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Where the PS3 Stands Now
Phil Harrison and 1up's Luke Smith had a chat about the current positioning of the PlayStation 3, and it makes for some interesting reading. A quietly confident Harrison discusses the future of game distribution online, their attitude towards competition in the console market, and clarifies a few things about the potential for PS3 price cuts. The previous discussion about price cuts was apparently a big misunderstanding. "PH: Well, do you know what [Takao Yuhara] said was, cost reduction, not price drop, and there's a big difference between cost reduction and price drop. So, that I believe is where the confusion came from. Obviously, we are investing our money in making PlayStation 3s cheaper to manufacture -- that's part of our business plan. 1UP: You're not going to pass the savings along? PH: When we can, when there are savings to pass along to the consumer, we would obviously choose to do that. That's the business model. 1UP: Wait? You guys are doing this to make money? Really? PH: That's videogame hardware 101."
... lack of killer system selling game or games. It has to be said if the games were there even the high price would not be such a barrier of there really was a killer app that made people throw their financial reason to the wind.
"We have a hard drive, we have a commerce engine, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out we will have that on the network very shortly."
Define "very shortly". The PSP was supposed to have this functionality for music over a *year* ago. It's been delayed so many times that I think people have largely forgotten about it. Sony was always talking about being able to use Sony Connect to purchase music and possibly videos on/for the PSP (in order to posture the PSP as a competitor to the iPod), but that clearly has not yet taken place. Why should the PS3 be any different?
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
I have to ask, is there really a such thing as "rock solid" engineering in the consumer electronics world?
After all, the words "defect free" are often proven to be foolish ones, given the history of... well, anything.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Playstation platform, and I agree that the Wii is going to have big problems once the novelty is gone. It just that your comment sounds an awful lot like marketing, rather than true commentary. (The fact that it's anonymous makes it even more suspect.)
I hope the land around you yields, a crop like all the other fields, and then your waiting might make sense...
The problem is 50% perception, and 50% targeted market. Here's what I mean:
"Perception": People see 600 - 800 dollars and no games. They see a huge Sony ego and laughable selling numbers. No one's buying it, no one wants one.
Reality: It can be bought here in the US for as little as 499 if you want the 20GB model, and if you're patient by summer we'll have a healthy injection of new games on the PS3. They even have more demos and movie trailers available in the PS3 network for free. Games are coming, and patience is key. I'm not an apologist. This is just how new consoles tend to work.
As for the ego, it's there. But it's not contempt for consumers, as most detractors would have you believe. It's confidence. They're saying, "we're number 1". Sony needs to be seen as confident in this console outing. You want them to say "Yeah it sucks, get an Xbox?"
The price is out of necessity, not arrogance. They're definitely losing more per console than Microsoft. Blu-ray was a risk, but not a totally harmful one. Prices will come down and the complaining will slowly go away
"Target market" is the other aspect that's hurting the PS3.
Not only do people not want to drop 500-600-800 dollars on a game system, they certainly don't want to pay more for the same games. That's the problem most 360 owners see with the PS3. They can't envy it any. Pay tons more for some future exclusives? Laughable.
The PS3 is for people who want blu-ray, PS3, PS2, and don't have a 360 already, and are willing to spend at least 500 bucks for it, probably more. That's not a great subset of people.
With all of that, it's a testimony to the power of Sony and its future exclusives that so many people are buying the thing.
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It's modded Funny? How about Depressingly True?
I've been in a couple of retail stores north of Atlanta recently, and they had pallets of PS3's. I still haven't gotten a Wii yet, though, because no one seems to be able to keep them in stock, even though it's two months after they came out and they've produced like ten times as many. :-(
It's pretty obvious to me which company has a right to be proud and which one should be doing some serous soul-searching.
It's a really good time to be Nintendo, with the only "affordable" (everyone has a different definition of that word, I'm looking at it from a casual persons concept of "what I'd pay for a video game console") system out there. 360 is a little more tenable, but still sort of in the "hardcore" price range.
With no HDTV, there's no compelling reason at this point to own either PS3 or 360. Eventually they'll have some more (and some *subjective word* good) exclusive titles, but as it is, almost everything is available for regular Xbox or PS2. So far I've yet to be blown away by any next-gen games, and here I sit with a Wii, and a 360, and really no games out there asking me to buy them. I have twilight princess and dead rising, respectively.
It'll be a slower growth this time around. People aren't all that stupid, they know that despite all the techno-specs, they see the PS2/Xbox doing pretty much the same thing with pretty much the same controller. Developers don't necessarily want to jump onto 360/PS3, because the installed base of Xbox/PS2s is so large, there's much less room for profit.
Also, interviews with MSFT and Sony reps are boring. They don't make video games, they just sell hardware.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I used to think we had an insane Sony fanboy posting here... now I'm certain it has to be someone being paid by Sony. Nobody is that completely out of touch with reality.
...they might want to, I dunno, put it in a commercial or something? And, c'mon mods... flamebait? Seriously, there needs to be an IQ test before someone gets mod points.
I agree that the Wii is going to have big problems once the novelty is gone.
