Slashdot Mirror
Wii Outselling PS3 in Japan
saintory writes "Apparently the Japanese console consumers are sinking their teeth into the modest Wii and are not as interested in the power-packed PS3. In fact, the Wii is outselling Sony's new console by a factor of almost 2:1. The number of PS3s sold into the Japanese market (466,716) falls well short of the million Sony had planned for the end of 2006. 989,118 Wii consoles have been sold in Japan in the same time span. From the article: 'Both Sony and Nintendo are projecting selling 6 million consoles by the end of March. Sony expects to start shipping the PS3 to Europe sometime that month as well. Straggling far behind Sony and Nintendo in the Enterbrain survey was Microsoft's Xbox 360, which had sold 290,467 since its Japan debut in December 2005. Selling machines in large numbers is crucial in the gaming business because it encourages software companies to make more games to play on the machines, which in turn boosts console sales.'"
Fun games + lower price point = happy consumers
Seems to me that they should just start shipping the consoles that aren't selling in the US and Japan to Europe.
Wrong! The sun doesn't rise or set, it just appears to because of the rotation of the Earth.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
The Wii is only outselling the PS3 in Japan because the small stature of the average Japanese gamer makes it extremely dangerous for them to attempt to wield the phenomenal gaming power contained within the PS3.
No, of course not. why?
Because Sony has not made as many PS3s as Nintendo has made Wiis. Rather simple isn't it?
Are we surprised that the 360 is tanking? nope, because it doesn't apeal to the japanese market (and it does not have the fanbase that Nintendo and Sony have).
The real question is how will the number end up once sony gets production going at a decent speed?
Other peopel have pointed out (and after research I now have to agree) that the PS3 isn't selling in the USA (if any one wants ot buy a PS3, Circuit City has 60gig versions in stock). Yet is is still a chalange (though not impossible) to buy a Wii despite much higher production levels.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
"According to the report, Sony has yet to officially comment on the figures released by Enterbrain, noting only that there may be a discrepancy between the number of units sold and the number of PlayStation 3 consoles that were shipped within Japan."
Yes Sony, you can't compare "sold" with "shipped" - even though that's what you do every time you try to show the DS isn't beating the PSP globally.
The electronics consumer base in Japan has historically tended towards choosing revolutionary products in lieu of evolutionary alternatives. It's a very welcoming market for novel products.
wow it costs half as much and sells twice as many. so what?
...
you won't see this article headline in two years when the Wii is tired and the PS3 is wired.
That's not how this works though
Developers and Consumers tend towards the most popular system because it has the largest userbase and the most development for it. In many ways both the Playstation and PS2 were eclipsed by more powerful systems and remained the market leaders because the large userbase attracted third party devlopers who developed games which attracted a large userbase. If the Wii sells (consistently) at 2 or 4 times the rate of the PS3 for a year (or more) the sales of the PS3 will drop off and the sales of the Wii will accelerate.
It is certainly no longer a supply issue as PS3s are sitting on shelves all over Japan.
i sh-in-japan-part-ii-226243.php
k -sluggish-in-japan-225907.php
http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/ps3-sales-look-slugg
http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/those-ps3s-sales-loo
How many Xbox 360's have sold in Japan since the PS3 Launch? It was my impression that the 360 just started to grab a market when the Blue Dragon bundle was released. With no real console-selling game out for the PS3 and the price point, I'm curious if Japan will opt for the 360 now.
I'll start with a feature comparison of the plusses:
PS3:
1. Something to brag about even though you still use your PS2 (less power consumtion)
2. Button munching madness!
3. A place to put the millions you're making
4. Motion sensing SIXAXIS (whether it works or not, SIXAXIS sounds cool)
5. High def! You can finally see photo-realistic characters that you only thought looked fine in plain 3d! The animation looks so good on a plasma from afar, it turns your TV into a TV!
6. Less embarassing name (OK, so that is a real plus)
Wii:
1. Cheap
2. Easy to use for everybody (only console that entertains old relatives)
3. Cheaper games
4. Unique
5. Pure fun
6. Less electric bills
7... I'm glad that I got the Wii.
I'm wondering why the Microsoft Xbox or Xbox 360 fares so poorly in Japan. Is it because they have loyalty to the other Japanese console manufacturers? Is it because they think certain game types will never be done properly (by their standards) by foreigners? In this globalized age, why is there such a discrepancy here? Can Microsoft just not attract the best Japanese game designers? Do they not care? Do the designers have some nationalistic tendancies? Does all come down to Final Fantasy vs Halo? I'm just so amazed that more PS3s have sold in a month in Japan than Xbox360s in one year. I don't really have a preference for either right now, I figured they would do equally well in most markets. Not Japan I guess.
There's no chance that one of these three companies will fail in the hardware market this round, in the way that Sega did a few rounds ago.
But, I think there'll be a shift in the leadership, for those people who want to "rank" the leaders in the console market. The ingredients for this ranking draw on units sold, profit, and critical success, but isn't directly tied to any one of them.
