop for as well. If I were a developer, there's no way I wouldn't put a game on the Xbox 360 unless the game was designed for the Wii in mind. Even more, a publisher only thinks of profits, and right now the PS3 is a huge sink in which money must be thrown in before any will come back out.

But how many million games sold?

[WillAffleckUW]

With the average PS3 game getting a 1, 2, or 3 on a 5 point star rating scale, and the average PS3 buyer only buying 2-3 games, they're not even close to break even - which would require the average PS3 console owner to buy ... 12 to 20 PS3 games.

There's business.

And then there's economics.

Just ask Microsoft's Zune about that ... on today's NPR show on the electronics show, they talked about the iPod, not the Zune. You can market - but you won't make people buy.

Re:But how many million games sold?

[ClamIAm]

I assume you're referring to the claim of "Sony is h3morrhaging teh moneys on ps3!!1". If you are, please provide a link to a validated quote from someone within Sony as to how much the system actually costs to make.

Re:But how many million games sold?

[WillAffleckUW]

Nah, I'll just use the estimates reported in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal as to the Sony console losing more than $240 per unit sold (and more for the other version of the PS3) - which requires them to sell that many games, based on license fees and mix of ownership of games.

Note that if they sell movie titles and music in Blu-Ray format, they partially make up that amount in license fees, but all music stores show that demand for these - especially movies - just isn't there, unless you count Taladega Nights, which was shipped in an included bundle with the PS3.

You can rely on the Sony "estimates". I'll rely on the independent financial whizzes.

Re:But how many million games sold?

[dank zappingly]

I don't think that anyone expected them to be close to breaking even 2 months after launch. As the manufacturer gets more efficient, the system can be made more cheaply. Your numbers also assume that the console buyer does not buy any peripherals, blu ray discs, or online content.

Re:But how many million games sold?

[WillAffleckUW]

No, as I indicated, license fees were included.

What peripherals? If you have a Blu-Ray player as part of the PS3, you have no need for another ...

Again, check a large number of stories on this issue in the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required), as they detail the actual subsidized costs and address many of the same sub-issues you bring up, as well as how many factories are online and where the shortages actually are.

That given, we see neither a large wave of consumers buying Blu-Ray discs (music, movie, or games) in the numbers sufficient to pay for the subsidy level to even break even on the manufacturing costs. Internal short-selling shows that even the Sony people don't buy the hype.

Maybe if Microsoft hadn't already announced their support for HD-DVD format, Sony wouldn't have to worry about it, but it looks like the market is already deciding the format war in the detritus left behind by the PS3 launch.

Re:But how many million games sold?

[ClamIAm]

You can rely on the Sony "estimates".

I'm not relying on anything like that. I'm more relying on Sony PR spin, which is very good at hinting and FUDing about how powerful and super-awesome their game machines are, but never reveals real costs. The only number I remember coming from Sony was the "investment" they put into the PS3, which doesn't tell us much about how much each unit costs.

I'll rely on the independent financial whizzes.

You didn't link to actual articles, but losing $240 sounds similar to what I've read. The problem I have with these quotes, though, is that I'm not convinced they are taking everything into account. Namely, the fact that Sony's a huge electronics manufacturer. So any analysis would have to be a lot different than that of, say, Nintendo or Microsoft. I have yet to see any analysis which even admits this, much less tries to account for it.

Re:Pathetic

[dagamer34]

Fiscal year 2007, not calendar year. That would be 6 million shipped by the end of March 2007. RTFA.

bestbuy.com has them

[fribhey]

you can always just order one online from best buy:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9999 65800050007&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat1 04100050000&id=pcmprd65900050007 says ships in one day.

or you can buy a bundled PS3:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site//olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat 104100050000&type=category

Re:bestbuy.com has them

[NineNine]

I actually don't shop at those big box stores, but thanks for the info, anyway. Very useful. I'm heading down to my local game store today to see if they have any.

Re:bestbuy.com has them

[bilbravo]

If you aren't willing to shop at those "big box" stores, then don't complain about not having one and still wishing they were sitting around in piles where you are...

Re:bestbuy.com has them

[NineNine]

I'm not complaining. I just didn't know that any were available anywhere. I wasn't even planning on trying to track one down until spring. bUT, If I can't get one locally, I'll just wait. No big deal. I've been waiting for a few years, already, what's a few more months?

"Fiscal Year"

[Petersko]

Somebody already modified the article. It's not the end of 2007, it's the end of their fiscal year, or March.

PS3 sitting on shelves

[roberthead]

Last week, my local GameStop had a couple of PS3s that had been sitting for several days.

As of yesterday, my local target has about 20 in stock and are only selling them at a rate of about 2 per day.

I'd be curious how many Wii units have shipped, because I would wager that the number shipped is almost exactly equal to the number sold. They are nowhere to be found here in southern Oregon. Looks like I won't be getting my Wii for another few weeks.

Sony misjudged demand. Nintendo can't catch up to it.

Re:Some simple math...

[justinlindh]

But how realistic is any of this?

