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."

Comments

The PS3 stands proudly

[jdc180]

In the display cases of your local department stores.

Re:The PS3 stands proudly

[KingSkippus]

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.

Re:The PS3 stands proudly

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure it wasn't a bunch of PS3's arranged to spell "Wii"? It's easy to confuse the two.

Re:The PS3 stands proudly

[Lord_Ultimate]

This is costing Nintendo possibly millions of dollars. How exactly is Sony making money by having their systems sit on shelves and not be sold? I don't think anyone is saying "Nintendo is such a stupid company for not having 18 millions Wiis available at once." I tend to hear things like "If I wanted a PS3, I would go buy one. But I don't want one, so I'll wait for a Wii."

Re:The PS3 stands proudly

[Some_Llama]

"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.

Re:The PS3 stands proudly

[Schrade]

Data from http://vgcharts.org/

US
X360: 5,470,000
Wii: 1,810,000
PS3: 1,160.000

What's interesting to note there is that in the US, the PS3 and the Wii aren't really that far apart.

Japan
X360: 350,000
Wii: 1,610,000
PS3: 700,000

In Japan there's almost a million more Wiis sold. Japan loves themselves some Nintendo. Of course they also love Tentacle Porn and soiled panty dispensers.

Others
X360: 3,220,000
Wii: 1,290,000
PS3: Not Available Yet

It'll be interesting to see how the PS3 does in Europe/Australia/The UK. My guess is that it would match the US sales.

make money?

[brotherscrim]

PH: That's videogame hardware 101."
I guess Nintendo was the only one to actually pass that class.

Re:make money?

[brotherscrim]

You know, the Ps2, Xbox, Xbox 360, and (especially) the PS3 were/are being sold at a loss, for at least the first year or two the system was/is out. Only Nintendo refrains from such behavior, selling all of their hardware at a profit.

So when Phil Harrison says that making money off of the sale of a console is "videogame hardware 101," It's obvious that there's only one game company with a passing grade in that class. But I guess saying so is "flamebait."

Re:make money?

[poot_rootbeer]

If they priced the PS3 at a point where they'd make a profit they'd be selling even fewer of them.

To paraphrase another great strategist, "You don't enter a console war with the hardware you want. You enter a console war with the hardware you have."

If Sony had lowered their sights a little when designing the PS3, there's no reason why they shouldn't have been able to create a profitable console that could sell for $400 or less. But no, they decided they NEEDED a Cell processor, and they NEEDED a Blu-Ray drive, and thus they ended up with a console that they can't even sellout at a loss.

Re:make money?

[nomadic]

So when Phil Harrison says that making money off of the sale of a console is "videogame hardware 101," It's obvious that there's only one game company with a passing grade in that class. But I guess saying so is "flamebait."

How is it flamebait? Bashing Sony's PS3 decisions gets you easy +moderation.

Re:make money?

[7Prime]

It's all about BluRay. They would never sell it without BluRay because their media division forced them to do so. Now, the Cell processor, on the other hand, was their own fault. Unneccessary, and from what I've heard, detrimental to getting developers onboard and getting content out the door quickly.

But, unfortunately, Sony would never even begin to consider the possibility of creating a PS3 without BluRay. Honestly, in the minds of the big wigs, their game division could completely collapse, but it would all be worth it if BluRay became the new video media standard.

This scares me, it's bad enough having Microsoft as a defacto standard in many areas of the computer industry, but having Sony in control of an entire generation of digital media scares the fuck out of me. I have no love for Toshiba, but at least they're not Sony.

Re:make money?

[twistedsymphony]

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.

Re:make money?

[king-manic]

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.

Re:make money?

[default luser]

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.

zzz...Is it under $100 yet?...zzz

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

zzz...Is it under $100 yet? No? Wake me up in a couple years, then...zzz

wow

[flyingsquid]

They're in this to make money?

Damn, Sony sure had me fooled...

Problem with PS3 release was...

[blahplusplus]

... 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.

Re:Problem with PS3 release was...