My prediction for current generation:
1. Nintendo
2. Microsoft
3. Sony
For argument's sake, I'm going to claim that last generation was:
1. Sony
2. Microsoft
3. Nintendo
I know, I know, Microsoft lost money on every sale, while Nintendo made a healthy profit. Nintendo, though, had trouble finding and capitalizing on breakout games, and their console had difficulty penetrating the adult market.
Now, next round, what do you think the odds are that one of these three companies will fail, or that a newcomer will push one of them out of the top three? Is the next Nokia going to "N Gage" gamers and knock off Sony? Will Nintendo's "It's the gameplay, stupid" philosophy wear out? Will Microsoft decide to stop hemorraging cash, or *gasp* manage to make a profit? Turn in 2009 to find out!
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Uh, it's not due to production numbers. PS3s are sitting on shelves, and people are still lining up at 9pm the night before best buy gets a shipment of Wii's. The people have spoken - and they don't want a PS3. I expect this to change when the next final fantasy game comes out for the PS3, but right now, nintendo is pretty much kicking sony's ass.
But 989,118 : 466,716 is UNDER the 2:1 ratio for small values of 2. The 2 could be 1.5, it could be 1.7, whatever. And then let's look at the one. Maybe they rounded the 1 down from its true value of 1.3. I'm just saying, you're taking too rigid of a definition of 1 and 2.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
You are forgetting one important thing:
Sony LOSES money on each PS3 sold, whereas nintendo GAINES money on each Wii sold.
Yes, I know there are games and all that, but still...if it takes selling 2.5 Wii's to match the price of one PS3, and EACH Wii is making a profit while that one PS3 loses money...which one do you think provides a better profit margin?
Net income means jack shit. I don't care if you bring in 2 billion a year if your costs are 4 billion. If my costs are 50,000, and I bring in 75,000, guess what: I have a higher profit margin, which means I have MADE more money than you.
Living With a Nerd
Net income means jack shit. I don't care if you bring in 2 billion a year if your costs are 4 billion. If my costs are 50,000, and I bring in 75,000, guess what: I have a higher profit margin, which means I have MADE more money than you.
d ex.asp
g uide/glossary.html
Definitions of net income on the Web:
* Gross income less expenses, including taxes and insurance, but before depreciation, additions to reserves or distribution of earnings.
www.ncbuy.com/credit/glossary.html
* Income (profit) shown after all operating and non-operating income and expense, reserves, income taxes, minority interest and extraordinary items but before preferred and ordinary dividends.
www.misys.com/investors/shareservices/glossary/in
* Sum remaining after all expenses have been met or deducted: net profit or net loss, or simply "profit."
www.mastercardbusiness.com/mcbizdocs/smallbiz/fin
Get the picture? Profit is net income. You meant "gross income means jack shit".
This troll brought to you by the letter A and the number 4.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
"Net income means jack shit. I don't care if you bring in 2 billion a year if your costs are 4 billion. If my costs are 50,000, and I bring in 75,000, guess what: I have a higher profit margin, which means I have MADE more money than you."
In this case the net income of company A is -$2billion while the net income of company B is $25,000. Net income is very important. In fact, net income is probably more important than profit margin in this case. I think you need to s/Net/Gross/ for your statement to make sense.
But when the red moon sets and the sun rises in the west, two monsters will appear to save the people.
Yeah, Sony did not dominate with the PS or the PS2 because their system was so incredibly powerful compared to the competition. Infact, the PS2 has significantly less hardware than the Xbox or gamecube. They won by having tons of games, plenty of good exclusives, and the whole DVD player thing helped some too. (To a degree that Blu-ray won't. Seriously. Most people out there are perfectly happy with DVD's for now. VHS sucked, DVD doesn't.)
I'm not really sure where Sony got the idea that their future depends on them cramming all the technology they can find into a plastic cases. I mean, they used to hype the PS2 and the "emotion engine" as being some sort of computing miracle, but I didn't think they actually believed it.
While there are, no doubt, game developers out there that enjoy having lots of hardware out there, most of them also enjoy having lots of money, so their efforts are generally going to go where the market is.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
trollboy here (sorry, couldn't resist;-)) hit the nail on the head.
In the (loosely quoted) words of Lewis Black)
"...cause I took ECONOMICS. And I would explain to you what I'm talking about....but I flunked that course."
Living With a Nerd
In other news, earth rotate from east to west. Oh wait...
Of Code And Men
Also factor in the Wii games are cheaper to develop than PS3, and 360 games.
The demand switched to the Wii because they were available? Are you living in the same planet as the rest of us? The Wiis are sold out within hours. Before Christmas, few people were able to get a Wii without waiting in line!
You can blame the extra demand on a lower price, Wii Sports, or maybe even claiming that it's the better product overall, but better availability is just ludicrous.
PS3:
- SIXAXIS controller, which if pronounced sloppily can sound like "sex-asses".
- Motion sensing adds some potential.
Sex joke quotient: 50.
Wii:
- Name is inherently a phallus joke.