What is the current installed userbase plus rate of new installations for gaming systems? With the last generation (PS2/Xbox/Gamecube), how many million found there way into people's homes? If we assume that all of those people will buy a next gen system (not possible, but for the sake of argument), along with however many new customers are expected, is it really possible to expect 25+ million consoles to have a home? Due to the prices of the 360/PS3, it's not currently as likely that there will be much, if any, overlap (2 or more systems/home).

It seems to me that people are forgetting that not everybody wants any of the new systems, and I doubt the current userbase is large enough for this kind of growth.

Re:Some simple math...

[powerlord]

So, if at the end of the year, they hope to have a grand total of 6 million shipped, and saying that no one buys another 360, Sony will barely have over half as many units out there as MS. Those aren't promising numbers to me at all. Consider Wii sold 2 million in approx. 2 months. Sony needs 14 months to do what the Wii will most likely do in 6 months.

Um ... the "end of the year" Sony is referring to is the end of their Fiscal year in March. So, lets figure 3 months from now (roughly).

If Sony ships 6 million units by then, then they will have shipped a total of ~7.5 million PS3 units (using the numbers from http://www.vgcharts.org/ ).
Assuming MicroSoft's XBox360 maintains its current rates of shipment of ~567K units last November (generous since this is pre-holiday), then they will have added ~1.5-2 million units to bring their worldwide shipped units to ~10 million.

If this is true (don't know if it will be or not), then this would place the PS3 in a very good position to surpass the XBox360 by years end.

I think the Wii will probably outsell both of them (possibly by years end), but its selling to a different market (the much larger "casual gamer" market). I also think the Wii is still harnessed with a stigma of being a "Kids" system for a lot of regular gamers. Its price and appeal to non-gamers is also what will probably push a large number of XBox and PS3 owners to get one as well (at some point).

I think the PS3 will pass the XBox360 and while its numbers won't reach what the Wii is going to get, I bet its numbers aren't going to be much below the PS2 in the long term.

Re:In the end?

[Mursk]

Aw, you're just bitter that they cut the vibration feature...

From my personal experience.

[Churla]

I had not really bought into the idea of "needing" a next gen console. I predominantly game on the PC. The day after x-mas I'm at a friends house for Poker and the wife goes into the other room and plays on the Wii they picked up. I am immediately informed that this device is on the "must acquire NOW, why didn't you get me one of those for xmas?!?!?" list.

So after xmas I start a ritual on my remaining vacation of checking stores around the DFW area for a Wii. Took a week and a day before I scored one (at a WalMart) and ever place I checked I got a familiar refrain...

"We have no Wiis in, we aren't sure when we'll get more. But we have these PS3's , wouldn't you like one of those?"

I also don't hear buzz amongst friends who have xbox 360's or PS3's about one game or the other, but everybody I know with a Wii raves about how much fun they are. I would say the leader out of the gates for this holiday is the Wii, with Xbox 360 out in front due to getting an early (by MONTHS) start.

Add in that Sony loss leads with the cost of production of the console being above retail. but Nintendo makes a profit on every console and you have a strange formula which actually says Nintendo is doing better. But I'm sure Sony will save the day for themselves with some well though out proprietary product that uses a standard or media format which they are the only really proponents of. That's how it works, right?

Re:From my personal experience.

[SydShamino]

"We have no Wiis in, we aren't sure when we'll get more. But we have these PS3's , wouldn't you like one of those?"

Absolutely. The employees at several stores here in Austin were trying to push the same thing on me. "Sorry, no Wii. But would you like a PS3? We have a lot of them!" They seemed so sad to not have Wii for me, and looked depressed that I wasn't interested in their "consolation prize".

(Finally got a Wii last Tuesday, tracking dates and times for UPS shipments.)

Re:From my personal experience.

[TobyWong]

We got a Wii in here at work a couple days after release. I tried it for 15 minutes or so and then got tired of it. I don't really see what all the fuss is about.

Re:From my personal experience.

[EComni]

I also don't hear buzz amongst friends who have xbox 360's or PS3's about one game or the other

Well, first off, anecdotal evidence is bad (and I hate to partake in it with you). But I have to call shenanigans. Everyone I've encountered with 360s has done nothing but rant and rave about Gears of War and how it's one of the best games they've played ever. The game has sold nearly 3 million at this point, and that's not an accident or some localized thing. I'm still not convinced the Wii will take America & Europe from the 360 (GTA4 & Halo 3 later this year), but I do think the Wii will end up winning worldwide. The appeal to non-gamers/casuals and parents getting it for their kids is undeniable, unparalleled, and possibly the widest ever.

Re:From my personal experience.

[VGPowerlord]

I know two people with Xbox 360s. Neither has mentioned Gears of War other than to say "I have it, it's OK."

Unlike the 5+ people I know who have Wiis who say that I really need to try Wii Sports.

Re:MythTV on PS3

[PS3Penguin]

Built in HDTV output, digital audio, small nice looking box, DVD... It has a lot of nice options +++ I get to use it as a game machine too. MythTV is cool on old hardware if you are doing older standard def content .. I am doing DigitalTV recordings (straight off the air in the new HDTV ATSC format) .. so I need a front end with enough horse power to seamlessly decode HDTV content.