[Solra Bizna]

Honestly I think that's one of the worst things that everyone always brings up. "Resistance isn't worth $660! Motorstorm isn't worth $660! VF5 isn't worth $660!" and so on. Fact: You're not going to be buying only one game for any system. If there is only one game that appeals to you right now, and you don't deem it worth $660, then it's not a good time for you to purchase the system, I agree. But how about when there are 3 games you're interested in? How about 5 or 6? 10? Where do you draw the line. At some point you need to stop asking yourself whether one game is worth $660 and look at what you'll get from the system as a whole.

"Am I willing to pay $720 to play X and Y? What about $780 to play X, Y, and Z? $840 to play X, Y, Z, and W?"

Clearer now?

Me, I'd rather spend that $840 to be able to play over a dozen games on my Wii. ...Actually, I can think of much better things to spend that much money on. Like more computer hardware. You can never have enough computer hardware!

-:sigma.SB

Vaporware

[Cutriss]

"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?

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[AndyBassTbn]

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.)

Cost reduction

[rlp]

Sony is selling the PS/3 at a loss. I've seen estimates as high as $300 (loss) per unit. Clearly their strategy is to get the manufacturing cost down ASAP and recover some of the loss via higher game royalty payments. They MAY even be limiting production - at least till they can further lower manufacturing costs.

A risky strategy, when you consider the deep pockets of Microsoft (also selling their console at a loss), and that Nintendo is actually making a profit on their consoles. But it's still early in the cycle for this generation of consoles. Personally, I'm cheering for Nintendo. But it's MUCH to early to count Sony out of the game.

The PS3 has it rough

[Hott of the World]

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.

Re:The PS3 has it rough

[Chris Burke]

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?"

Obviously, but there's a point where confidence does become contempt. Or at least where it is seen as arrogance and presumption, and the customer is offended. As for me, that line was crossed by Sony's gaming division when they said that they thought people would get another job if they had to in order to get a PS3. It was the presumption that their shit was so hot that we would fall all over ourselves to get it, no matter what. That's not an appropriate form of confidence. It's the difference between "we will defeat our competitiors!" and Romero-esque "Ya'll are my bitches!"

It's kinda like the dating scene. You need to be confident, right? Well there's a difference between going up to a beautiful woman in a way that suggests you are not intimidated by her, and walking up and saying "Hey babe, I'm the man of your dreams, you'll be sucking my dick by the end of the night, even after I do THIS!" and then slapping her.

That might work sometimes (run screaming if it does), but it is hardly a good way to achieve broad market penetration, if you catch my drift.

The price is killing it

[stratjakt]

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.

Re:The price is killing it

[Osty]

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.

Well, that might be your problem. Twilight Princess is very much a last-gen game in terms of everything but the Wiimote control (it spent years in development on the GC before a last-minute switch to Wii), and Dead Rising has ... problems with non-HDTVs that can severely hamper your enjoyment of the game. Neither is a graphical powerhouse (though Dead Rising is deceptive -- the non-cut-scene graphics aren't stunning like Gears of War, but then you realize you can have a thousand zombies on screen along with all of the breakable environment bits without any slowdown). I definitely enjoyed both (I actually enjoyed Dead Rising more than TP, since I got bored with TP about a 3rd of the way into the game), but I wouldn't really hold up either as the pinnacle of next gen game design for either console.

For the 360, I recommend you pick up Gears of War, Viva Pinata, and Oblivion (if you haven't played it on PC, of course). Those three games are some of the most graphically impressive (even on an SDTV), and the gameplay is diverse enough (stop-and-pop shooter, pokemon-like Sims game, open-ended action/rpg) to satisfy different gaming desires. If you're into racing, I'd also recommend you keep an eye out for Forza 2 in the next couple months (I think the release date is May something?), which should blow away anything Gran Turismo has to offer on the PS3.

For the Wii, there's really only one choice, and it's not about graphics. Since the Wii is all about the Wiimote, any representative game will have to do something innovative with it. I've been told Rayman: Raving Rabbids is excellent in that respect, but I haven't gotten around to picking that up because I already have the definitive Wii game -- Warioware: Smooth Moves. This is the game that will show you what is possible with the Wiimote (some obvious methods are obvious, others seem completely nuts, but all work beautifully). The game is a series of 5-second minigames, so that may not float your boat. I enjoy it because I can play for a couple minutes and then go do something else. But you must own this game if only to satisfy yourself that yes, somebody out there understands the Wiimote and can do great and innovative things with it.