- Controller is phallic object, and referred to as "Wii-mote".
- Phallic object is "motion sensitive"
- Phallic object vibrates.
Sex joke quotient: 1 billion.
Winner: Wii. Wii always wins.
The enemies of Democracy are
The main problem initially, was that the Xbox gained a reputation for being a haven for mostly shooters and sports games (which honestly, isn't far from the truth). What few RPGs that were on the system came from Western developers (Knights of the Old Republic, Fable, Jade Empire, Morrowind, etc.). Unfortunately for MS, Japanese gamers love their "Japanese-style" RPGs (a la Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc.) and there were virtually none on the system. So it's pretty obvious why the Xbox brand gets little love in Japan.
... then you might consider if other reasons are at play (nationalist tendencies, etc.).
That's changed a bit with the 360, thanks to MS attracting some big names. Mistwalker Studios, headed by the former Square honcho (and creator of Final Fantasy), has been developing some big exclusive RPGs for the 360. Blue Dragon just came out last month, and Lost Oddysey is on the way. (As a J-RPG fan myself, I keep track of these things)
While Blue Dragon sold a decent number of 360s, it's definately not enough. One game will not suddenly turn the console around, especially one that's brand new IP and from a new studio. Unfortunately for MS, it becomes somewhat of a chicken and egg problem. They'll need more developers to make "Japan-friendly" games, in order to attract more Japanese gamers. However, those developers aren't going to make games on a platform with a low user-base.
To an optimist, things are looking better. There are several more high-profile games coming in 2007 for the 360, including titles from Square-Enix, and another RPG from Mistwalker. Virtual Fighter 5, which is apparently a huge success in Japan, was recently announced to be coming to the 360 as well.
Personally, I see 2007 as a "do or die" year for the 360 in Japan. If even after all the developer-love, Japanese gamers still don't take to the console
-- jchenx
PS3 can run GNU/Linux and all the Free games developed for GNU/Linux by devoted amateurs. Wii requires each developer to be a company with office space detached from the home.
More to the point, you can't judge Sony's success with the PS2 based on a simple list of effects. There were many reasons the PS2 was as successful as it was, including their excellent marketing to the general public. To say it was the games or the built in DVD player or anyone one of those things misses the point that it was an entire package plus the market recognition they built in the previous generation, which they still have to this day. Heck you can't even down play the brand name. "PlayStation" just sounds like a game system, unlike "XBox" or "Wii" which could really be anything. I'm not trying to support sony or anything, as I think the Wii is looking like it has lots of potential, just saying that there were hundreds or more factors in Sony's previous success.
No, no, Sony was slammed for creating an environment where people were shot or robbed for their PS3.
Nintendo is off the hook because they created an entirely different environment.
PS3 can run GNU/Linux and all the Free games developed for GNU/Linux by devoted amateurs. Wii requires each developer to be a company with office space detached from the home.
... In other words, the PS3 will have Tux Racer and glTron?
So
Not to be blunt, but it might be interesting to see Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony encourage SNES/N64 level development from indie and amature developers but beyond the 'interest' factor amature game developers do not bring that much to the table.
I'm not convinced this is actually going to be true. Yes, you need higher-resolution art assets for the PS3 and 360, but I imagine that most developers use them anyway for potential PC ports. On the Wii side, you've got to develop and playtest for a very different controller mechanism, which has got to take some significant time and resources.
Good games are going to be expensive to make, no matter what. I'd be curious to know what Zelda cost to develop versus, say, Oblivion.
Remember, I'm no Sony fanboy.
The words say no, but the painfully tortured logic is telling me YES!
Let's stop posting these worthless articles for the sake of the horde ok?
We need articles like this because it is immensely gratifying to kick Sony while they're down. The rootkit will not be forgotten or forgiven.
...but the 7-11's in Japan don't sell Slurpees. I mean, one could hardly call a 7-11 "7-11," if they ain't got no Slurpees!
Actually, a little wikipedia reading reveals that they tried to sell Slurpee when they first opened, but the populous was not interested in the frozen delight. Opting instead for the irresistible ice cream in a bag.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-Eleven#Japan
Sorry, I know I'm way off topic, but I did get a big kick out of the picture of 7-11 selling the PS3.
-Buddy of DoQ
Oh, come one, the grandparent may be offtopic, but (s)he was right. When you give a ratio like that one, the denominator is usually 1 or a natural number, and the other one represents a proportion of that. If they tell you the ratio is nearly 2:1, what they mean is that the big number is nearly twice as the first number. Period. And it's wrong. It's a silly thing, it's a detail, but it's wrong. The correct ratio is 2.119314529606870131:1, so if you round that to 2:1, you have to say the real ratio is _over_ 2:1.
Besides, it's also a mistake to use a mathematical element incorrectly. They could say "about twice" or something informal. However, they chose to give a ratio, a mathematical expression, and they missed.
Yeah, that's the reason that Apple does so poorly in Japan too. Not.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
Wii always wiiiins!
*rimshot*
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
It could be that in Japan they just don't like buying American products, this could be due to nationalism or racism, take a pick.