Shipped often means sold

[seebs]

The problem is that, now that one can find PS3s just sitting in stores, shipped doesn't always mean sold. Furthermore, warehouses might have even more... Still, it seems fairly likely that Sony shipped around 1.5M consoles to retailers and the like during 2006.

vgcharts.org, who seem accurate enough, estimate total PS3 sales worldwide at 1.41M so far (that implies maybe 1-2 hundred k in various display cases, not an unreasonable number) and Wii sales as 4M.

Once again...

[wilgibson]

Sony is touting how many they've shipped. Whoopee! All that tells me is how many or how few they've been able to produce. When I see sales figures I'll give a rat's ass. Anyways, I can go to any local BestBuy and walk out with a PS3 no problem. They just aren't moving in my area. Now the Wii on the other hand... I'm just happy I froze my ass off in October to pre-order one of those suckers. I'm sure Nintendo's sales figures for NA can hands down beat Sony's shipment figures!

Wait a sec...

[Guppy06]

This is a PS3 story? Then why are you still using the PS2 controller as a logo? /sarcasm

Re:Wait a sec...

[tepples]

This is a PS3 story? Then why are you still using the PS2 controller as a logo?

Because the basic shape of the PlayStation family controllers hasn't changed since the Dual Shock was introduced back in the mid-PS1 era.

E.T. the game shipped 2 million units!

[BenJeremy]

Yes, the game shipped 2 million units, but nobody bought them.

For Sony it's debatable what is worse... losing $300 million dollars by selling these units, or losing more money having them sit on the shelves. I guess sitting on the shelves is worse.

It would also be interesting to find out how badly the actual sales numbers really are, when returns and resells on returned units is taken into account. I suspect they aren't terribly great.

Fanboys can defend Sony all they want, but they will absolutely lie to the public to achieve whatever ends they desire. "David Manning" reviewer for the fictional "Ridgefield Press" proved it, Rootkits re-affirmed it, dodging repeated calls to fix the exploding laptop batteries proved it, and even with the PS3, their desire to sell gamers snake oil continues to prove it.

The fact that they are crowing about "Units Shipped" is very telling indeed. They are damned by the absence of meaningful numbers. Die in a fire, Sony.

Re:MythTV on PS3

[MSFanBoi2]

Too late. Bill Gates showed IPTV over the Xbox 360 at CES this morning.

Xbox 360 already has those killer games....

[BenJeremy]

Oblivion, Gears of War, Viva Pinata, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Crackdown, Halo 3...

All exclusives. There are easily a half dozen other great games that aren't exclusives, but combined with the above?

The Playstation 3 needs a lot more than a "couple of titles" - those might grab a few hardcore gamers, but the Wii with it's unique control (assuming it doesn't get old, as in novelty) and Xbox 360 with Live both offer strong features that aim for a wider audience. I've heard some pretty disparaging things about Sony's networking, and absolutly nobody has called Sixaxis "fun" - indeed, most think the controller feels cheap without the weight of feedback motors in the grips.

The playing field just isn't as level as it used to be. Sony spent more time on Blu-Ray than on the gaming side, and it shows. The console was even delayed to deliver BD, and yet with all that extra time, many games came out of the gate as flat as the proverbial dead horse they beat telling us how revolutionary this console (erm, excuse me, I meant to say "super computer") was going to be.

Re:Xbox 360 already has those killer games....

[DrEldarion]

Oblivion

Not an exclusive. Coming out on the PS3 quite soon, IIRC.

I see the PS3 sales numbers being mediocre until next holiday season - MGS4, FFXIII, and GTA4 will drive millions of sales.

Re:The PS3 will do fine when...

[happyemoticon]

I think you are vastly overestimating Square/Enix's largess and brand loyalty. Final Fantasy I-VI were Nintendo exclusives (well, there was no real competition at the time) but they jumped ship because the N64 wouldn't cut it. It is fair to say that they did this both because the N64 would not allow them the creative latitude they needed, and because they sensed that the N64 would ultimately lose out because the N64 was so creatively restrictive that no one would write games for it.

Granted, I do not know much about S/E's business, and I haven't really followed them since they got in bed with Sony. While FF 13 is in development for the PS3, unless Sony has them in an iron-manacled contract, a port is not out of the question. Heck, it would probably be pretty easy, considering that they're getting chips from the same company, and they'd be going from Stupid Ass-Backwards Gimmick Processor to Solid Traditional Processor.

At the end of the day, I would rather be the manager who sold out to the Southern Barbarians and made a fat wad of cash for my stockholders than be the patriot who brought ruin to my stockholders.

Non-Fanboi

[felonious]

I'm not going to rehash the same pro/con fanboi arguments in this here post.
What I will offer up is my humble opinion.

They are meeting demand faster than the 360 due to the system not selling out as fast.
The cost is still too high and they won't see big sales numbers until they lower the cost. They can't lower the cost, at present, due to losing money out of the gate. It's also a lost cause because MS/Nin can still low ball them if they decide to drop the cost. I think if they came in around 360 premium price, they would see better market penetration. They should also consider releasing a non-BR version with wifi for $299 and I bet it'd sell the shit out of the present choices they are offering up.

The PS3 was, pretty much, a paper release. I say this because they didn't have enough units, on hand, very few games, an incomplete gaming network, etc. I think they released and hoped to get the early adapters and such, but to this point, I think it's been a disappointing release, for them, no matter what they say. The truth is the cost is the single biggest issue holding them back. Everyone is piling on, now, so unless they pull something huge out of their asses, things aren't going to improve until they drop the price.