Also, interviews with MSFT and Sony reps are boring. They don't make video games, they just sell hardware.

Last I checked, both Sony and Microsoft had in-house game development divisions. While you're right that the rep who is doing the interview doesn't make games, that rep doesn't sell hardware either. They're just spokespeople (sometimes bad like Kutaragi, sometimes good like Reggie, and sometimes neutral like Peter Moore).

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[Cutriss]

Rock solid defect free hardware - compared to the nightmare failure rate Microsoft still has going on with the 360.Really? I've seen a pair of them at a UPS Store being shipped back to Sony. I've also read reports from people back in December being told not to expect replacements for two months. Of course, I would assume that this estimate has since been revised, what with supply and all...

Absolutely silent operation - bravo Sony engineering!

Ah, yes...Sony engineering, which also gave us the Square button on the PSP and told us that we were wrong for not liking it. Also, the analog nub on the PSP freaking sucks. I'm glad there's only one, because the one that's there isn't very sensitive at all. You try making a circular motion with it sometime - it doesn't work. There are two speeds possible with it (all the way out and part of the way out), and the angular refinement is pretty shoddy. It's very hard to go from, for example, W to WNW to NW. You'll generally skip straight over WNW. Ever try web-browsing on the thing?

BluRay has won the format war with only a couple months after the PS3 release BluRay already outselling the dying HD-DVD format 3-1. And one of the remaining HD-DVD studios just jumped ship to BluRay today. Pretty much all that remains is for Universal to throw in the towel.

Nice for you not to provide a link here where you did everywhere else. Also, describing this as a format war is like calling the Falkland Islands War a war. The remaining 99.99% of the world didn't even notice it was happening. Also, Sony dumping its crappy back-catalog of movies into Blu-Ray, causing a large chunk of new titles to be made available, is not what I call winning - it's what I call "stacking the deck". Despite it's apparent capacity advantage, Blu-Ray is getting lower marks in the picture quality department, which, if you weren't keeping track, is kind of important to the people willing to drop $2000+ on a TV and $500+ on a high-def DVD player.

PS3 has the top selling game in Japan now - Japan will be a fierce battle between Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo really needs to work on their release schedule. Wii owners are getting restless as the novelty of games like Wii Sports is wearing off.

"Top-selling" is hardly the way to put it. With over double the install base of the 360, it hasn't managed to come close to outselling Blue Dragon. Watch next week, as Virtua Fighter 5 drops back to the mid-20's, while Wii Sports and Wii Play continues to sell the same amount each week (which proves that the novelty isn't exactly wearing off).

Early previews are going gaga over Motorstorm with another online win for Sony with another completely lagfree game.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1103341 [hardforum.com]

No...RECENT previews are saying "Hey, this doesn't suck anymore". Early previews said it was complete and utter shit. Oh, and hey - that's the one the Japanese got! I'm sure they love the PS3!

The Playstation Network is cranking out all sorts of very cool indy games like Flow and GripShift and we are only a couple months into adding content.

No...the PlayStation Network is releasing a port of a Flash game that's been out for over a year, and another not-so-great Sony-first-party junker. Oh yeah - and the rubber ducky game.

The one issue with HD tvs and PS2/PS1 games has been fixed and PS3 owners have rock solid 99 percent backwards compatibility with the giant library of PS2 and PS1 games.

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.

Virtua Fighter just about to hit the shelves.

It did hit the shelves in Japan. It landed with a thud. See above.

GDC sounds like Sony is going to have some pretty big announcements with even more

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[ProppaT]

Is this all sarcasm that's lost over the interweb? A few things.

1) Everytime I try the PS3 in a department store, it freezes or is already froze due to overheating.

2) Silent operation? Not sure about that. But, have you seen the insides of a PS3? It's 50% heatsink. Sure, it might run quiet, but even with the massive heatsink, it still overheats...and the trade off is the size of the system. It's absolutely massive.