People need to keep in mind the Wii costs less than half of the PS3's hefty price tag. Of course more people are going to buy Wiis right now, it's cheaper. Not to say that the Wii's awesomeness isn't playing a big role, but keep in mind that Nintendo's biggest problem is finding 3rd party developers who make worthwhile games. The gamecube was a great system, but they had very few must-have games that were not from Nintendo. No matter how good the Wii is, good third party dev support is what wins console wars.
Before we all doom the PS3, let's wait until some of the big-name PS3 games come out later this year. Sony already knew they were going to take a loss at the outset of the PS3 market, so I think they're taking the long view. In Japan, when Final Fantasy XIII comes out, there is going to be a rabid fanbase that will purchase the console for that game alone. Others may hold off, but given the other big properties that will shortly follow, how can anyone avoid the PS3's gravity?
Also factor in the other part of the market... Blu-rays absolutely rock on a HDTV. LG is coming out with a dual-mode player, which means that given the choice, the consumer can be easily swayed towards Blu-ray simply by flooding (true) advertisements about the media's technical superiority. If Blu-ray pulls ahead, then the PS3 becomes much more attractive.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Comment removed based on user account deletion
PS3 can run GNU/Linux and all the Free games developed for GNU/Linux by devoted amateurs
Wow so it can run Tux Racer and.. uh.. what, 10,821 Solitaire and Mahjongg variants?
Even if you do manage to get anything with moderately decent 3D graphics running, you're likely to be unable to access the GPU to make it fast enough to be worthwhile playing. And even if you do somehow manage to get past all that, there just aren't a lot of Free Software games worth playing.
The scenario you describe is of interest to maybe 1% of gamers.
Ok, so you can buy a $600 PS3 that runs linux at the level of an 800 Mhz Pentium 3 ? Ok, I wouldn't do it but some people might.
Are you familiar with the Free flash games for the Wii ?
Actually, its probably far worse than you imagine ...
( I'm using approximate numbers because I haven't worked on a PS3 or XBox 360 game )
To create a 3D asset for a XBox 360 game you will likely produce an initial 3D model at 4 times the resolution of an XBox game, you will produce a model that is 4 times the resolution of this model in order to produce normal maps, you will produce as many coloured textures as you did for the XBox game but each will be about 4 times the resolution, you will have another texture map which handles 'material' data (for lighting), and possibly other textures for shaders to increase the realism.
Now the far more detailed assets would add a lot of expense to developing a game but it gets worse from here. One of the biggest problems is that you have to add more assets as the detail of the assets increases to maintain 'realism'; to make an office look realistic (as an example) you need to have more than a desk, chair, file cabinet, and garbage can (and you can re-use these assets far less because people will notice the repetition).
Good games are going to be expensive to make, no matter what. I'd be curious to know what Zelda cost to develop versus, say, Oblivion.
I would be interested in the Zelda vs Oblivion costs, but when THQ states "it was far less expensive making games for Nintendo's console." and that "they could be as little as a third of the high-end next-gen titles... Maybe the range is a quarter to a half." I believe them.
You sound like a shill. The PS2 was the worst hardware of the three to work with. You have to find tricks and clever work-arounds just to get a decent amount of textures going. I mean 4MB texture space = WTF. Even the DreamCast had 8MB and hardware texture compression. Next let's talk about bump mapping. XB had Halo from the start, fully bump mapped and pretty. Where's the PS2 bump mapped game running at 60fps? Then we got Chronicles Of Riddick and DOOM3, with much better bump technology and oh yeah, again no PS2 counterpart running at decent framerates. Tony Hawk 3 which was on all systems had minor slowdown on the GameCube, ran great on the XB, but had terrible textures and lots of slowdown on the PS2. Spiderman was the same way. Spiderman 2 as well. The list goes on and on.
-]Phreak Out[-
O RLY? How is "six asses" or "piss 3" any less embarrassing than "wee"?
The 360 has XNA Game Club, the Wii will have outsider Virtual Console access soon. PS3's install linux and figure out how to get stuff on there will be eclipsed by the incredibly easy MS/Nintendo solutions.
-]Phreak Out[-
This is exactly how I feel as well. With Virtual Fighter V coming out on the 360, I may actually remain firm in my boycott of all things Sony.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Twilight Princess?
Strictly grammatically, the summary is still correct. 'Almost' as a word makes no claim on whether the value is under or over, just that it's very close. 1.9 is almost 2 the same way 2.1 is almost 2.
Yes, it is bad form, but that doesn't make it wrong. (Got to love this stupid language...)
I would have thought they would have sold a lot more! Assuming that no one in Japan has bought more than one of the next gen consoles, it seems only 1% of Japan's population has bought a new gaming console.... Interesting...
That equates to 2.1193145296068701308718792584784 to 1
-]Phreak Out[-
I thought capitalizing on Breakout games was Atari's job.
Can somebody between college and a first job afford Flash?