$600 is way too much for a video game system for the avg family, period. All the spoiled children who want to say it's not, obviously don't earn a living, so they have no valid appreciation for how much $600 is. I can afford a PS3, no problem, but I am unmarried and I don't have children. My low cost subsistence of free pr0n, boca burgers, and no debt make things more affordable:D I finally bought a 360, after a year of trying to justify it, because I could at least modularize it, which does make it cheaper. That's the simple truth.

Re:Non-Fanboi

[Megane]

They should also consider releasing a non-BR version with wifi for $299

The problem is that they can't. The expensive part isn't the movie decoding, it's that freaking blue laser. And they've committed to releasing the games on BR discs. Sony have basically screwed themselves by trying to push their pet technologies.

They don't have a great track record doing so: Betamax, ATRAC, Memory Stick, SACD, and probably a couple more obscure enough that I don't remember them. None of them are popular technologies, one is completely dead (please don't anyone bring up the completely different Betacam), and ATRAC and Memory Stick are only used by people foolish enough to buy Sony products that won't let them use anything else. Sony wants the same lock-in with Blu-Ray, never mind the past history of their other lock-in technologies.

(Remember, kids, SONY is an anagram of NOSY!)

Re:Non-Fanboi

[Fozzyuw]

They should also consider releasing a non-BR version with wifi for $299 and I bet it'd sell the shit out of the present choices they are offering up.

A pretty straight forward idea, but even before the PS3 was shipped it was already mentioned it would be next to impossible to 'remove' the Blu-Ray once it's there. Why? Size and HD support. Games are already made. You cannot go back and 'downgrade' the system and think these games will still play the same or that the developer will go back and modify the game to work on a normal DVD media. They'd just shoot themselves in the foot to do that. Of course, they could just put games on 5-6 DVD's and have you install them (ala PC gaming), but still you'll be loosing that HD support and that's half of the marketing reason to buy the system.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Non-Fanboi

[BenJeremy]

Blu-Ray = Sony
HD-DVD = Hitachi

They represent the major backers in the formats, each gathering a coalition of other suckers, erm, companies to release products. Don't let the paper tiger fool you - just as the CD format is "owned" by Philips, even though it is ostensibly a multi-company effort on PAPER.

Sony's non-electronics side is leveraging it's bleeding electronics division to push the format, at a huge lead-loss, into the public. It's about Intellectual Property, not about gamers.

What baffles me is why anybody would remain in a consortium where the biggest player, and in effect, the primary driver of the technology is "dumping" cheap Blu-Ray players on the market while their own $1000 players collect dust in the showrooms.

Re:Non-Fanboi

[jonabbey]

HD-DVD = Hitachi

Toshiba, you mean.

Re:Non-Fanboi

[BenJeremy]

Yup, just a little foggy in my mind, and after a bad experience with a Toshiba VCR-DVDR combo, I guess I just couldn't bring myself to give them credit for being innovative.

Re:Non-Fanboi

[MikeBabcock]

I regularly see a lot of really uneducated remarks about Sony's PS3 release and its not your fault, but you need a background in manufacturing and electronics manufacturing especially to understand this.

The PS3 is CHEAP. Period. How do I say that? Well lets compare to plasma or LCD screens. They were over 10 times the price they are now just a few short years ago and when they were first introduced, they were fantastically expensive. Why? Because manufacturing was difficult and yields were low. So you ramp your prices up for early adopters who are willing to pay the premium, work out your manufacturing kinks in the meantime, get your costs down and start going mass-market.

The Playstation3 is no different. Sony has production problems -- more than they thought they would obviously too. Low yields mean the PS3 should be more like $2000 because they'd still have sold that one million (very low number) of units at that price, and been able to keep the ball rolling for better yields, then price cuts.

The PS3 wasn't $2000 because they don't want to position it as a luxury item (like a Bravia TV for example), but as a mass-market item.

Supply and demand, yields and basic business rules would all say the PS3 should've been launched at a higher price, not a lower one. They don't have the extra units to sell so why would they lower the price? Their problem right now isn't convincing people to buy one, its making enough of them reliably.

PS, I really don't care if your local Walmart has an extra unit in stock, we're talking a MILLION units here, not singletons in individual stores. Will the PS3 make 6 million sales at the current price? I wouldn't doubt it. Will they hit 25 million at this price? Probably not, but manufacturing will be cheaper down the road anyway.

Oh and "without a Bluray drive" is a pretty bad idea -- how on earth are you going to play PS3 games (which are all printed on Bluray discs)? Bluray isn't about movies. Its a storage format. Large optical storage discs happen to be good for movies. They're also good for video games, backups and other things. Taking bluray out of the PS3 means no PS3 games.

Re:MythTV on PS3

[LikeTheSearchEngine]

By reasonable, do you mean not scalped, or less than the $600 asking price? If you mean you don't mind paying the asking price, there are a dozen PS3s down at the local best buy that no one else is buying...