3) Last I checked, my local target had 5 PS3's, the EB across the street actually has a unit they've had since the first of the year, most stores I go to have "PS3 now in stock" signs (coincidentally right next to the "Wii currently unavailable signs"). Face, it, the PS3 is in stock everywhere. People who say otherwise live in an area that's having a spike in sales/popularity or an area that's getting below average allocations. FUD.

4) BlueRay has far from won the format war. HD DVD was winning the war by a long shot until recently. It's yet to be seen whether the current spike in BlueRay sales has anything to do with the free movie Sony was giving away with PS3's or any of the current buy one get one free BlueRay DVD incentives that have been going on (most definitely Sony throwing fuel on the fire to hype their format...they're dead in the water if it fails).

5) Virtua Fight 5 is already out in Japan. While it did top the charts with 48,346 in sales, It was only 3000 units ahead of Wii Sports, a game that's been on the market for over 2 months. Opening week big sellers typically always go to the 100k sales range the first week.

6) Europe is not going crazy with preorders. This is FUD. If you want a UK news site's opinion on this, try this article: http://news.spong.com/article/11800

7) You say "PS3 has the top selling game in Japan now " and then you say "Virtua Fighter is almost out." Are you just making things up, because Virtua Fighter IS out and IS the top selling game in Japan. Again, however, only by 3k units, being trailed closely by a game that's been out for months.

FUD FUD FUD

The PS3 will have it's heyday in the future when the price comes down and there's compelling titles. Until then, I suggest that you don't fall for Sony marketing FUD and live up to the reality that it's underperforming in the marketplace right now, even by it's skeptics predictions.

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[UbuntuDupe]

Christmas was more than a few days ago.

*please mod informative, please mod informative*

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[twistedsymphony]

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.

Re:Must be doing something right

[HappySqurriel]

The PS3 60GB model has an amazing sales rank of 58

Where the 20GB XBox 360 has a (pretty constant) sales rank of 5 and the Nintendo Wii has a sales rank of 4 according to eproduct wars.

So while you can find them in some stores, the PS3 must be doing something right if people are willing to pay $100 above retail to get them through Amazon.

No, it demonstrates how stupid people are because you can get a 60GB or 20GB PS3 from Gamestop.com for the regular price.

Re:Must be doing something right, or are they?

[WillAffleckUW]

So while you can find them in some stores, the PS3 must be doing something right if people are willing to pay $100 above retail to get them through Amazon.

Of course, Amazon ships to countries where they won't let you buy a PS3 at retail yet ...

First game is here

[mechapanda]

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.

Re:First game is here

[EGSonikku]

You do realize Virtua Fighter 5 is being released on the XBox 360 as well though right? So I don't really see this as reason to buy it on the PS3 for $100 - $200 more than it would run you on the Xbox 360. And if the past is anything to go by, the 360 version will have nice online play and voice chat...does it on the PS3?

http://xboxyde.com/news_3903_en.html

Re:Landed with a thud? At number 1

[HappySqurriel]

The "Thud" comment is (reasonably) justified ... According to VGCharts.org Virtual Fiter 5 sold 49,500 in it's first week

Last week Lets Make a J-League Pro Soccer Club 5 sold 108,250 and Harvest Moon: The Island I Grew Up On sold 81,000 in their first week ...
The week before Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sold 220,750 and Romance of the Three Kingdoms Wars DS sold 81,750 in their first week ...
And the week before that hack G.U. Vol. 3 sold 132,750 and Wario: Master of Disguise sold 94,000 in their first week ...

These are very 'average' games in Japan selling 2 to 4 times as much as Virtual Fighter 5 did ... Another way to look at it is that Virtual Fighter 4 sold 367,500 in its first week. At this pace Sega will be lucky if Virtual Fighter 5 sells 100,000 to 200,000 copies in it's lifetime.

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[Rycross]

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.

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[Rycross]

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.

Re:It is Inevitable, It is Our Destiny

[cowscows]

You can really only push that so far though. You would've thought that to be the case with the N64, wouldn't you? Sure Nintendo was sticking with cartridges, sure 3rd party devs were abandoning them left and right... They still had Mario and Zelda, everyone will buy their console! They're Nintendo for pete's sake! Except that Nintendo left a huge hole for Sony to leap into, and the rest is history.