Only XNA Creators Club members can run XNA games on an Xbox 360, and this membership costs nearly $99 per year. A 5-year subscription to Creators Club costs $495 per user machine (not just per developer machine) over the expected 5-year life of the console, which is nearly as expensive as the premium PS3.
the Wii will have outsider Virtual Console access soon.citation needed
No, it's because the PS3 is twice as good as the Wii, so every PS3 sold is like 2 Wiis sold.
--
make install -not war
Why pay at all for these overpriced consoles when you can still play http://www.skulltag.com/>Doom 2 online for free! I live in Mexico and the Wii costs $450 American here! I almost went into shock.
You will have a much harder time finding controllers for the Wii (Wii-mote or nunchuck) than finding an actually PS3 console. Think about it.
Also, if anyone knows where I can find Wii-motes or nunchucks for sale at non-gouging prices, let me know. Please.
In other news, there is no east and west but only completely arbitrary directional designations on this imperfect ellipsoid we call Earth.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Particle Man, Particle Man,
Bought his Wii from a guy named Stan,
He plays a game, Particle wins,
Particle Man.
Triangle Man, Triangle Man,
Kicks Particle's ass playing Bomberman Land,
Same result while beta-testing Th3 Plan,
Triangle Man.
Note - Triangle Man always wins.
Man, I picked the wrong week to stop drinking
If you look at the total picture:
http://www.the-magicbox.com/topten.htm
The PS3 sold 76K units in Japan in December, while the PS2 only sold 46K units. So, unlike in the US, where the PS2 was still the top-selling console, the torch appears to have been passed in Japan.
And both of them are crushing the XBox 360, at 17K units sold.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I'm sitting here marvelling at you getting modded informative for that. Who are the poor innocents who read your comment and thought "well, you learn something new every day"?
PlayStation sounds more like a videogame console because it's embedded in the consciousness now. As someone said, if you take that association away, it sounds more like a Fisher Price kids' activity centre... That having been said, I still prefer the name to XBox (sounds a bit too much like the original XBox looked) and Wii, which *still* sounds awful to me.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
You fool. The sun does rise and set. It sets in Arizona, in fact. Near Flagstaff. That's why the rocks there are so red. It goes out at it sets, though, and is only about the size of a quarter, so it doesn't crush anyone or anything.
It moves from east to west because of solar wind.
Christ man, didn't they teach you anything in school?
It's almost as if demand is elastic with respect to price! How strange! I wonder if they have a field of study devoted to predicting that kind of bizarre outcome.
Do you or have you lived in Japan?
(I haven't.)
What I've heard, though, is that the younger generation is actually enamored of American culture, going so far as to buy American flags and put them up on their walls in the same way that American teens might put up posters of rock stars or Che Guevara. Those much older, I have heard, have memories of WWII and do hate the U.S. (partly because Japan never had much of a 'Nuremberg' - a public nose-rubbing - and there was not the same moral reflection there as there was in Germany.)
If Japanese youth-culture does exalt American pop-culture and consumerism, it does strike me as somewhat occidentalist/exoticist but that's not so bad.
All that said, I do hear (1) that non-Japanese Asian women (friends-of-friends) who've attempted to work in Japan have been shocked by a very-low glass ceiling (and symbolic things, like that they were expected to serve tea at meetings); (2) that if you are black you can expect a sort of celebrity novelty status but no real respect or advancement; (3) that if you are Korean you will meet with significant hostility; and (4) that Japanese immigration policy (especially w.r.t. the Phillipines) is rather xenophobic.
These negatives combined with the pro-American culture I mentioned earlier combine in my understanding to create a rather complicated picture.
But, like I said, this is just an impressionist painting made from anecdotes I've heard. I don't study Japanese culture or language myself, and I've never been there.
You will notice I said the PS2 is slightly under powered graphically when compared to it's competitors. I say slightly because it doesn't have hardware accelerated bump mapping and requires developers to utilize it's pixel pipeline more than the usual architectures do. But the PS2 has always had better polygon counts (as in Jak 3) and lighting effects (Shadow of the Colossus) and some of the prettiest games in existence (Okami, and GT4 come to mind). As usual graphic capability is very subject and I am willing to concede a slight lead to the PS2s competitors. Interestingly enough it is the PS2s lack of graphical prowess that shows of the power of the core CPU (including it's associated Vector Units). The General Purpose VUs in the PS2 are capable on handling more calculations than any of the other systems, making it capable of better AI and other, no graphical, system logic (I'm not saying that the games utilize this, just a potential) while also picking up the slack where normally a GPU would be working. This effectively gives the developer a heck of a lot more flexibility as to where they want to apply the systems processes (yes it is possible to use a GPU for general purpose computing but it is more difficult and rarely done).
But all of this is completely off topic and I expect it to be modified as so. I'm just trying to get people to stop believing that particular fallacy. (And yes I prefere higher poly counts to texture maps since I always feel they more accurately represent the world they are emulating. texture maps are more of a facade than anything substantial.)