Confused, Irratated and Annoyed

[Stevecrox]

I don't doubt that 1 million unit have shipped to USA but, I'll be honest here I am a PS3 fan, a big one, but I don't see how they will ship or sell 6 million units by march. Its £549 in the UK (when released), thats double what Americans have to pay. I can justify £300, perhaps a little more, I still think the £200 cost of my PSP was worth it. Yet its the only console which will offer true versitility, I get my Gran Turismo,GTA, Tony Hawk, etc... fix and I can play Guitar Hero,Buzz and Singstar with friends. But is it worth £549?
The Xbox360 isn't in the same market, After a year there are almost enough games to make me interested in getting a Xbox360, but the limited hard drive lack of blu ray/HD DVD, crappy expansion slots and most importantly lack of any singstar,buzz,Guitar Hero type of games which puts me off the console.
The you have the Gimmick or Wii as it prefers to be known which has Wii sports, while I'm sure it will suck in many people with Wii Sports (heck we do have a 30 person strong waiting list for Wii's) I can't help but see it as anouther gamecube which will end up with two games I like and the rest of the game library sucking hugely. I'm not saying Wii Sports isn't fun, but it is the type of game which doesn't stay fun after the tenth time you've picked it up (kinda the same way a singstar/buzz game loses enjoyability over time.)
What does a gamer do? On one hand you have a console which sells based on a Gimmick (Wiimote) which looks set to sell hugely, one console which is limited in games for the non hard core gamer (which has sold well(Xbox360)) and the only console which looks like it could cover both is so incredibly expensive that I couldn't justify buying it (as well as the company showing increasing signs of evilness.)

Re:Confused, Irratated and Annoyed

[BenJeremy]

Well, the Xbox 360 has HD-DVD, and Guitar Hero will be released for it... and there is a new version of the 360 coming out with an HDMI port and bigger hard drive (120GB).

You'll probably wait until those come out, but it sounds like you are already on the verge.

Re:Confused, Irratated and Annoyed

[Stevecrox]

The Wiimote is a gimmick, I know the PS2 and Xbox controllers do put your casual gamer off, my mum will happily play signstar and buzz (with their speacial controllers) but won't touch any normal PS2 game.So yes I suppose it is at least a step out for others, but to be honest I find the guns i got with Time crisis a lot more natural than a Wiimote, how many bowling/Sword games can you release before people get bored? Why do I focus on Wii Sports? Because everyone (well customers in work) who wants to buy a Wii talks about Wii sports and the Wiimote, I would rather have seen a Wiimote for a gamecube before the Wii and have it prove itself as a good controller rather than seeing the Wiimote and watching nintendo run around telling us why its better, then again I think the PS2 controller is one of the best interfaces I've ever used for games.

I've played Zelda, Wii Sports and Red Steal. It took me two minutes to work out how to win everytime on Wii Sports, Red Steal just seemed a demo for the remote. Zelda was mildly fun but I'm not a Zelda fan. I can see why Wii Sports would be a lot of fun espeacially in a group, but once you have it figured out it loses interest (espeacially when you realise a few flicks of your wrist will do better than any bowling action.)

They are the only three games out in the shops in my area and I have looked at the upcoming titles (my sister wants a Wii and I was curious) nothing in the line up excites me, I hated Rayman on the PS2 because the charracter was highly irratating, you can give me a fancy remote but the charracter will still annoy me, just as giving a really uncomfortable looking controller to play some of the other titles will put me off.

The thing is many of the upcoming PS3 games do interest me, as do a very slowly growing number of Xbox360 games, I'm 20, I have a part time job, goto uni and love all the PS2 games I've played and am a bit of a fan boy. I'm more or less the market for the PS3 but I'm here wondering if it is worth the cash so how will Sony shift 6 million?

Re:Confused, Irratated and Annoyed

[HappySqurriel]

The thing is many of the upcoming PS3 games do interest me, as do a very slowly growing number of Xbox360 games, I'm 20, I have a part time job, goto uni and love all the PS2 games I've played and am a bit of a fan boy. I'm more or less the market for the PS3 but I'm here wondering if it is worth the cash so how will Sony shift 6 million?

I could be absolutely wrong, but I suspect that your age is one of the main reasons you're so readily able to dismiss the Wii; I would say that the 13-21 year old male hard-core gamer group is probably not going to 'get' the Wii because (practically) every system they have ever owned will have had (essentially) the same controller, they are too young to be getting really tired of the existing game genres and they are too image conscience to feel comfortable doing something which looks goofy or childish. Those of us who are a bit older will have seen all sorts of controllers (paddles, track balls, joysticks, flight sticks, d-pads, analogue sticks) so we're less tied to the existing controller model, we have played certain genres and watched them evolve and stagnate, and some realize that we are not that cool so why pretend to be.

Re:Confused, Irratated and Annoyed

[dank zappingly]

I thought that the HDMI and large harddrive were not confirmed. I read the story on engadget. Does anyone have a link to official info?

Re:Confused, Irratated and Annoyed

[BenJeremy]

Check xbox-scene.com - they have not been "officially" confirmed by Microsoft, but there's a video demonstrating the HDMI.

I expect a $100 price drop in the next 6 months, with an introduction of Xbox 360 "Gold" taking the price slot of the "Premium" with the 120GB drive, and maybe HD-DVD drive built in.