I've never seen or used a Wii, but I've got to wonder if the novelty isn't gone for most users of it, already. A $200 device isn't going to have anywhere near the precision (or graphics) necessary to make it a good, long term platform that people will enjoy for years like the PS2 has been. It seems like a gimmick, to me, that will wear off a few days after Christmas.
I don't respond to AC's.
http://www.worldinhd.com/movabletype/archives/2007 /02/studio_canal_la.html
Studio Canal was one of the last HD-DVD exclusive studios. Now it is pretty much just Universal keeping HD-DVD on life-support. Universal isn't going to be able to hold out much longer.
The Nielsen numbers show BluRay anywhere from 2:1 to 3:1 sales advantage and the gap is growing. And this is all before the PS3 has even launched in Europe. Like someone in the avs forums recently posted, all that's left for HD-DVD supporters is the screaming.
I consider myself to be a hardcore gamer and for me the Wii novelty wore off after about 2 weeks.
The problem for me is games like Wii sports are just lacking the depth to really hold my attention, and for games like Zelda the use of the Wii remote is just rather "meh". IMO it didn't add anything to Zelda and I would not have enjoyed the game any less using a Wavebird.
so about a month past buying the Wii it's started collecting dust and I've gone back to playing Xbox 360 games. IMO if the Wii wants to get past being a gimmick they need games that have the compelling depth of Zelda combined with the unique and value added controller usage of Wii Sports. So far the only title that really delivers that is Trauma Center, but I've already played that title... on the DS (widescreen support would have been nice too), Red Steel was close but the buggy game mechanics killed what uniqueness the Wii Remote added to it. I'm sure they'll come but as of right now I don't consider the Wii to be much more compelling then the PS3 is right now, if anything it serves as a nice show piece and entertainer when friends and family visit, and I'm sure there will be better games down the road... right now though, and I think the same holds true for many other hardcore gamers, there just isn't enough substance.
Collector's Edition
"It's not 99%. Closer to 90%. Music games are still broken. Also, the "one issue" is actually two issues, one of which has been fixed. Ask a 720p-set owner if they're happy that they can't play in 1080i anymore."
Uh, the exact number of PS2/PS games with issues is known. Sony has a amazing database of every single PS2/PS game made with any issues the game has running on the PS3. No matter how small and trivial those issues are. The number of perfect games is up near 97-98 percent. And of the remaing games with issues many of the issues are thing like one pixel is off when running on the PS3. Yes that is one of actual issues for one of the games that 'don't work' on the PS3. The only major issue for PS2 games are the Guitar Hero controller and harddrive games.
Sorry, but no one is falling for your '90 percent' BS.
"This is costing Nintendo possibly millions of dollars."
I think the main problem is that Nintendo is having a hard time getting to their production facilities to find out what the problem is, you see they already have millions of dollars in profits that they are wading through.
Surprisingly enough whenever a Wii is found on sale people immediately buy them.
Manufacturers want their products to fly off the shelves, products on shelves mean depreciation of inventory at their manufacturing plants, this costs them money.
Nobody at Sony is going "oh good, the stock we shipped to retailers is sitting idle, we are in a much better position than Nintendo who can't make their product fast enough".
At least internally anyway, publicly i'm sure its a different story.
A bit of context:
I'm a long term Sega fan, and when I first moved to Tokyo 12 years ago spent up to 3 hours a night in my local arcade playing Virtua Fighter 2, Fighting Vipers, and Virtua On Oratorio Tangram, and played all three in competition.
The release of the Dreamcast meant that I got to get the "arcade experience" at home, Soul Calibur with the official Sega arcade controller, and Virtua On with the Twin Stick controller was the best an arcade gamer could could buy.
Until now:)
----
Yesterday the first of the games I bought my PS3 for turned up, Virtua Fighter 5 and the Sega arcade controller.
The controller is simply amazing, cost a fortune but an hour after unpacking it I was online ordering a second! It's currently sitting next to my Dreamcast official arcade controller which , well, looks a little tired.
The game is purely for fight game fans, nothing here for the mass market, but for anyone who spent hours in an arcade playing the various Virtua Fighters it is an absolute must have.
I don't want to even think about much a HDTV, PS3, and controller cost but I'm happy so it was money well spent:)
Forget the console wars, if you are a arcade fight game fan, you need this game, the Tekken download, two Sega controllers, and a PS3. Sell blood if you have to, but get it.
I'm really kind of annoyed at the number of "Collection of minigames" games that are comming out for the Wii. Wii sports was fun, dunno about long term staying power though. Thats not a dig on the game, its just my tastes.
But then you get recommendations like Wario Ware and Raving Rabbids. More games of minigames. Theres Elebits and Zelda, and Trauma Center, but what else? Red Steel blows. I'm looking forward to Metroid Prime 3 and Smash Brothers.
I hate to say it, but the one thing Sony Fanboy has been right about is that the lineup of Wii games have been a rather dismal succession of PS2/GC ports and minigames so far.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen much of that going on. Mostly just ports and "hey lets throw a bunch of nifty minigames together!" sort of games. I'm hoping this is a repeat of the DS situation, where developers took a while to get up to speed and really start making good use of the new features.