Sure, it didn't spell death for Nintendo, and the N64 had some great games and plenty of people bought them. But Nintendo gave developers and consumers plenty of good reasons to consider the alternatives.

And if you don't think a $600 price tag hasn't made a lot of people take a good long look at the alternatives, then you have an abnormal sense of the value of money. And the alternatives in this round are both quality competitors, so Sony should be very wary of giving their fan base reasons to really think through their decision.

  While the hardcore fanboys will certainly buy whatever you offer them at whatever price you ask, the hardcore market is only so big. Development costs are increasing at a ridiculous pace, and if the growth of the hardcore market doesn't keep pace, a $600 console machine is not going to be a reasonable target for most developers. GT and FF are all well and good, but not necessarily enough to support an entire platform all on their own. Especially considering Sony's business model which seems to be to make up hardware losses with software in the future.

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[MeanderingMind]

PS3 has the top selling game in Japan now - Japan will be a fierce battle between Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo really needs to work on their release schedule. Wii owners are getting restless as the novelty of games like Wii Sports is wearing off.

Virtua Fighter just about to hit the shelves.

The hidden contradiction here is that the top selling game in Japan this past week was Virtua Fighter, it's not just about to hit the shelves.

More importantly, it only sold ~3000 more copies than Wii Sports. Wii Sports has been on the market for 11 weeks now, and on its release week sold slighly most than three times as many copies as Virtua Fighter did. If the novelty of Wii Sports is dying, we can only assume that the novelty of the first four incarnations of Virtua Fighter is as well.

I will grant you the point that Nintendo does need to work hard to keep their release schedule flowing smoothly, but this is true of any system with or without a special controller.

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[zstlaw]

Hmm lets check this "PS3 takeoff". Lets look at the top 30 selling games in japan
last week. There was 1 PS3 game, 0 Xbox games, and 3 Wii games. Meanwhile there
were tons of DS games in the top 30.

It is sad when a "console's big name title" can barely take the top spot from a
game that has been out for 2 months.

PS2 - 2
PSP - 1
PS3 - 1
NDS - 23
WII - 3

Top 10:
01. (PS3, Sega) Virtua Fighter 5 - 48,346 / NEW
02. (WII, Nintendo) Wii Sports - 45,897 / 1,004,555
03. (WII, Nintendo) Wii Play - 36,090 / 879,432
04. (NDS, Nintendo) More Brain Age - 32,800 / 3,963,712
05. (NDS, Nintendo) New Super Mario Bros. - 29,026 / 4,118,078
06. (PS2, Capcom) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - 27,519 / 304,113
07. (NDS, Nintendo) Wario: Master of Disguise - 26,815 / 185,695
08. (NDS, Marvelous Interactive) Harvest Moon: The Island I Grew Up On - 26,804 / 106,212
09. (NDS, Marvelous Interactive) Luminous Arc - 25,676 / NEW
10. (PS2, Sega) J-League Pro Soccer 5 - 24,468 / 131,541

Next 20:
11. (NDS, Nintendo) Animal Crossing Wild World
12. (NDS, Nintendo) Picross DS
13. (NDS, Nintendo) Common Knowledge Training
14. (NDS, Nintendo) Mario Kart DS
15. (NDS, Nintendo) Brain Age
16. (NDS, Pokemon) Pokémon Diamond
17. (NDS, Nintendo) English Training
18. (NDS, IE Institute) Kanji Brain Test 2M
19. (NDS, Pokemon) Pokémon Pearl
20. (NDS, Sega) Sangokushi Taisen DS
21. (NDS, Sega) Love+Berry
22. (PSP, Capcom) Monster Hunter Portable
23. (NDS, Square-Enix) Dragon Quest Monsters Joker
24. (NDS, Nintendo) Hotel Dusk: Room 215
25. (NDS, Rocket Co.) Kanji Test
26. (NDS, Bandai-Namco) Heisei Board of Education DS
27. (WII, Nintendo) Wario Ware Smooth Moves
28. (NDS, Nintendo) 1000 Recipes
29. (NDS, Nintendo) Kirby Squeek Squad
30. (NDS, Sega) Puyo-Puyo!