I also suspect Microsoft may prepare a USB-based tuner to incorporate the missing feature from this gen's - Tivo-like capability.

1 unit shipped.

[MikeFM]

They have a single unit that can be in all places and in all times at once. Sometimes it looks like a big scary black bird.

Re:Some simple math...

[holt]

Assuming MicroSoft's XBox360 maintains its current rates of shipment of ~567K units last November (generous since this is pre-holiday), then they will have added ~1.5-2 million units to bring their worldwide shipped units to ~10 million.

The 360 has already shipped 10 million units... Bill Gates announced at CES that they've already crossed that mark.

Re:Some simple math...

[flitty]

Good job sony! You've got your supply lines working to get consoles to shelves! One aspect of the launch worked (finally). Can i mention that each of the big box stores has a "cost" of shelf space? If a peice of equipment sits on the shelf long enough, that company will actually lose money on that product. I'm sure the markup for stores can't be that much for this machine.

Two-year generations

[tepples]

for [Wii] to be two generations old the average generation would have to be about 2 years which (I hope) never happens.

It happened in the early 8-bit era: Atari 2600, Intellivision, Atari 5200/Colecovision, NES/Atari 7800. It happened within a single company in the 16-bit era: Sega Genesis, Sega Genesis with Sega CD, Sega Genesis with 32X, Sega Saturn. And it's been happening in Games for Windows for the last decade.

Wii vs. PS2

[tepples]

How does selling 35% as many consoles constitute being "neck and neck" is sales?

Because PlayStation 2 Slimline is still selling like hotcakes.

A Poomote in each of your SIXASSES

[tepples]

Can't say I'd want 6AXIS in my rectum!

If you have SIXASSES, you can stick a Poomote in each of them.

(But seriously, only Wii has 12 player mode.)

Why not FF4-6 on the Mega Drive?

[tepples]

Final Fantasy I-VI were Nintendo exclusives (well, there was no real competition at the time)

Final Fantasy IV through VI were released on Nintendo's Super Famicom, which competed with the Sega Mega Drive. Or was the Mega Drive significantly less successful than its North American version (Sega Genesis)?

Re:Some simple math...

[Knuckles]

With the last generation (PS2/Xbox/Gamecube), how many million found there way into people's homes?

PS2: 112 million
XBox: 24 million
Gamecube: 21 million
Dreamcast: 10 million

No 720p-1080i upscaling

[tepples]

So you think Sony should make a unit that will work with any HDTV [...] I think they made this unit already. They decided to call it the "Playstation 3".

Problem is that PLAYSTATION 3 doesn't work well in 1080i mode. Specifically, CRTs that take only 1080i will run in 480p mode in software that supports only 480i, 480p, and 720p.

Re:No 720p-1080i upscaling

[powerlord]

Problem is that PLAYSTATION 3 doesn't work well in 1080i mode. Specifically, CRTs that take only 1080i will run in 480p mode in software that supports only 480i, 480p, and 720p.

Okay, so you're complaining that CRTs that only support 1080i and 480p when used with games that only support 480i, 480p and 720p choose the highest resolution they have in common?

Yes, the video at 480p is not as good as 720p. Complain to the developers for not supporting 1080i.

What am I missing here?

Re:No 720p-1080i upscaling

[tepples]

Complain to the developers for not supporting 1080i.

What am I missing here? Developers are what makes the PS3 worth buying. If developers don't come through, then why even buy an HDTV console when you can get Wii for half the price?

Re:No 720p-1080i upscaling

[SuiteSisterMary]

The fact that they could have included a video scaling chip, so that the PS3, when told that you have a 1080i, will render in whatever format the game wants to render to, then upscale it and send it out to the display.

Which, I'll point out, the Xbox 360 does.

Re:No 720p-1080i upscaling

[MikeBabcock]

The Playstation3 runs fine in 1080i mode, and in 1080p mode for that matter.

Your complaint is rather that the Playstation3 doesn't auto-scale games to an arbitrary resolution to match your TV (720p->1080i for example) or that your games aren't available in the resolution you like.

Oh wait, is it possible you should've bought a TV that actually handles 720p input and scales to 1080i on its own? :-)

Re:No 720p-1080i upscaling

[tepples]

Oh wait, is it possible you should've bought a TV that actually handles 720p input and scales to 1080i on its own? :-)

Early adopters of HDTV didn't have that option. Manufacturers assumed that all set-top boxes would have upscaling.

Re:MythTV on PS3

[PS3Penguin]

Not scalped ... local pickup (nothing at the $600 range in my area yet ... been checking around).
Probably pick one up in April after taxes ... gotta put the old (and soon to disappear) tax refund to work :)

Re:Pathetic

[Sciros]

Sorry I can't. Games category is filtered :-P Though given Sony's current pace it may be that I'll end up being right after all! ^_^

Original does not equal good

[Itchyeyes]

I've never fallen into the groupthink that states that in order for a game to be good it must be original, or vice versa. I've played many excellent games that were not original at all, and many original games that were crap. By this reasoning no sequel has been, or ever will be, good.

This is not to say that new and innovative games can't be good or that we don't need any innovation in the industry. However, it really bothers me the way people seem to want to do away with every great series and genre that brought us to this point.