The problem with the PS3 is that after all this time it still doesn't really seem to be quite finished. Currently, games do not automatically support both of the major HD resolutions, 1080i and 720p (never mind 1080p). Most games will output only in 720p, relying upon the 1080i/p TVs to do a decent job of scaling. Some HDTVs have poor scalers, whereas others (primarily CRT-based monitors) will only accept a 1080i signal and are incapable of displaying a 720p signal at all, in which case they are limited to playing PS3 games in 480p (ED rather than HD). Early expectations that Sony would be able to correct this problem with a software update have not been realized. A recent software update seems to offer the potential for games to support a kind of kluged version of 1080i with reduced horizontal resolution, but this would have to be supported by additional coding in the games themselves, and does not help existing games. PS3 Blu-Ray movies, on the other hand, output only at 1080i/p, requiring 720p HDTVs (the vast majority of flat panel HDTVs) to do their own scaling. Again, not all do a good job of this. In contrast, the XBox360 seamlessly handles any standard output resolution from 480i to 1080p (although it has only component output, and most 1080p TVs will accept that resolution only over DVI).
This is an amazing deficiency. For example, there are a variety of scaling DVD players that are capable of scaling conventional DVDs to any output resolution, including 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i (and even one or two that will go to 1080p). Essentially all HD capable set-top cable and satellite adaptors and PVRs have this capability. So do stand-alone HDDVD and Blu-Ray players. The XBox 360-associated HDDVD player will output at either 720p, 1080i, or 1080p, although it does not upconvert standard DVDs.
Another surprising omission is the lack of an infrared port. Sure, the PS3 uses RF for its controller (and its optional DVD remote). But at least Microsoft uses RF control as well, but they saw fit to provide the XBox 360 with an infrared port, making it compatible with widely used universal IR remotes.
If I had to guess I'd say they're going to drop the price next holiday season, and that you'll probably see larger hard drives at about the same time.
IMO striving for profitaiblity is also why they haven't released a larger hard drive yet... much of that $75 of profit comes from the fact that the 20GB HDD is outrageously overpriced at this point. releasing a larger HDD would either kill their profits on the Premium unit (if they included the larger HDD with it) or it would drive sales towards the CORE unit (which still sells at a small loss) with people buying the larger HDD separate. over pricing a larger HDD wouldn't be much of an option because to make it comparable to the 20GB in terms of $ per GB it would cost nearly as much as the console itself, which probably wouldn't go over very well.
the move to 65nm will probably come with the first substantial redesign of the 360's internals which will cut costs of the unit that they could drop the price a clean $50-$100 and still turn profits on each unit sold. They'll start to roll those out any day now and probably enjoy some substantial profits until the holiday season where they'll drop the price, and roll out the bigger hard drives, they'll still be netting a profit on a per unit basis but next holiday is when they'll really need to concentrate on market share as the Wii will probably be easily available and the PS3 will have a better library. Halo 3 + Forza 2 + Mass Effect + Fable 2 + Price Drop + Larger Hard Drives will make quite the compelling knock out combo next holiday, it will definitely be difficult for the PS3 and Wii to compete with that.
This of course is all just my personal speculation though.
Collector's Edition
The Ps2 was only sold at a loss for the first run. According to all available info. The Xbox and 360 were sold at a loss up till even today. The Xbox has too many outsourced components. The part costs have not fallen for MS significantly while the selling price has. They have admitted it still sellls at a loss. Ditto with the 360. Sony has said the Ps2 has not sold at a loss for a long time.
The Ps3 may be the same as the Ps2. Since the majority fo the initial costs is R&D and fab facilities. Their cost get lowered much faster then the Xbox and 360 because no one except them is making a buck off the manufacturing.. Well rambus but they exstort everyone.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Another thing to consider too- Sony seems to expect a much longer life from their consoles. The PS2 is over six years old, and there's still games being developed for it.
That's not a characteristic you build into a console design - it just happens. If one console is a runaway success, it tends to last more than the 4-5 years of the stragglers.
Atari VCS (2600): runaway success, so successful that it continued selling well after the more powerful Intellivision and Colecovision were released. Atari released the VCS in 1977, the 2600 Jr in 1986, and "oficially" discontinued the console in 1992.
NES: took the post-crash market by storm, and had %90 of the US market by the end of the 80s. Games were still developed well into the early 90s, spurred by the release of the NES2. The console was released in 1983, and was "discontinued" in 1996.
PSX, PS2: both runaway successes. The PSOne was only recently retired, and the PS2 has at least a couple years left in it.
You don't build-in long lifetimes into a console, you can only make them happen through a combination of reasonable pricing, creative design, aggressive marketing and game libraries. This is why everyone is so keen to see which console will be the "first to X million sold," because critical mass attracts developers. Once you reach critical mass, you not only get more developers, you also have the potential for another runaway success.
Of course, this console generation could end-up like the shootout between the SNES and the Genesis/Megadrive - no clear winner. If that's how things play out, don't expect ANY of these consoles to have a life of more than 5-6 years.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.