"Cultural Xenophobia" or just a loyalty to their own companies combined with a (possibly inaccurate, I don't know) perception that the PSs have more games to suit Japanese tastes? Who knows.
But there is some truth that the Japanese are biased towards Japanese companies. I've already said that MS probably made a mistake when they entered the Japanese market; they allowed themselves to be perceived as "foreign".
What they should have done (for the first XBox) would be to partner with a reasonably well-known Japanese company, and (a) Have them do some token development on the system hardware and (b) Joint-market the system with the Japanese company's name on it. (For the sake of argument, let's say Panasonic).
Firstly, they talk up Panasonic's development effort, so that it's perceived as at least as much a Japanese system as a Western one. Secondly, by marketing it as "XBox from Panasonic" and omitting MS's name as much as possible, it draws people's attention away from the reality of the situation- that it's basically an American system.
The brand emphasis still has to be on the XBox name, not Panasonic's. Otherwise Panasonic hold the cards if they decide to go their own way for the next gen system- people should want "the new XBox", not the "new Panasonic console". (By this stage the XBox name should be established and able to stand on its own anyway).
This would, of course, require MS to give Panasonic a generous share of the Japanese XBox profits in exchange for the use of their name as a Trojan Horse into that market. But let's be honest, two-thirds of a very large pie would still be better than all of next-to-nothing, which is what actually happened.
And yeah, I realise that this is moot, since the XBox has been and gone, and the 360 is out now; it's too late. But it would have been a thought...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I don't consider 1.5 to be a small value of 2. I think 1.5 should be considered a moderately sized value of 1. But then again that means that -0.0001 would be a small value of -1, and -1.1 would be a very large value of -2.
Perhaps we should discard this notation altogether?
I don't know about that. Nintendo seem to be doing their best. The thing's still selling out as fast as they can get them to the shops. Whereas you can see now that the scarcity of PS3s was artificial (even in spite of the reduced numbers shipped by Sony), because as soon as there's a reasonable supply, they're not selling.
Just for all those people saying that there are no PS3s, and lots of Wiis, and that's why they're selling so well, let me put in my anecdotal evidence.
I live in a town of about 500,000 people, and work in Nagoya, which I belive is the 4th largest city in Japan (maybe 5th).
I can go into any store on any day and pick up a PS3. That includes both 20 and 60 GB models. I can go to my local game store, the mall, electronics Depot, even my Video Rental service is selling PS3s and have a bunch in stock.
Wiis? Good luck. Wiis sell out in about 5 minutes whenever there's a shipment. I haven't seen one on the store shelf EVER. DS Lites (and even DSs) are pretty much the same story. If you're not incredibly lucky, or incredibly determined, there's no way to pick up any Nintendo consoles. And that's with shipments coming once every week.
Even people I know who were gung-ho about the PS3 have wavered, and are buying Wiis instead. When I tell them that there are PS3s available, they just kind of shrug and say "Yeah... Maybe next year."
--------
Nothing can be done before the tremendous power!
RabidComics
...you must first realize there is no Earth.
The only upgrade I've heard coming for the Wii is that they're adding DVD playback.
My friend has a Wii and I've played several times, and this is what I told him regarding the PS3 vs Wii debate (full disclosure: I've never played a PS3):
When I first played a games console, oh, back in the halcyon days of 1992 or so, it was a Sega Mega Drive (aka "Genesis" in the US). It was a whole new experience for me, being able to interact with an onscreen character using a handheld controller. It was a new world and I loved it and was introduced to a whole wealth of other systems.
Fastforward 13 years and nothing has really changed. Games look better, are more imaginative and offer me more satisfying results than grabbing rings and power-ups. But the gaming concept itself is still pretty much the same. We all laze around on couches, plugged into the console, and gradually fall asleep in marathon gaming sessions.
2006: enter the Wii (no pun). I was a little skeptical after seeing the ads and the less-than-impressive graphics, but being there when my friend first plugged his Wii in was like being transported back to when I was 6 again. I was genuinely excited and amused playing WiiSports, with the new concept the controller had brought to my gaming.
The PS3 might look prettier and have more power. It even plays DVDs and other things I have no interest in. But what it doesn't have is a revolutionary new design that's been the most innovative thing (at least, in my personal gaming history) since I first started playing consoles. The Wii has got me up off the couch and really interacting with my games, while the PS3, however real it may look compared to the Wii's bobble-headed "Miis", is just another couch-sitting epic.
I do agree that Sony and MS could lose games to the Wii, Metal Gear Solid and FF13 aren't in that category. The demos and movies we've seen released simply exceed the Wii's graphical capability. Heck, the FF13 stuff exceeds most high-quality PC renders, and I bet the XBox 360 would be hard pressed to output that kind of graphical quality in realtime.
We've known for awhile that the PS3 has the best hardware from a raw output standpoint (the real problem being that, like the PS2, it's extremely hard to use effectively). There is a great hunger out there for video games that really look great on our modern home theater systems, and Sony and Microsoft are both in competition for capturing this market. This segment is much like Apple's segment of the PC market, it's people who are more inclined to spend money on the product anyways. It's a very profitable sector.