Bad timing for console release

[Zhe Mappel]

The cost is still too high and they won't see big sales numbers until they lower the cost. They can't lower the cost, at present, due to losing money out of the gate. It's also a lost cause because MS/Nin can still low ball them if they decide to drop the cost. I think if they came in around 360 premium price, they would see better market penetration. They should also consider releasing a non-BR version with wifi for $299 and I bet it'd sell the shit out of the present choices they are offering up.

Very good observations.

While I'm hardly going to weep for any corporation, Sony's in a world of hurt due to many factors. Chief, and hardly ever acknowledged, is the worsening U.S. economy. As the housing bubble deflates, we're seeing trends that are going to devastate Sony's chances of selling $600 game machines: a) the retail slowdown, and b) falling house prices and the reduced mortgage equity withdrawal that have driven retail growth under Bushonomics.

Bad times in McMansionland are painting a very different picture from the one only two years ago when it was spend, spend, spend. If Sony banked on that--and it is hard to see why otherwise they thought a $600 console would succeed at market--then they will pay the same price as others who have ignored distortions in the fundamentals (e.g., builders and mortgage companies now seeing their stock plummet and beginning lay offs). You'll probably be able to track PS3 sales inversely to the soaring foreclosure rate because that's who was expected to buy this thing, and those people are drastically downsizing, and not willingly.

Expect Sony to reintroduce the PS3 at a lower price point, with reduced functionality. Expect it within one calendar year, by which time Sony's own financial picture will be looking even more grim.

Re:Bad timing for console release

[dank zappingly]

Worsening U.S. Economy? I know that the housing market isn't doing so hot, but I thought that the Dow was at record levels throughout the holiday season. I think you're reading a little too much into the relationship between your prediction for the U.S. housing market and the amount of people willing to buy a PS3. Many things are happening in the economy. The Dow is going up, oil is going down, house prices are plummeting. You don't hear people saying things like, "I'm spending way less money on gasoline this monthy, and I expect the trend to continue in the future, perhaps I can purchase a fancy next-gen game system." The people that are currently buying a PS3 right now, with very few games out, are probably not worrying about the value of their home when they make the purchase. Sure, if the U.S. economy takes a nose dive people probably won't be as likely to drop 600 bucks on a videogame console, but to make a prediction that the economy will nosedive while the Dow is at a record level based only on the housing market seems a little narrow.

Re:Bad timing for console release

[Zhe Mappel]

That's a fair point: the whole economy isn't tanking, and there are some bright spots. But if the DOW and gas prices were critical, why do you think holiday sales in general were so poor? The fact is it's the housing bubble that has driven spending and provided up to 40% of the new jobs. As it deflates, as adjustable monthly mortgage payments climb and as the "home ATM" isn't there to depend on, people will have a lot less to spend on pricey game systems. You can see what this means for Sony relative to less expensive systems like Xbox 360 and the Wii, and why there will be pressure on Sony to cut prices.

Re:The PS3 will do fine when...

[Professor_UNIX]

Sony needs to drop the price of the 20GB PS3 down to a more reasonable $300 to compete or they're dead. One way would be to abandon the Blu-Ray player and make a PS3 version 2.0 that just uses a traditional DVD-ROM drive... or are Sony PS3 games on Blu-Ray discs? That would've been a colossal mistake if they're using Blu-Ray for games.

Informative?

[rjhubs]

What information made the parent informative?

Consoles and attach rates

[jchenx]

With the average PS3 game getting a 1, 2, or 3 on a 5 point star rating scale, and the average PS3 buyer only buying 2-3 games, they're not even close to break even - which would require the average PS3 console owner to buy ... 12 to 20 PS3 games.

I should point out that it's a marathon and not a sprint. Over to course of the entire lifespan of the console (easily 4-5 years), would you expect a typical PS3 owner to buy that many games? I'd have to say yes. Few people, I imagine, would spend $400+ dollars on a console, only to buy two games for it. Maybe at launch, yes, but I'm sure it will build up over time.

Contrast that with Nintendo, though (and arguably the 360 now, since I believe the console itself is now profitable). All you need is for people to buy the console, and that's it. Who cares if the attach rate is low? I'd even say that with Nintendo's new focus on extremely casual gamers (Mom, Dad, Grandparents), that audience is probably only going to buy a few Wii games over the lifespan of the console. Grandma is not suddenly going to become a gamer and replace her TV watching with gamers every day. But with the console making a profit at the outset, that doesn't matter anymore. Which is great news for Nintendo.

But back to the PS3, the big question for Sony is whether or not people are going to buy the dang systems in the first place. Not only do they need each gamer to buy a lot of PS3 games, they need a LOT of people to do this, in order to recoup all of their PS3 research and investment costs.

I should point out ...

[jchenx]

Yet its the only console which will offer true versitility, I get my Gran Turismo,GTA, Tony Hawk, etc... fix and I can play Guitar Hero,Buzz and Singstar with friends. But is it worth £549?

The Xbox360 isn't in the same market, After a year there are almost enough games to make me interested in getting a Xbox360, but the limited hard drive lack of blu ray/HD DVD, crappy expansion slots and most importantly lack of any singstar,buzz,Guitar Hero type of games which puts me off the console.