(borrowed from http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14255 4)
original sources include http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html and http://eg.nttpub.co.jp/ranking.html)

I have played the PS3 and I am not impressed. I wanted to like it... But after
trying it I am more likely to get an Xbox360 for my HD needs. Resistance Fall of Man
was a huge disappointment. Decent graphics, awful plot... I preferred Red Steel (Wii)
which is not even a great shooter. Heck I was playing Wii sports non-stop for a week.

So far I would have to say Wii has won first round hands down. Microsoft has a chance
to do well with the 360 if they keep the games coming, and Sony is in a world of hurt
unless they somehow get everyone and their mother to buy their $600 clunker. Even a
couple of really stellar games would have trouble selling the platform to me now.
I never wanted to get a Xbox but Sony really didn't give me much of a choice.

Re:PS3 Kicking Ass On All Fronts

[MeanderingMind]

If you think about it, it really isn't all that surprising.

At any console launch, at least to date, there has never been what could be considered a truly fleshed out, solely of good quality set of launch titles. Each console has had its focal points and weaknesses that were only compensated for later, whether it was sports and FPSs, RPGs and sandboxes, or Platformers and war games. One or two genres have always tended to get clustered around, leaving most of the rest sidelined or represented by lackluster titles.

This is true of the current generation as well. The Xbox 360, the PS3 and the Wii all suffer from this malady. Each in its own fashion of course.

For the 360 and the PS3, the developers have tried and true control systems and standards they can adhere to in order to be certain their games do not fail. As such, we see very familiar genres, and mostly ones that will appeal to the hardcore crowd. Those are the people who will be buying the early systems, so why make games aimed at a different demographic?

For the Wii, the developers are understandably cautious. If their control schemes such royally, the game will flop. The safest bet is therefore to make a game with many control schemes. If one or two fail, it doesn't ruin the entire game. Hence, lots of mini-game collections. These serve to showcase much of what the remote can do.

The result in both cases is an overly focused launch that is entertaining, but is little more than an appetizer. It wasn't until the second wave of games that the Xbox 360 really began to show its worth (Dead Rising, Gears of War). This will be true for the Wii and PS3.

The PS3 is *cheaper* than the XBox 360

[gamer4Life]

If you play online, if you use WiFi, or if you watch HD, the PS3 is cheaper than the XBox 360. If you include all three, it's vastly cheaper.

WiFi - $100
online - $200 over 4 years
HD drive - $200

Add $500 to the XBox 360 price if you're using all these features.

Most people that have an XBox 360 use online, so the price of a premium XBox 360 is greater than a premium PS3 but without the HD drive.

Well, yeah

[tkrotchko]

"Wii sports are just lacking the depth to really hold my attention"

Wii sports was a demonstration disc thrown into the box for free. It was intended to show consumers and developers the proper way to use and develop for the Wii.

Of course it lacks depth. There is no depth. But you get what you pay for. In this case, you get a whole lot more.

Sprint, not Marathon

[LKM]

Apart from R:FoM, what does the PS3 really have? Until better games come out, there isn't going to be an increase in demand at this point.

I'm wondering whether that will be enough. It took the PSP quite a while to come out with some decent games, and it seems to be too late. The console war is more of a sprint than a marathon. Your console needs to achieve critical mass quickly in order to get good third-party support. If that doesn't happen, a few good games a year later won't move enough boxes to change the course.

It seems that third-party devs are already moving support from the PS3 to the Wii, even after only a few months of sales. That could spell disaster for Sony.

What could help the PS3, though, is Bluray. If (and that's a big if) people want to move away from DVDs, the PS3 may yet reach a market. Even then, however, it's unclear whether that market would also be interested in games.

Re:When will the PS3 be finished?

[tgibbs]

Also, I just noticed that in your OP, you mentioned the PS3 controllers using RF. The controllers and the remote use Bluetooth.

Bluetooth is an RF (radio frequency) protocol.