The Wii is not even remotely aimed at that component, and that cleanly shuts it out from some big-name franchises. I am not saying the Wii will fail, but I am saying that it is not a great target for ports (unique control schemes) and doesn't get the nice 2-fer factor of also being a good media player.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Seriously, pure mod madness is all I can see here. It's hilarious and disturbing.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
You know, I didn't get excited about the PS3 until I read the technical specs a few weeks ago. Now I'd love to play around with the Cell.
Cell processor info
I think it's pretty sad that the PS3 gets such a bad rap on here. It's a consumer-grade super-computer that runs Linux out of the box, no mods required. What's not to like?
I'm thinking that my next PC won't be Intel-based at all, it will be a PS3.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
I strongly disagree. I have a 1080p tv set and the quality of DVD's do not compare to high def signal. I bought a high end dvd player and it still sucked. I ended up going with a desktop based PVR and dvi to hdmi cable, before the dvd quality was decent enough, but it is still no where what it could be.
If you're using a crappy TV, I'd understand your viewpoint.
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
Are you telling me that Fun>Graphics?
I'm sure nobody's had that epiphany before!
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
But what happens when it rises in the morning?
Nor is there a Dana. Only Zuul.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
$4 a share. W00T!
The PS3 isn't selling out in Japan either..
a nd-wii-sales-slow-ps3-sales-226834.phpk -sluggish-in-japan-225907.phpi sh-in-japan-part-ii-226243.php
http://kotaku.com/gaming/nikkei/nikkei-on-big-ds-
http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/those-ps3s-sales-loo
http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/ps3-sales-look-slugg
2 years ago, my brother's $12,000 Videkron 720p projector and similarily overspeced DVD player looked frickin' amazing. We just couldn't conceive how something could look better. Perfect clarity, great colors, bright, etc... I've also never been terribly impressed by the shop demo units for HD players. Perhaps 46" just isn't enough.
Anyways, he's now using a $2,600 Panasonic projector and a PS3. It looks enough better than his old setup that, yes, it is actually kind of painful to watch DVDs now (similar to how you probably feel when you end up watching a VHS tape on your setup). I wouldn't have believed it made as much difference as it does.
Yes Blueray/HDDVD disks are expensive now, but give it a few years and there will be multi-format discs available for rent and cheap for sale (and players will be $120). Downloaded content is indeed the future, but I don't think bandwidth is going to catch up with demand for a few more years at least. I think there's going to be a reasonable time period when the HD disc is king. And right now, they sure look good.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Somebody is watching tooo much Ghostbusters!
My sig beat up your sig.
I would say that the current generation is less enamoured with America than the previous one. I live in a community that is rather old and I feel almost no hostility, even from my neighbor who's missing an arm and is old enough that it was likely lost in the war.
The Japanese don't care about where it's made. The only thing that they think about is, "Is it fashionable?" The Japanese culture tends to lend itself to groupthink and if it's in, it's in. Everyone, including men, has designer bags and purses. The iPod has been brought up several times, but I'll throw in another one: Harley Davidson. I have not met one Japanese person that is interested in bikes that doesn't desperately want one. If Japanese produced bikes are mentioned, they're generally greeted with indifference and quickly the subject is changed back.
As far as your other comments, they go a bit far. Things aren't quite that bad. I can deride them with a "Wow, a country with racism, go figure". Europe and America aren't becons of light either.
You no understand simple plan of deception attack.
Wii is Akagi, gliding through the waves.
PS3 is Yamato, with invincible gun.
Wiimote is Zero-sen, master of skies.
Together, they form victorious triad of divine power, blow away Xbox and stinking corruption of microsoft.
Banzai !!!
And when both moons are full, the path to the Shrine of Spirituality opens!
You could at least mention Bill Watterson as the source of your comedic genius.
The 3D functions of the GPU are locked...you can't get any 3D acceleration in Linux. More importantly, re: it being a supercomputer, the last I heard it was being beaten in benchmarks by a G5. With code specially optimized for the vector processors, it may be very fast for specialized tasks, but currently its just a crippled PowerPC chip (no out-of-order execution).
Did they cut production of DS Lites or something to make more Wii? Because I've been looking for a month,and I've only found 1, and it was fscking PINK.
Those figures are pretty astounding.
11 XBoxes sold in that one week? Nintendo have the Japanese market pretty much to themselves. The PSP is the closest competitor, and thats selling only half the numbers of the Wii.
I mean 4MB texture space = WTF
haha. the Wii only has 3MB of dedicated texture memory.
That's what Australia is for.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
It ignites as it's warmed by the happy glow of a million east coast Americans drinking their morning coffee.
which is totally what she said
Noone buys PS3 to make a beowulf cluster of them
You as consumer would invest $600 into game console now, expecting that you would be abler to enjoy modern gaming twice longer than on e.g. Nintendo Wii. And then year later - BA-BAM!! - Sony discontinues PS3 production/sales since it is not profitable.