I should point out that Guitar Hero II, GTA 4, and Tony Hawk, are all coming out on the 360. I totally agree that in the past, games like that are what sold the PS2 over all over consoles. But the age of Sony-exclusive titles appears to be ending, which is great for gamers overall. That is, unless you're a Sony-only fanboy who wants to gloat about having the system with the best games.

Re:Pathetic

[Nobody Real]

Except that Square-Enix has already shifted their focus back to Nintendo.

Dragon Quest IX is DS exclusive. Dragon Quest is THE big gaming franchise in Japan, I'm told it sells bigger numbers than the top 3 franchises in the US combined. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6163073.html?sid=6163 073

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings and It's a Wonderful World (a Kingdom Hearts spinoff) are also both DS exclusive. Being spinoff titles and not major releases, this isn't as big of news, but it's still pointing at the end of SE's relationship with Sony. http://ds.ign.com/articles/732/732509p1.html http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3154010

Re:MythTV on PS3

[Slashcrap]

Built in HDTV output, digital audio, small nice looking box, DVD... It has a lot of nice options +++ I get to use it as a game machine too. MythTV is cool on old hardware if you are doing older standard def content .. I am doing DigitalTV recordings (straight off the air in the new HDTV ATSC format) .. so I need a front end with enough horse power to seamlessly decode HDTV content.

Gosh! That does sound wonderful. Except for all the little problems, like this one you mention in passing on your blog :

"However there is a catch ... you have to run the video in frame buffer mode .. apparently Sony currently blocks Linux from accessing the video card directly ... hopefully Sony will provide a better API."

You know as well as I do that that is never going to happen. The only way you're going to access all that hardware directly is if someone finds a way of breaking out of the hypervizor. And since IBM have been perfecting those for the last 30-40 years, I don't much fancy your chances.

PS3 Linux will go the same way as PS2 Linux. An interesting, but crippled curiosity that everyone will soon tire of.

Re:MythTV on PS3

[PS3Penguin]

I fear this may be true. I didn't realize Sony crippled it in this way until after my posting .. but there is still hope. I know there is active development at where I work for cell blade processors .. and they are seeing 78x improvement with the first simple port (estimates after optimization are MUCH higher .. :) ) but real measured gain is still very nice. As the cell becomes a more "real" platform .. I am hoping Sony will see a desire to increase volume sales by offering it as a "cheap" development platform (yes ram is limited)... but if you porting small apps that do high CPU .. like an MPEG decoder ... than it would do just fine. Time will tell.

Re:Consoles and attach rates - Grandma?

[WillAffleckUW]

Grandma is not suddenly going to become a gamer and replace her TV watching with gamers every day. But with the console making a profit at the outset, that doesn't matter anymore. Which is great news for Nintendo.

Actually, one of the surprises on Wall Street is that Grandma and the 40-65 yo parents are buying the Wii and playing games on it. Market sales show this - it's kind of amazing, really. And not just in the US, but worldwide.

Okay, go buy a new HDTV...

[chaboud]

Now, to make it harder, go find one that doesn't support 720p input. To make it even more fun, find one that takes in HDMI and doesn't scale.

Here's the deal:

• Yes, a number of people have screens that can only take in one HD resolution/scan-rate. These were touted as HD-Ready 1080i, HiScan HD, etc. A large number of Sony rear-projection screens were launched this way for early adopters.
• No, modern screens don't generally suffer from this limitation, even cheap Olevias have scalers.
• Yes, scalers cost money. If the PS3 had been $630, people would likely have complained even more.
• No, this is not as major a problem as detractors make it out to be. Early adopters who didn't expect to get burned by incomplete technology must not be very experienced in early adoption.

Does it stink for those who jumped in early? Yes, without a doubt. Still, we're not talking about the bulk of the user-base, now or going forward.

Let's just be realistic and thoughtful about things for a minute. I mean, come on, this is Slashdot.

Yeah, that's nice

[jzuska]

Now, where's my wii?

Re:Consoles and attach rates - Grandma?

[jchenx]

Actually, one of the surprises on Wall Street is that Grandma and the 40-65 yo parents are buying the Wii and playing games on it. Market sales show this - it's kind of amazing, really. And not just in the US, but worldwide.

Oh, no doubt at all. I wasn't saying that it isn't happening.

What I am skeptical, though, is the notion that Grandma is suddenly going to be like a hardcore gamer and buy a game for the Wii every month or so. I really don't see that, since many of the games upcoming (Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros, Metroid Prime, etc.) are still focused for your typical "hardcore" gamer. Grandma will probably be just fine with Wii Sports for a long time, and it probably won't be till the next "ultra casual" game (Wii Brain Age? Cooking game? Party game?) till she gets another Wii game (or rather, her grandkids get it for her).

But my main point is that the possibly low attach-rate for Grandma isn't a problem at all for Nintendo. It's a great thing actually. I don't think you want to have a business model that depends on Grandma suddenly buying a dozen Wii games in a year, since I don't see it happening.

Now, if it does, then that would be icing on the cake for Nintendo, and arguably the games industry over all. (Who knows, maybe after being introduced to Wii games, she'll suddenly get interested in that WoW game all of her grandkids play)