Sensible business plan is bit like additional insurance for consumers that company (they invest in products of) isn't going to flop under weight of taken obligations.
So this round is of course won by Nintendo. M$ and Sony here are both losers. I'm not sure about Sony - they have swallowed even bigger product failures before - but internal pressure mounts inside of M$ to dump Xbox/gaming division since they are not profitable. Company might survive many failed products, but they usually start losing good engineers who can/do design such products - and who do not like to be on losing side. Especially when product gets torpedoed by management/sales/marketing - like it seems it was in case of Sony. Changing spec on last minute did good to nobody.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
It's a reference I figured was so well known people would "get it." I certainly wasn't trying to claim it as my own. It's similar to when people use Simpsons quotes. Who here hasn't read Calvin and Hobbes?
>Europe and America aren't becons of light either.
Ain't that the truth. And either I'm just getting older, or the whole world has just gotten uglier recently, full of tribalism and xenophobia. Here in the U.S., I keep hearing Mexicans used as scapegoats for our economic problems. In Europe -- well, the French riots a while back were graphic evidence that race is a real problem there too. What's going on? So, I've become hypersensitive to examples of racism everywhere -- which is probably not a good thing, because if I keep doing that then I'll look for racism directed at me, and so distrust those of races-not-my-own, and so become racist myself -- and I'd like to shape what goes on inside my head so as to avoid that as much as possible.
Anyway. (Before I get self-absorbedly bloggerlike...)
>Harley Davidson.
Really? Heh! I always thought they were overweight and silly, much preferring sportbikes myself. That's funny (I think most Americans think of Harleys as 'American' and, say, Suzukis as 'Japanese,' and so assume that sportbikes are more popular in Japan).
One even better example of a sort of 'exoticism with mirror symmetry' I heard recently is that, in the U.S., the puzzle-with-numbers game is called 'Sodoku,' whereas, in Japan, it is known as "Number Place." I keep chuckling at that. Silly, funny humans.
Check out Otogi for better poly counts as well as better lighting. Lighting is mostly up to devs to get it right. It's amazing that lots of people still don't know how to do it. It was also done pretty well in Riddick, I think. Okami is pretty neat, but nothing that couldn't have been done on either the GameCube or XBox1. Most stuff is flat billboards and their outlines are pretty terrible. The PS2 also has the lowest of the polygon counts. RE4 more than halved the polygon counts when it went to PS2. Shadow of the Collosus was indeed an interesting title, but carried out pretty poorly on the PS2. There were really bad render errors regarding poly edges and the whole game plays really slow. They blur frames when slowdown occurs to hide it a bit. They also had an interesting way of doing HDR, but regular HDR is more than capable on the XBox.
-]Phreak Out[-
True. I was just trying to provide something as far as stats. Point conceded however.
That's 3MB of dedicated RAM for screen surfaces and z-buffer, not textures. The Wii uses a shared memory layout, like the XBox. Any of its memory can be used for textures. So that's 64MB on the XB and ~40MB on the GameCube. Speaking with PS2 developers, they often use 4 color textures to keep sizes down. FOUR COLORS!!
-]Phreak Out[-
The Wii is outselling the PS3 over here as well. It's near impossible to find them in stores at the moment (though that's slowly changing with every release). But I guess it's easy to outsell something that HASN'T BEEN RELEASED YET! We won't see the PS3 til March, by which time I'd say most people will be over it. That and the AUS$1000 price tag. Bad Sony, bad...
Yes, it's a rumor, but "troll"? Did someone give moderation points to a Sony employee or something?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Actually, no, that tells us nothing. Sony never reports sold figures. Never. They only report the number shipped. While Enterbrain and Media Create numbers differ slightly, they're both fairly close, and are far more accurate than NPD has ever been. Any discrepancy (over standard error) between the numbers Sony reports, and the numbers Enterbrain/MC report are units that are sitting on shelves unsold.
just some guy
Just a quick comment about Sudoku. Long ago, I asked about it and Sudoku is a trademarked word in Japan, but the company that owns it only trademarked it in Japan. So I have seen "Sudoku" books here, but there are many more knock offs than the original (knock offs being some varient of "num play" (could be "number play", could be "number place").
The XBox sold abysmally poorly in Japan. As in, the Dreamcast sometimes outsold it after the Dreamcast was officially cancelled.
It's not because the XBox is American, either: there are tons of American brands that do very well in Japan, such as Apple. It's because the Japanese XBox launch was a disaster of epic proportions.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
If the PS3 still doesn't sell like hotcakes when that comes out then Sony is royally screwed.
It's still going to take many years before HDTV is a dominant force. Can the PS3 survive that long? The vast majority of households still have standard definition televisions, and the Wii has captured the early buzz. With the 360 and PS3 battling over the small HDTV market, it doesn't look good for Sony. 2007 will be a tough year for them. You'll see in March, when the PS3 will be available everywhere but the Wii will still be sold out.
...that you absolutely have to check the prices at Nook's every morning, and if you don't sell by the end of the week, they're useless! :p
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer